AHC: Make Monaco as big as possible

Probably not that big in my opinion. The rough mountainous terrain that allowed Monaco to maintain it's semi-independence severely limits its growth. If the Grimaldis managed to secure more coastline and take Nice then they would almost certainly make that their center and Monaco would remain a small coastal town. The bigger the Grimaldi's holding get in southern France the less important Monaco becomes for them.
 
With a POD starting from 1215 AD when Monaco was refounded as a colony of Genoa, how big can Monaco possibly become?
You mean like this big it was until 1849.

Map of the territory of the "Free cities of Mentone & Roccabruna" (light blue) and the territory of Monaco (orange) in 1848. Those territories were the Principality of Monaco from the Renaissance until that year.

Frontiere_Monaco.gif
 
Problem is that annexing Nice (and maybe places like Ventimiglia and Finale to the East) the Grimaldi woukd now become somewhat relevant and thus much more liable to being squashed by France or even just Provence.

This is a bit of a common problem for micro- and mini- European states: becoming relevant is dangerous!

On the other hand we could see the Grimaldi marrying into the Savoia, then much later the mainline Savoia getting extinct and Nice and Savoy being inherited by tiny Monaco. The Great Powers allowing this in order to contain France and/or have a buffer zone between it and a Northern Italy which somehow became completely Austrian. A sort of Belgium of the Riviera if you want...
 
Monaco became a French protectorate from 1641 onward (the treaty of Péronne). This treaty granted the prince of Monaco several possessions in France on a personal level. Maybe he could have negotiated instead for some territory to the state?
 
Top