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The Castle is located in Piazza Malatesta and is one of the city's most important monuments. Unfortunately, what remains today is but a fraction of what was once a majestic fortified palace commissioned and designed by Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, as a manifestation of his power and prestige. To realize the construction, in 1438, Filippo Brunelleschi was called to Rimini.
The palace was located in an area that was strategically important to the city's defense - the walls surrounding the Roman city passed here.
Construction began in 1437 and not only extended on already existing structures, but created new ones as well. There were 160 windows, six tall towers and, like all palaces at that time, it was surrounded by a deep moat with four drawbridges, all of which occupied an area of about 3,000 square metres!
Inside the castle there were large luxurious rooms with the strangest names (such as "The Snail's Bedroom" and "The Cricket's Room") where Sigismondo and his divine Isotta lived.
The fortress was a visual representation of the power and strength of the Malatesta family at the apex of their dominion but already, under the government of the Papacy, the building was subjected to various transformations and readaptations.
The walls were partially demolished and the towers disappeared, the outer walls, the surrounding trench and what remained of the structure became a jail untill 1967.
Only a small part of the original structure has survived the ravages of the passing centuries, but depictions of the original palace can still be seen today on the bronze medallion by Matteo de' Pasti and the fresco by Piero della Francesca in the Chapel of Relics inside the Malatesta Temple.

Now the castle, also known as 'Rocca Malatestiana', is divided into four parts connected to each other: Isotta wing, the central body of services, the large courtyard and the Maschio, the most enchanting part of the whole complex.
his structure underwent a careful and accurate restoration with the aim of making it a permanently visitable site and a prestigious venue for artistic and cultural events.
In 2017, work began on the construction of the Court on the sea, including the recovery of the perimeter of the ancient moat and the walls with the staircase connecting with the new Piazza Arena Francesca da Rimini.
Piazza Malatesta, which overlooks the castle, was also placed under intervention.This was another step of a complex project connecting the Roman and the Renaissace era in Rimini in a path that goes from the new Galli theatre, through the Renaissance square and the Fulgor cinema, passing by the bridge of Tiberius, to arrive at the creation of the innovative Fellini Museum, an indoor and outdoor space organized on three axes: Sismondo Castle, the square of Dreams, and the Fulgor Palas - House of Cinema. The 'new' Piazza Malatesta covers an area of over 11,000 square meters, and after several coordinated interventions, in 2021 it has become the Piazza dei Sogni of the Museum dedicated to Federico Fellini. This large urban area with installations evoking Fellini's vision, has become a connective space of extraordinary value, a platform of beauty, among greenery, history, art and cinema.