3 Best Sights in Rimini, Emilia–Romagna

The life and magical cinematic oeuvre of Rimini's favorite 20th-century son, the celebrated film director Federico Fellini, is explored in depth at this wonderfully atmospheric and suitably dreamlike museum, opened in 2021. Spread over three sites—Castel Sismondo, Palazzo del Fulgor, and Piazza Malatesta—and through multimedia, sculpture, iconic film props, costumes, playful installations, and archive material, the exhibits chart the maestro's formative and Italian cinema's golden years. Fellini's artistic friends and collaborators are center-stage, too: screens project clips of Giulietta Masina in La Strada (1956) and Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita (1960), the evocative music of Nino Rota scores enliven every corner, and there's a Fellini-esque sculpture of a reposing Anita Ekberg. Palazzo del Fulgor, and the cinema immortalized in Fellini's semi-autobiographical love letter to Rimini, Amarcord (1973), has a changing program of Fellini's filmography.

Rimini's oldest monument is the Arco d'Augusto, now stranded in the middle of a square just inside the city ramparts. It was erected in 27 BC, making it among the oldest surviving ancient Roman arches.

The Malatesta family constructed the Tempio Malatestiano, also called the Basilica Cattedrale, with a masterful facade by Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72). Inside, the chapel to the right of the high altar contains a wonderful (if faded) fresco by Piero della Francesca (1420–92) depicting Sigismondo Malatesta kneeling before a saint. The two greyhounds in the right corner are significantly less faded than the rest.