Rimini : Italy
Rimini, which drew the attention of many emperors, Augustus and Hadrian in particular, was experiencing a great period in its history, embodied by the construction of prestigious monuments such as the Arch of Augustus, Tiberius’ Bridge and the Amphitheatre.
Crisis in the Roman world was marked by destruction caused by invasions and wars, but also by the testimony of the palaces of the Imperial officers and the first churches, the symbol of the spread of Christianity that held an important Council in Rimini in 359.
The city became a municipality in the fourteenth century and with the arrival of the religious orders, numerous convents and churches were built, providing work for many illustrious artists. In fact, Giotto inspired the fourteenth-century School of Rimini, which was the expression of original cultural ferment.
The Malatesta family, whose most famous member was Sigismondo Pandolfo, (illustration, right) a condottiere and patron (e.g. Alberti’s Tempio Malatestiano) who was lord of Rimini between 1432 and 1468, emerged from the struggles between municipal factions.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, once the Malatesta family had been banished, Rimini, now a small town of the Papal States, had a local government under the Apostolic Legate of Ravenna. Towards the end of the same century, the municipal square (Piazza Cavour), which had been closed off on a site where the Poletti Theatre was subsequently built, was redesigned. The statue of Pope Paul V has stood in the centre of the square next to the fountain since 1614.
