Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Eating
A3
B2
A1
Drinking & Nightlife
10
Caffè Cavour
A2
A3
Sights
Piazza Cavour is Rimini's main square, containing the city's finest
palazzi
, including the
16th-century
Palazzo del Municipio
, reconstructed after being razed during WWII, and the
to the public, but provide an attractive backdrop to the modern-day toings and froings in
the square.
Tempio Malatestiano
(Via IV Novembre 35; 8.30am-12.30pm & 3.30-7pm Mon-Sat, 9am-1pm & 3.30-7pm Sun)
Rimini's
cathedral is the result of a medieval love story with a rather ambiguous ending. Built ori-
ginally in Gothic style in the 1200s and dedicated to St Francis, it was transformed in the
15th century into a kind of Renaissance Taj Mahal for the tomb of Isotta degli Atti, the be-
loved mistress of roguish ruling clansman Sigismondo Malatesta.
Sigismondo, known disparagingly as the 'Wolf of Rimini', gave Leon Battista Alberti,
a Florentine architect with grandiose Roman ideas, the job of redesigning the church in
1450, but it was a task he never finished. Sigismondo, thanks to his aggressive military
campaigns, had fallen out with the pope, Pius II (himself no angel), who burned his effigy
in Rome and condemned him to hell for a litany of sins that included rape, murder, incest,
adultery and severe oppression of the people. With his credibility dented, Sigismondo's
popularity waned, though some people still superstitiously think he defaced the cathedral
with pagan undertones. Judge for yourself. Sigismondo and Isotta's sarcophagi reside in-
side.
CHURCH
