Location: piazza Malatesta, Rimini, Romagna Map
Constructed: 1437 by Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta
Tel. +39 0541/787673
Tourist Info: 0541 2 91 92
Castel Sismondo or Rocca Malatestiana is located in Rimini, Romagna province of Northern Italy. The construction of the castle began on March 20th, 1437 by the order of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta. The design of the Castel Sismondo was largely work of Sigismondo himself with the help of the professional architect Filippo Brunelleschi. The owner wanted to impress everyone with the wealth of his family as well as design a fort that can withstand direct hit from the cannon fire that just made its way into Europe. Its square towers also housed bronze cannons. Ironically many of them were directed toward the city suggesting that House of Malatesta was more concern with its immediate neighbors rather than invasion from other kingdoms and regions of Italy.
Castel Sismondo was built at the behest of Sigismondo Pandolfo
Malatesta starting in 1437, in a period of great prosperity for the
Malatesta lordship. It was conceived as a fortress and palace at the
same time, of grandiose proportions, which was supposed to visually
represent the power and supremacy of the lord over the city.
Sigismondo, celebrated as architect of the work by court writers, was
probably the inspirer and coordinator of the project, due to his
experience as a leader and his great knowledge of the war arts.
Certainly the lord was assisted by planners and received the advice,
shortly after the start of the works, of Filippo Brunelleschi, an
architect of great prestige called to Rimini in 1438 to carry out
inspections in the main fortresses of the lordship. Before the arrival
of Brunelleschi and again in 1454, Cristoforo Foschi and Matteo Nuti
also worked on the factory.
The construction of the fortress partly exploited pre-existing
structures: a large fortified complex built by Galeotto Roberto, brother
of Sigismondo and his predecessor, thirteenth-century Malatesta houses
(perhaps residential towers) and a short section of the city walls from
the Frederick era. The original complex, built in the area called
Gattolo di Santa Colomba, in the Cittadella district was probably to be
narrow and inadequate for the court of Sigismondo. It consisted of a
series of buildings gathered around a central tower, with the entrance
on the cathedral square defended on the left by a second tower.
The sixteenth-century historian Baldo Branchi recalls how the lord had
proceeded by destroying the ancient palaces and homes of his ancestors,
with the exception of the "major palace", around which he built the new
complex, probably obtaining salvaged building materials from the
demolition of the existing factories . The existing fortifications were
strengthened and adapted to the new military needs with the raising of
the trenches and the surrounding wall, the regularization and expansion
of the moat, the construction of new towers and, after the death of
Sigismondo, with the construction of a second wall, more external,
opened by two double entrance doors, one facing the city and the other
towards the countryside.
Construction began on 20 May 1437 at
18.48: the moment of the foundation was decided by Sigismondo on the
basis of calculations elaborated with precision by the court
astrologers. During the works, in order to create a large buffer zone
around the moat, an entire complex of buildings was demolished,
including the baptistery of San Giovanni, the convent of Santa Caterina
and the bishopric. Furthermore, for defensive reasons, the demolition of
the upper part of the cathedral bell tower was ordered.
The
construction works of the castle lasted about 15 years, even if the
inscriptions affixed on the entrance portal and on some towers date its
inauguration back to 1446; however some works lasted until 1454, and it
is possible that the fortress was never completed according to the
original project.
The image of the ancient grandeur of the castle
is remembered in a commemorative medal by Matteo de' Pasti and in a
detail of the famous fresco by Piero della Francesca in the Tempio
Malatestiano. The fortress is depicted in perspective, unambiguously and
coherently with all the representations of the time, including that of
the bas-relief of Cancer in the chapel of the planets and zodiac signs:
closed by a belt of high towers within which the impressive keep.
The decline of the Malatesta lordship at the end of the 15th century
determined the beginning of a long period of decline. The castle was
intended solely for military purposes, definitively losing its
residential character, and was subject to radical works to respond to
the changed defense needs due to the rapid development of firearms.
In 1503, during the brief period of Venetian domination, the castle
was the subject of an inspection by the superintendent Vincenzo Valier,
who considered it inadequate from a ballistic point of view to modern
defensive needs. Important changes to the wall perimeter, such as the
introduction of polygonal bastions in place of the quadrangular ones of
the 15th century, are documented by the oldest existing plan of Castel
Sismondo, drawn in 1526 by Antonio da Sangallo the younger.
