Malatesta fortresses and castles

Above: view of Gemmano.Below: view of Morciano.29two well-fortified villages on the left of the river which (together withGemmano) were partially destroyed during the Second World War.In Montescudo, notice the imposing walls of the castle: hugeand steeply sloping, they made attack practically impossible. On thesouth tower can still be seen a marble plaque with a high-soundingLatin inscription, engraved with the usual attention to the form andarrangement of the letters. Sigismondo declares here that he hasbuilt the great castle from the foundations, to serve as a “scudo”,that is to say, a shield, for the town of Rimini. The year: 1460.Montescudo, dominating as it did all the middle Conca valley and thevalley of the Marano brook, exactly facing the enemy fortifications ofSan Marino, was truly the keystone of the entire Malatesta defencesystem and a vital shield for the defence of the city of Rimini, towhich it was connected by a good road along the crest of the hill,barely twenty kilometres long, with no special defences.On March 31 st 1954, restoration work on the east walls ofMontescudo brought to light twenty-two medals bearing the effigyof Sigismondo. These are some of the famous and truly magnificentbronze medals cast by Matteo de’ Pasti in the mid-fifteenthcentury. Others have been found elsewhere, always in the walls ofMalatesta constructions; we know that the Lord of Rimini used tohave them concealed in the walls so that the memory of his nameand his face would be sure to survive the destruction of what hehad built, just as the memory and the effigy of the ancient Romanemperors survived, through their coins, the destruction of eventheir greatest building works. Naturally, such forethought wasincomprehensible to ordinary people, who invented all kinds of fairytales to explain these finds, interpreting them as treasure troves.Various legends concerning treasure hidden in the walls ofMalatesta castles were current even in Sigismondo’s lifetime; andin Montescudo they still day-dream about it.The opposite side of the valley is mostly dominated byGemmano, where the fortifications have been destroyed, and byMontefiore (see below), both of which are easily reached fromMorciano. Also leading from Morciano is the road for Saludecio,which crosses the ridge where stand Mondaino and Montegridolfoand then descends to the Foglia valley, most of which is in theregion of Le Marche.Here once more is a border region of huge strategicsignificance, and consequently well fortified. Saludecio was alwayspart of the Malatesta circuit, although it had its own domicelli, oroverlords, the Ondidei family, murdered in 1344 by a rival family,