The Renaissance of Leon Battista Alberti
In the centre of Rimini, the Tempio Malatestiano, today the city's cathedral, is one of the great monuments of the Italian Renaissance and the extraordinary manifesto of a controversial lord: Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, lord of Rimini, a condottiero, a patron of the arts and a man of ambition and violence, excommunicated by Pope Pius II, who even had him "canonised to hell" in a ceremony in Rome. From 1450, Sigismondo had the old Gothic church of San Francesco transformed into a monument to his own glory and to that of his beloved Isotta degli Atti, who later became his third wife, entrusting the project to the great humanist and architect Leon Battista Alberti.
Alberti enclosed the old church in a new marble shell, inspired by ancient Roman architecture: the façade, which recalls the nearby Arch of Augustus, with its large central arch, and the sides, with deep arches intended to house the sarcophagi of illustrious men of Sigismondo's court, such as poets, philosophers and scholars. The building remained unfinished, without the planned dome, after the fall of Sigismondo. Inside, the chapels are decorated with refined reliefs by Agostino di Duccio, with angels, putti, musicians, sibyls, signs of the zodiac and planets, and everywhere the intertwined initials S and I, Sigismondo and Isotta, and the elephant, emblem of the Malatesta. The church also preserves a fresco by Piero della Francesca of 1451, depicting Sigismondo kneeling before Saint Sigismund, and a painted Crucifix by Giotto.
Tip: the cathedral is open every day and entry is free; look for the elephants supporting the pillars of the chapels.
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