SISMONDO CASTLE

Home > Monuments > Monuments Rimini > Sismondo Castle

MONUMENTS PROVINCE OF RIMINI

MONUMENTS RIMINI

Castel Sismondo - Sismondo Castle

Castel Sismondo, commissioned by Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta to dominate the city of Rimini, was under construction from 1437 to 1446. Notwithstanding the celebrative epigraphs which inform the visitor that Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta claimed to have built the edifice a fundamentis, Castel Sismondo made use of important pre-existing structures. It was built, in fact, on the spot were previously stood the ancient thirteenth-century Malatesta dwellings, in one of which the legend dubiously locates the tragedy of Paolo and Francesca. Many edifices - among which a convent and the bishop’s palace - have been demolished. Castel Sismondo, which was at the same time a fortress and a dwelling place, reflected the need of wealth and sumptuousness of the court life and intended to be a patent symbol of the power of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, who was celebrated as a talented architect and personally attended to the construction of Castel Sismondo, to which collaborated renown  specialists, among whom possibly Filippo Brunelleschi. Sismondo Castle, which has lost during the centuries its original appearance, is represented as it originally was on the medal cast by Matteo de’ Pasti    to commemorate its construction, and on a fresco by Piero della Francesca at the present in the Malatesta Temple. Notwithstanding the mixture of modernity and building backwardness, Castel Sismondo has been the first fifteenth-century edifice to consider the need of defence against artillery. Castel Sismondo, built exclusively with bricks and surrounded by a moat with a drawbridge, was a true small fortress with square towers decorated with Ghibelline merlons. The exterior was richly decorated in red, green and white, the heraldic colours of the Malatesta family that are today almost wholly vanished.  At the end of the fifteenth century, with the fall of the Malatesta family, Castel Sismondo was used only for military purposes. In the seventeenth century Castel Sismondo took the name Castel Urbano, to celebrate Pope Urban VIII.