Rimini

Rimini, a city of Italy, stands on the shore of the Adriatic, 69 miles by rail SE. of Bologna; it is still surrounded with walls, and contains many mediæval buildings. The cathedral, the temple altered and built to commemorate the unhallowed love of Sigismundo Malatesta and Isotta degli Atti, a beautiful Renaissance structure, dates from 1446-50; the church of St Giuliano is adorned with pictures by Veronese, and St Girolamo with a picture of that saint by Guercino. The ancient castle of the Malatesta is now used as a prison. The little river on which the city stands is spanned by a white marble Roman bridge, 236 feet long, with five arches. Beside one of the gates stands the triumphal arch, 46 feet high, erected in honour of Augustus. The spot where Cæsar stood to address his soldiers after crossing the Rubicon (about 10 miles NW. of Rimini) is marked in one of the squares by a monumental pillar. The city manufactures silks and sail-cloth. Pop. 10,838, with suburbs 19,158. One of these suburbs, half a mile distant on the seashore, is much visited for sea-bathing. Originally an Umbrian, and then for several centuries an Etruscan city, Rimini (Ariminum) fell into the hands of the Romans in 286 B.C. They made it the northern terminus of the Flaminian Way from Rome, and the southern terminus of the Æmilian Way to Piacenza and of the Popilian Way to Venice, and utilised the advantages of its position as a seaport for communicating with the east side of the Adriatic. After being battled for by Goths and Byzantines, and held by the latter, the Lombards, and the Franks, it became a sluttlecock between the emperor and the pope. At last, weary of this alternation of masters, neither of whom profited her, Rimini put herself under the protection of the House of Malatesta (1237), whose chiefs soon made themselves absolute masters of her fortunes. Amongst the tragic episodes that marked the family history of these rulers may be mentioned the killing of Francesca (q.v.) da Rimini and her lover by his brother, and the story of Parisina, the subject of Byron's poem. The most famous, or rather infamous, member of the family was Sigismundo (1417-68), a brave and skilful soldier, a scholar, a patron of the fine arts, but a man of brutal animal passions, and with no sense of right and wrong. The head of the house sold his rights over Rimini to the Venetians in 1503; but the pope wrested them to himself in 1528, and kept them until 1860. See Yriarte's Un Condottiere au XV. Siècle: Rimini (1882).