ABSTRACT
A handsome Roman bridge with five tall arches begun by Augustus and finished by Tiberius and a triumphal arch erected in honor of Augustus are evidence of Rimini’s antiquity. Two buildings proclaim Rimini’s importance in the Renaissance: the Church of San Francisco always called the Tempio Malatestiano, and a huge fortress-palace. In the twelfth century the Malatesta were aristocratic and powerful landowners in the small towns of the Apennines. By the middle of the thirteenth century they were the most powerful family in Rimini. Malatesta da Verucchio made himself lord of Rimini his ancestors had acquired the sobriquet Malatesta, which replaced any name they may have had before. It has been translated as both evilheads and wrongheads. In the fourteenth century a respectful historian traced the family pedigree back to Noah through Tarquin and Croesus. In the fourteenth century Rimini was a prosperous city.
