Malatesta fortresses and castles

Santarcangelo di RomagnaMalatesta Castlevia Rocca Malatestiana, 4tel/fax 0541 620832tel. 081 5751828www.sigismondomalatesta.itsig.ma@flashnet.it• opening times: in summer,by arrangementMarecchia and Uso valleys and the Via Emilia close to Rimini.Like many others, this castle too is ornamented with Latininscriptions in beautiful antique script, according to a Humanisticfashion then beginning to spread; sadly, however, it has lostcompletely its crown of merlons and corbels. The picturesquecobbled courtyard, covering a mediaeval cistern still in use, givesaccess to the keep, which is the base of Carlo Malatesta’s greatfourteenth-century tower, and to part of the ancient spiral staircaseconcealed in the huge walls. These stairs allowed independentaccess to the various upper floors, of which four remain. In a room ofthis tower, at dawn on October 10 th 1432, Galeotto Roberto Malatesta(known as The Blessed) died at just twenty-one years of age. He wasnephew and successor to Carlo Malatesta, and brother to Sigismondoand Malatesta Novello. Certain fanciful nineteenth-century writerschose Santarcangelo Castle as the setting for the events which led toGianciotto Malatesta’s “crime of honour”, the murder of his wifeFrancesca “da Rimini” and his brother Paolo “il Bello”.The terrace of the keep was until recently adorned with a smallcypress tree, most picturesque but a mortal danger to the cohesionof the stonework. From here the view is splendid: the Marecchiavalley opens out to the hills and San Marino on one side, and toCesena and the sea on the other. Near the river, the carefulobserver can see the Pieve, a single-cell Byzantine basilica built inthe sixth century near the Roman settlement. This is the mostancient and the best-preserved Pieve in the whole of Romagna.Facing page: the MalatestaCastle in Santarcangelo.24