Rimini has a very important historical and artistic heritage, which includes churches and convents, noble villas and palaces, fortifications, archaeological sites, streets and places of historical and artistic interest.
This wealth is the result of the succession of 22 centuries of history, through various civilizations and dominations: from the Romans, to the Byzantine Empire, with the important role of free municipality and capital Malatesta, until the Venetian and pontifical dominions. Rimini was a historic gateway to the east and south of the Mediterranean, thanks to its geographical position and the importance of the port, and a meeting point between the cultures of northern Italy and those of central Italy. Italy.
Rimini is rich in monuments from all eras, with very important examples of the architecture of Roman civilization, such as the Arch of Augustus, the Bridge of Tiberius, the amphitheater and the Domus del Chirurgo, from the Middle Ages , such as the Palazzo Arengo, the Church of S. Agostino and Castel Sismondo, and the Renaissance, with the Malatesta temple, a masterpiece by Leon Battista Alberti.
The city, with its villages and its marina, also preserves a vast architectural heritage of the Baroque, neoclassical and freedom period, including churches, palaces, stately villas, historic navy buildings, hotels and period villas, proof of its role as a cultural, political, commercial center and, since the mid-19th century, a renowned seaside resort.
The city has preserved its Roman structure for centuries, with the regular arrangement of its blocks, while preserving the great Roman monuments which have demonstrated its ancient origins.
Rimini has always been characterized by the experience of contemporaneity by reviving its past together: the medieval transformations, the major urban renewal works of the Malatesta family, the earthquakes, the abolition of conventual orders determined a continuous evolution, legible in the stratification of historical testimonies.
The bombings of the Second World War destroyed the city, seriously compromising the monumental heritage and the integrity of the historic center, which was reconstructed and restored to improve the spaces and the many precious buildings.
Rimini appears for the first time on screen in certain films on seaside life, including the documentary Rimini l’Ostenda d’Italia (1912). In the 1930s, Luce news celebrated the conquest of free time and the birth of mass tourism, making the image of the city public for the first time.
However, it was Federico Fellini, one of the best-known directors in the history of cinema, who made the characters, places and atmospheres of Rimini famous throughout the world through his films, inspired by his hometown , even if they were shot almost entirely in Cinecittà studios in Rome: I Vitelloni (drama of 1953), 8½ (drama of 1963, Oscar 1964), I clowns (documentary of 1970) and especially Amarcord (drama of 1973, Oscar Prize of 1975).
The director’s films and writings reveal the conflict in his relationship with Rimini. Fellini admitted that he had not come back willingly: a sort of embarrassment arose in him for having “speculated” on his city, which represented for him more a “dimension of memory” than a real place.
Autobiographical themes and dreamlike reconstructions of the sea, symbol of adventure and travel, of the peasant and popular world, of the wealth and pomp of the Grand Hotel, of the city that disappears on the banks of the fog of winter days .