Between 1624 and 1626 Castel Sismondo underwent new restorations and
transformations, with the addition of gunports, the demolition of the
tops of the towers to accommodate the mortars, the raising of the
external elevations and the demolition of the ravelin towards the
countryside, and assumed the name of Castel Urbano, in honor of Pope
Urban VIII. In the same period, the counterscarp walls and roofs were
rebuilt and the chapel and warehouses were renovated.
In 1821 the
castle was used as a police station. The structure of the fortress
underwent further extensive changes in 1826 with the destruction of the
walls and external bulwarks, the filling of the moat, the demolition of
the third tower and the construction of a salt warehouse leaning against
the ramparts. The fortress was used as a barracks, a warehouse and
finally in 1857 as a prison, a function it maintained until 1967.
In recent years, Castel Sismondo has undergone a general restoration,
directed by Carla Tomasini Pietramellara, which has allowed it to be
used by the public, to preserve and understand the construction phases.
Accessibility was guaranteed with the introduction of lifts, walkways
and new staircases of contemporary design inside the keep and the Isolde
wing. During the works, pre-existing features from the Roman and early
medieval ages emerged, including the remains of the late imperial walls
(whose layout follows exactly the south-western front of the keep), a
door and the foundations of a tower, which have been made visible and
integrated into the new layout of the routes and exhibition spaces.
Since 2019, works have been underway for the restoration of 3 of the
6 meters deep of the eastern moat, while on the western side the "corte
a mare" has been freed, left as a lawn.
Castel Sismondo was a complex of grandiose dimensions, similar to a
fortified citadel, and entirely surrounded by an enormous dry moat, in
the center of which flowed a rivulet called "fustigata". The moat was
prepared for flooding, which could only take place by exploiting
particular water systems, being located at a higher level than the
Marecchia river.
The castle was entirely enclosed by a high
external wall with an irregular pattern, within which two large open
spaces opened up: the courtyard facing the sea, facing the city, and the
court of rescue, towards the countryside.
The two courtyards
communicated through a smaller courtyard created inside the central
nucleus of the castle, the middle fortress, in turn divided into two
main buildings: the keep and the Isotta wing, connected at an
intermediate level between the first and second floor through a covered
walkway. The middle fortress and the two courts were each manned by its
own garrison and castellan; overall, however, the accommodation for the
soldiers, which must have been very limited in number, is scarce.
Roberto Valturio, in his treatise De re militari, magnified the
castle recalling its enormous size (350 steps), the grandeur of the
shoes, compared to pyramids, the number of windows (160), towers (6, 80
feet high) and bridges ( 4), the breadth of the patrol path, the
complexity of the articulation and the grandeur of the embankments. The
historian celebrated its architectural beauty and solidity as a military
fortification, recognizing the castle not only as a fundamental defense
for the city, but as a source of admiration for the whole of Italy.
The existence of underground passages that can be traveled on
horseback that communicated directly with the outside world and of
trapdoors with razor wells, used brutally by Sigismondo's nephew,
Pandolfo IV, known as "Pandolfaccio", is known from historical
documents. He used to lead the unfortunate before an image of the Virgin
painted on the wall, in a point where in the floor a deep pit opened up
with the walls covered with sharp iron, underneath a wooden plank.
The fortress was characterized on the outside by a lively
polychromy, created with plaster in the Malatesta heraldic colors
(green, red and white), testified by writings from the 15th century, by
the representation of Piero della Francesca in the fresco in the
Malatesta Temple and by traces of red glazes found between the corbels
on the portaia tower. The architectural forms, the spatial solutions of
the interiors and the decorative choices desired by Sigismondo for the
castle still fully belong to the taste of the international courtly
gothic.
The general layout of Castel Sismondo, on the other hand,
has an absolutely modern character for the time and represents the
realization of a conceptual operation that anticipates Francesco di
Giorgio Martini's theories on new military techniques. Castel Sismondo
has been considered the first modern castle due to the vaguely stellar
layout strengthened by towers jutting outwards. Malatesta's great
knowledge of the military art of the time and of the new artillery,
allowed the commissioning of a modern fortified structure, capable of
resisting the destructive force of firearms. In fact, the curtains are
much more robust than usual and the large quadrangular towers themselves
housed a bronze cannon each.
