Guida pratica

A short walk through the streets of the city centre will take you to Piazza Ferrari, where the Church of Suffrage, built by the Jesuits (1719-1740) in honour of San Francesco Saverio can be found.
Next to it, there is the Jesuit monastery (1746-1755) designed by Alfonso Torreggiani, architect from Bologna. From 1797 to 1977 it was used as a hospital, first military and then civil, and it now houses the City Museum, with numerous exhibits of local historical-artistic heritage. The museum tour follows chronological criteria from the origin of the territory to the current day.
There are more than 1500 works on display in 40 galleries on a total of 3,000 square metres. The number of exhibits is going to increase because new sections are scheduled to be opened.

On the ground floor there is an area dedicated to Renè Gruau, a famous contemporary fashion designer from Rimini, deceased in March 2004, and a space dedicated to Federico Fellini, where the “Libro dei sogni” (the Book of dreams) is temporarily hosted, waiting for the opening of the international Fellini Museum. The book contains the two booklets on which Fellini drew and sketched, since the early sixties to 1990, his dreams, figures, scenaries and circumstances which can be found in his films. The volumes are kept in two glass theca, but in order to browse them there are available a facsimile edition by Rizzoli and the digital one by Guaraldi.

The garden-courtyard houses a Roman Lapidary, which contains an epigraphic collection of about one hundred Roman inscriptions with items dating from the 1st century B.C. to the 4th century A.D. providing insights into daily life, family ties, society and religion…

In 2010 the new Archaeological Section  was opened. It is situated in the ancient cellar of the Museum. An exhibition on the extraordinary story of Rimini, from prehistory to Late Antiquity. The archaeological section continues on the ground floor, dedicated to the Imperial Rimini between the II and III century, with exhibition of splendid mosaics from the domus Diotallevi palace, as well as sculptures, ceramics, plaster decorations, coins, glass items, bronzes and last but not least the exceptional exhibition of the surgical instrument equipment from the "Domus del Chirurgo" in Piazza Ferrari. The archaeological section gives a view of Rimini from its origins to the Middle Ages, presenting a flourishing and peaceful city during the Roman Empire, a period which was tragically interrupted by the first barbarian invasions.

The first and second floors house the Pinacoteca, a picture gallery with works dating from the Municipal era to 1900 including masterpieces by the fourteenth century Rimini school.
On the first floor there are frescoes, ceramics and paintings on wood from the 15th and 16th centuries that tell the story of Renaissance art: works commissioned by the Malatesta family, lords of Rimini, such as Giovanni Bellini's famous Pietà and the Pala by Domenico Ghirlandaio.
Also on the first floor of the building is the Medieval section which contains 300 finds, sculptures, illuminated codices and other works of art, such as some important masterpieces of the 14th century Rimini school and of Malatestian Humanism. Here was also kept a 14th century fresco called "the Last Judgement", which once hung on a wall over the triumphal arch in Sant'Agostino Church, and which now has been moved to the Arengo room, inside PART, the new museum of contemporary art, which will be open, after a restauration, in 2020. The painting is the work of artists from Rimini who were perhaps led by Giuliano and Giovanni da Rimini.
On the second floor art and sculpture produced in Rimini between the 17th and the 19th centuries are on display together with the works of famous artists including Guido Cagnacci, Il Centino, Il Guercino, Simone Cantarini and Giovan Battista Costa.

Next to the Museum is the archaeological site of the Surgeon’s Domus which has open to the public in 2007 under an enormous crystal glass covering. A little Pompeii in the city centre, which has already become famous in the world owing to its unique archaeological finds and to one of the richest surgical and pharmaceutical equipment of the ancient time, now kept in the museum.
The archaeological area in Piazza Ferrari came to light in 1989, during work on the municipal gardens. The chance unearthing of a number of Roman ruins was followed, up to 2006, by systematic excavations. Preliminary probes and stratigraphic excavations have brought to light an area covering a surface measuring more than 700 square metres.
In addition other finds of archaeological interest were unearthed, i.e. traces of flooring made of crushed potsherd fragments probably dating from a Late Republic period dwelling, as well as evidence of Early Medieval settlement, remains of several buildings from the 16th - 18th centuries, including a number of stone wells and corn silos originally belonging to the churches of San Patrignano and the Religious House of the "Convertite" (a charitable order of nuns looking after penitent prostitutes).
All the uncovered remains, preserved on a site museum basis, provides the picture of exceptional historical and urban stratification bearing witness to 2000 years of local history.
 

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Winter opening times:
From Tuesday to Sunday and holiday: 10.00 am - 1.00 pm and 4 pm - 7 pm
Closed on working Mondays

Summer opening times:
From 1 June to 31 August
From Tuesday to Sunday and holyday: 10.00 am -1.00 pm and 4 pm - 7 pm
Closed on working Mondays
On July and August also on Wednesday and Friday evening: from 9 am to 11 pm