RIMINI, a city of Italy, stands on the shore of the Adriatic, 69 miles by rail S. E. of Bologna ; it is still surrounded with walls and contains many inedival buildings. The cathedral, the temple al tered and built to commemorate the un hallowed love of Sigismundo Malatesta and Isotta degli Atti, a beautiful Renais sance structure, dates from 1446-1450; the Church of St. Giuliano is adorned with pictures by Veronese, and St. Giro lamo with a picture of that saint by Guer cino. The ancient castle of the Malatesta is now used as a prison. The little river on which the city stands is spanned by a white marble Roman bridge, 236 feet long, with five arches. Beside one of the gates stands the triumphal arch, 46 feet high, erected in honor of Augustus. The spot where Ciesar stood to address his soldiers after crossing the Rubicon (about 10 miles N. W. of Rimini) is marked in one of the squares by a monu mental pillar. The city manufactures silks and sail cloth. Pop. about 50,000. One of its suburbs, half a mile distant on the seashore, is much visited for sea bathing. Originally an Umbrian, and then for several centuries an Etruscan city, Rimini (Ariminum) fell into the hands of the Romans in 269 B. C. They made it the N. terminus of the Flamin ian Way from Rome, and the S. termi
nus of the "Ernilian Way to Piacenza and of the Popilian Way to Venice, and utilized the advantages of its position as a seaport for communicating with the E. side of the Adriatic. After being battled for by Goths and Byzantines, and held by the latter, the Lombards, and the Franks, it became a shuttlecock between the emperor and the Pope. At last, weary of this alternation of mas ters, neither of whom profited her, Ri mini put herself under the protection of the House of Malatesta (1237), whose chiefs soon made themselves absolute masters of her fortunes. Among the tragic episodes that marked the family history of these rulers may be mentioned the killing of Francesca da Rimini and her lover by his brother, and the story of Parisina, the subject of Byron's poem. The most famous or rather infamous member of the family was Sigismundo (1417-1468), a brave and skilful soldier, a scholar, a patron of the fine arts, but a man of brutal animal passions and with no sense of right and wrong. The head of the house sold his rights over Rimini to the Venetians in 1503, but the Pope wrested them to himself in 1528 and kept them till 1860.