MALATESTA, the name of an Italian family settled in the Romagna. The family is said to have been founded by a count Carpegna de' Billi, whose violence got him the name of mala testa, i. e. " bad head." Their principal branch was the ruling family of Rimini, of which Malatesta, count of Verrucchio, had possessed himself in 1295. He wa.s an active Guelph partisan, as was his son and successor Malestino, who annexed Cesena in 1314. One of his brothers, Giovanni, was the husband of that Francesca, daughter of Guido da Polenta, and mistress of Giovanni's brother Paolo, whose pathetic story is found in Dante's Inferno. Malatestino's brother Pandolfo I. succeeded him, and con tinued the traditional policy of his family, in supporting the pope against the Ghibellines. Malatestino's son Ferrantino succeeded Pandolfo in 1326, but was driven out of Rimini by the pope in 1335; and Pandolfo's sons Malatesta and Galeotto were made joint lords .of Rimini. They largely increased the power of the family, bringing under their nile part of Cervia, Fano, part of Fermo, Fossombrone, and Pesaro. 3lalatesta. died in 1364, but Galeotto reigned till 1385, and was succeeded by his sons, Carlo mad Pandolfo III. ,Carlo was a zealous supporter of pope Gregory XII., during the great schism, an oppo
nent of the emperor Sigismund, and one of the ablest commanders of his time. Both he and Pandolfo III. held commands in the armies of the Visconti, dukes of Milan; and next to the Visconti the Malatesta family was at that time the most powerful in Italy. It was connected by marriage with the houses of Urbino and Montifeltro, and it had pos SCSSiOL1 at one time of Bergamo and Brescia. Pandolfo III. died in 1421, and Carlo in 1427, without issue. Perhaps the most celebrated of the Malatesti is Sigismondo Pandolfo, who died in 1468. He was a patron of artists and authors, the founder of a library at Rimini, and a skillful general who fought for himself, for Venice, Naples, Sienna, Flor enc,e, and Aragon, and who made war upon the pope and was excommunicated in 1460. He WaS a son-in-law of Francesco Sforza. The last Maletesta who was lord of Rimini, was Pandolfo IV., driven out by Clement VII. in 1526, when Rimini was added to the dominions of the pope, of whom it had originally been held as a fief. The family was of -German origin, and a rnember of it is mentioned in the early chronicles as being imperial vicar of Rimini under Otho III.