Sismondo Castle (Castel Sismondo), also known as Malatesta Fortress, was located outside the city centre and has undergone a long period of renovation in its outer part. Its current dimensions were commissioned by the city’s greatest Renaissance lord, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, and work began in 1437 under the supervision of the most important military architect of the time: the Florentine Filippo Brunelleschi.
The building retains a remarkable charm, with its large square towers and mighty scarp walls, the original effect of which, when they rose from the deep moat, must have been formidable, comparable in their inclination and grandeur to pyramids.
The structure fulfilled the task of both a stately residence and a military fortress and was built by incorporating some older buildings, of which the Gattolo gate bears witness. The actual features of the castle can be admired through commemorative bronze medals by Matteo de’ Pasti and the wall fresco by Piero Della Francesca inside the Malatesta Temple. The strong and overbearing character of the building was also underlined by the privileged position on which the fortress stood. In fact, before starting the work on the fortress, Sigismondo levelled a large area of the city, opposite the most important mediaeval square (today’s Cavour Square). In this way, the castle dominated the vital centre of the city from above, clearly visible from all the other government buildings and from all the citizens
Today’s Sismondo Castle is one third of what it must have been in the past. Pope Urban VIII ordered the drastic lowering of its towers, further tampering took place in the 18th century and the filling in of the moats in 1826. Until the 1960s, it was the city’s prison, although the municipality had already owned it since 1916. Sismondo Castle hosts now the Fellini Museum, dedicated to the famous film director Federico Fellini, who was born in Rimini.