As in the Tempio Malatestiano, even
in the castle discordant architectural and decorative elements coexist,
witnesses of the transition that took place in the first half of the
15th century between the medieval tradition and the new culture of the
Renaissance.
The courtyard by the sea, built by Sigismondo in front of the main front of the fortress, was surrounded by large polygonal bastions. From the point of view of the art of war it was a "false braga", used for grazing defense to make it difficult to directly attack the towers of the inner walls. The courtyard was destroyed together with the external walls in the 19th century and no traces remain of it, the moat that defined its perimeter having been filled in. The entrance to the courtyard by the sea was via a gate tower equipped with two doors, one for vehicles on the left and one for pedestrians on the right, preceded by two defended entrances and two drawbridges.
The aid court, older and still existing, is a vast grassy clearing with an irregular trapezoidal shape, and was originally a real parade ground. It is closed on the south-western side by a stretch of the city walls and on the western side by a short stretch of wall that connects to the fourth tower. The rear front of the keep, characterized by an imposing shoe, and that of the wing of Isolt overlook the other sides. The south-western wall has completely lost the summit patrol path and is interrupted in the center by the breach of the rear entrance, corresponding to the destroyed gate tower, which connected the courtyard with the surrounding countryside. This front of the fortress was externally defended by a ravelin, but it was considered safer than the others because it was surrounded by marshy ground.
The middle fortress has an irregular plan and is enclosed by a series
of sloping bastions reinforced at the corners by four quadrangular
towers (there was also a fifth tower, located at the north-western
corner of the Isotta palace). The towers all face the city and flank
each other, keeping all access directions under fire and creating a
defensive system with firing and observation points that are effective
against firearms. The arrangement of the towers confirms the thesis that
the castle was built essentially to defend the lord from possible
revolts of his subjects even before defending the city from external
enemies.
The first two towers block the entrance body; the one on
the left, lower, is reinforced by a filling of earth which occupies the
entire lower level; the right tower (torre maggiore), higher and in a
more external position, served as a scalar tower, and has a spiral
staircase inside which leads to the upper floors of the keep. The third
tower, destroyed, is partially recognizable in the planimetric trend of
a bastion jutting out towards the square, while the fourth tower
overlooks the northern side. All the towers are decorated in the upper
part with Malatesta coats of arms. On the walls of the bastions and on
the towers, crowning the scarp, runs a string course in glazed majolica
tiles decorated with a quadripetal rose, an ancient Malatesta heraldic
decoration.
The entrance to the city takes place through a Gothic
portal, with a pointed arch, with jambs and ring made of marble ashlars
arranged in a classic way. Above the portal is a dedication epigraph
with a solemn text in Latin carved in classical lapidary characters,
which states that Sigismondo erected the building from the foundations
in 1446 (although the fortress had not been built from scratch), to
decorate the Rimini, and established that it be called by his name:
SIGISMUNDUS PANDULFUS MALATESTA PAN F. MOLEM HANC, ARIMINENSIUM DECUS,
NOVAM A FUNDAMENTIS EREXIT, CONSTRUXIT QUE A.C. CASTELLUM ITS NOMINE
SISMUNDUM, APPELLARIES CENSUIT MCCCCXLVI. The epigraph, as well as the
two identical ones placed on the southern side of the Isolde wing and on
the fourth tower, have expressly Renaissance proportions and
characteristics; it does not appear to be contemporary with the
construction of the walls and has been interpreted as a sign of the
turning point introduced by Leon Battista Alberti in the taste of the
Malatesta court.
Over the entrance is a large coat of arms
consisting of a shield with checkered bands, symbol of the Malatesta
family, surmounted by a crested elephant head crest and a quadripetal
rose. On the sides of the coat of arms, the name of the lord of Rimini
is celebrated in raised Gothic characters: Sigismondo Pandolfo. This
stylistic Gothicism takes us back to the environment of Venice, a city
that always remained linked to Malatesta, having been Sigismondo,
mercenary captain of the troops of the Serenissima. The entrance tower
ends at the top with a bartender on arches surmounted by a tapered
crown.
