Tempio Malatestiano, Rimini

The Tempio Malatestiano is the cathedral of Rimini, on Via IV Novembre in the heart of the Emilia-Romagna seaside city, but it is celebrated above all as a landmark of early Renaissance architecture. Around 1450 the condottiero and lord of Rimini, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, set about transforming the medieval Gothic church of San Francesco into a grandiose monument to himself, his lineage, and his mistress and later wife Isotta degli Atti. He commissioned the humanist architect Leon Battista Alberti to design a new marble exterior, and Alberti responded with a façade modelled on the ancient Roman triumphal arch of Augustus that stands nearby, applying classical principles drawn directly from antiquity. The result is widely regarded as one of the first fully Renaissance church exteriors, though it was left unfinished: the great arch of the front and the intended dome were never completed, and the white Istrian marble casing stops partway, revealing the older brick structure beneath. Inside, side chapels designed with Agostino di Duccio and Matteo de' Pasti are filled with low-relief sculpture of remarkable refinement, depicting allegories of the planets, the liberal arts, sibyls, angels, and putti, alongside the entwined initials of Sigismondo and Isotta and Malatesta heraldry. The church holds a fresco by Piero della Francesca (1451) showing Sigismondo kneeling in profile before his patron saint, as well as a painted crucifix attributed to Giotto. The blend of Christian dedication and almost pagan humanist imagery drew condemnation from Pope Pius II, who called it a temple of devil-worshippers. Damaged by bombing in the Second World War and subsequently restored, the building today functions as Rimini's cathedral while preserving its identity as a singular Renaissance experiment in reviving the architecture and sculptural language of classical antiquity.