The "palace of Isolt" could have been built at the behest of
Sigismondo as a temporary residential wing, which was supposed to house
the court during the works for the construction of the keep, or,
according to an alternative hypothesis, as a residence for the young
lover and then third wife.
The Isolde wing has a rectangular plan
and is spread over three floors, organized according to a very common
distribution scheme in European castles, within perimeter walls of
exceptional thickness (up to three metres). Originally, the ground floor
housed the representative rooms: the reception room and the chapel, from
which a staircase led to the first floor, where the private rooms
(bedroom and living room) were located. A second stairway was reserved
for service personnel and led to the summit terrace without interfering
with the stately apartments. The large room of the warehouses in the
basement, opened by a few small windows in the thickness of the masonry,
communicates via a short staircase with a raised external space created
on the south-eastern side of the castle. The current arrangement of the
internal space, which was the seat of the "Dinz Rialto" Museum of
non-European cultures between 1988 and 2000, is due to modern
restoration interventions. In the passage that connects the Isotta wing
with the middle building of the internal courtyard, the Roman age tower
is recognizable in planimetry in correspondence with which the layout of
the ancient wall changed direction.
The southern front of the
building, almost entirely closed, has a dedication inscription in Latin
on the lower level, identical to that of the main entrance, and on the
first floor a series of corbels in Istrian stone on overhanging corbels,
which must have support a large covered balcony. The floor of the
balcony was probably made of Istrian stone slabs, while the roof was
made up of a layer of roof tiles on boards. In the upper part of the
façade runs a flashing, under which the holes that served as support for
the roof beams are visible.
The building leans against a
pre-existing corner tower to the south-west, at the base of which a
section of the city wall can be seen, while it opens with a series of
windows on the side of the rescue court.
The keep rises on a large scarp base, protected by powerful perimeter
embankments up to eight meters thick, made up of two distinct brick
facings connected by wall partitions, which served as static
consolidation and made it possible to withstand the blows of firearms.
The entrance to the keep is through a large pointed arch portal,
under the arch of which there is a coat of arms depicting a checkered
shield and, on the sides, the inscription "Sigismondo Pandolfo", similar
to that of the main entrance to the castle. The portal leads into a
small covered courtyard, which communicates through a passage with the
scalar tower.
The ground floor, obtained from the transformation
of a pre-existing Malatesta building, constituted an enormous base for
the new "hanging" building wanted by Sigismondo, perhaps never completed
or perhaps demolished in the following centuries. This level of the
large building, arranged later with the emptying of the artificial
embankment, houses a large double-height hall adjacent to the courtyard,
with barrel vaults on pillars, and a series of service areas - the well,
the kitchen, the cellar and the warehouses – on the side towards the
square. On the ground floor and on the mezzanine floor there are visible
remains of the pre-existing Malatesta houses dating back to the XIII-XIV
century.
The rooms on the first floor, which can be accessed via
the staircase of the main tower, housed the residence of the castellan,
the powder magazine, a large cloakroom for the gentlemen and a
warehouse. The second floor or noble floor, seat of the stately
apartment, represented a significant example of integration between a
noble residence and a complex fortified structure. The sector of the
keep next to the covered passage connecting with the Isolde wing housed
Sigismondo's apartment and must have been a fundamental point for the
whole fortified system, due to its strategic position from which it was
possible to monitor both the interior and the exterior of the castle.
Also on the second floor were the genevieri's room, Sigismondo's armory
and other rooms; on the third and top level there were two arms depots
and a room perhaps used as the prince's chancellery.
On the side
of the building facing the city, supported by the embankment, there was
a summit clearing intended for heavy artillery, an element of great
novelty for the military architecture of the time.
The internal
rooms of the keep had characteristic names, perhaps derived from the
wall paintings that adorned them: in the inventory of Isotta degli Atti
drawn up on the death of Sigismondo, the room of the grillande, the room
of the crucifix (perhaps identifiable with the chapel) are mentioned ,
the middle room, the room without a bed, the pianchetta room, the death
room, the great room and the genevieri room. The austere rooms that made
up the residence of the lord and his court were furnished with
furniture, weapons, fabrics and banners, and kept books, sculptures,
paintings and majolica. The entire heritage was lost with the end of the
Malatesta dynasty and the definitive transformation of the castle into a
military fortress.