and eagerly confirmed. He was pronounced guilty of rapine, incendiarism, incest, assassination and heresy. Consequently he was sentenced to the deprivation of his state (which was probably the main object of the trial), and to be burnt alive as a heretic.
This sentence, however, could not easily be executed, and Sigismondo was only burnt in effigy. But the pope marked the intensity of his hatred by causing the dummy to be carved and dressed with such lifelike resemblance that he was almost able to persuade himself that his hated enemy was really consumed in the flames. Malatesta could afford to laugh at this farce, but he nevertheless prepared in haste for a desperate defence (1462). He knew that the bishop Vitelleschi, together with the duke of Urbino and his own brother Novello Malatesta, lord of Cesena, were advancing against him in force; and, being defeated by them at Pian di Marotta, he was driven to Rome in 1463 to again make submission to the pope. This time he was stripped of all his possessions excepting the city of Rimini and a neighbouring castle, but the sentence of excommunication was withdrawn. The once mighty tyrant of Rimini found himself reduced to penury with a state chiefly composed of a single town. He therefore took service with the Venetians, and in 1464 had the command of an expedition to the Morea. Here his movements were so hampered by the interference of the commissioners of the republic that, with all his valour, he could achieve no decisive success. In 1466 he was able to return to Rimini, for Pius II. was dead, and the new pope, Paul II., was less hostile to him. Indeed, the latter offered to give him Spoleto and Foligno, taking Rimini in exchange; but Malatesta was so enraged by the proposal that he went to Rome with a dagger concealed on his person, on purpose to kill the pope. But, being forewarned, Paul received him with great ceremony, and surrounded by cardinals prepared for defence; whereupon Sigismondo changed his mind, fell on his knees and implored forgiveness. His star had now set for ever. For sheer subsistence he had to hire his sword to the pope and quell petty rebellions with a handful of men. At last, his health failing, he returned to his family, and died in Rimini on the 7th of October 1468, aged fifty-one years.
He was succeeded, according to his desire, by Isotta and his son Sallustio. But there was an illegitimate elder son by another mother, named Roberto Malatesta, a valiant and unscrupulous soldier. Befriended by the pope, this man undertook to conquer Rimini for the Holy See, but came there to further his own ends instead (20th October 1469), and, while feigning a desire to share the government with Isotta and her son, resolved, sooner or later, to seize it for himself. This aroused the pope’s wrath, and Roberto instantly prepared for defence. Finding an ally in the duke of Urbino, whose eyes were now opened to the aggressive policy of the church, he was able to repulse its forces. Paul II. died soon after, and was succeeded by Sixtus IV. Roberto’s position was now more secure, and in order to strengthen his recent alliance he betrothed himself to the daughter of the duke of Urbino. The next step was to dispose of his rival kindred. On the 8th of August 1470 Isotta’s son was found murdered in a well belonging to the Marcheselli family; and a bloodstained sword, placed in their courtyard by Roberto, made it appear as though they had been guilty of the crime. Towards the end of the same year Isotta died also, apparently of a slow fever, but really, it was believed, by poison. Another of her sons, Valerio, born in 1453, still lived, but he was openly put to death by Roberto on a trumped-up charge of treason. In 1475 the new tyrant celebrated his nuptials with the duke of Urbino’s daughter, and, being again taken into favour by the pope, valiantly defended him in Rome against the attacks of the duke of Calabria, and died there in 1482 of the hardships endured in the war. His widow was left regent during the minority of his son Pandolfo, who was nicknamed Pandolfaccio on account of his evil nature. Directly he was of age, he seized the reins of government by killing some relations who had plotted against him, and crushed another conspiracy in the same way. A daring soldier, he distinguished himself at the battle of the Taro against the French; but his tyranny made him hated by his subjects. In 1500, when Cesare Borgia fell on Romagna. with violence and fraud, this Malatesta shared the fate of other petty tyrants and had to fly for his life. After the fall of the Borgia he returned, but, being bitterly detested by his people, decided to sell his rights to the Venetians, who had long desired to possess Rimini, and who gave him in exchange the town of Cittadella, some ready money, and a pension for life.
This arrangement was naturally disapproved by Rome, and especially by Julius II.; he therefore contrived the league of Cambrayon purpose to ruin the Venetians, who were crushingly defeated in 1509. Thereupon the pope, having accomplished his own ends, made alliance with the Venetians, who were now prostrate at his feet, and, with them, the Spaniards and the Swiss, fought against the French at Ravenna in 1512. Here the French were victors, but owing to their heavy losses and the death of their renowned leader, Gaston de Foix, were compelled to retreat. Thus Julius became master of Rimini and the other coveted lands. Malatesta made more than one attempt to win back his city, but always in vain, for his subjects preferred the papal rule, and in 1528 Pope Clement VII. became definite master of the town. Thus, after two hundred and fifty years, the sway of the Malatesta came to an end, and Pandolfo was reduced to beggary. He died in 1534, leaving a daughter and two sons in great poverty. The elder, Sigismondo, after various military adventures, died at Reggio d’Emilia, in 1543; and Malatesta, the younger, went to fight in the Scotch and English wars, and was never heard of again. Sigismondo had left male heirs who made another attemp t to regain Rimini in 1555, but Pope Paul IV. declared them deposed in perpetuity in punishment of Pandolfaccio’s misdeeds. From that time the Malatesta became citizens of Venice; their names were inscribed in the Golden Book, and they were admitted to the grand council. With the death, in 1716, of Christina Malatesta, the wife of Niccolo Boldu, the Rimini branch of the family became extinct. The descendants of Giovanni, brother of Malatesta da Verrucchio, who married one of the Sogliano, were known as the Sogliano-Malatesta. The representatives of this branch settled in Rome. The history of Rimini practically ends with its independence. It fell into obscurity under the rule of the popes, and was not again mentioned in history until, in 1831 and 1845, it began taking a prominent part in the revolutionary movements against papal despotism and in favour of Italian independence.
Bibliography.—Battaglini, Memorie Storiche di Rimini e de’ suoi signori, pubblicati con note di G. A. Zanetti (Bologna, 1789); Fossati, Le tempi di Malatesta di Rimini (Foligno, 1794); Moroni, Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica (vol. lvii., s.v. “Rimini”); Ch. Yriarte, Rimini: Un Condottiere au XV. Siècle: Études sur les lettres et les arts d la cour des Malatesta (Paris, 1882); Tonini, Storia di Rimini (Rimini, 1848–62); E. Hutton, Sigismondo Malatesta (London, 1906). (P. V.)
RIMMER, WILLIAM (1816–1879), an American artist, was born in Liverpool, England, on the 20th of February 1816. He was the son of a French refugee, who emigrated to Nova Scotia, where he was joined by his wife and child in 1818, and who in 1826 removed to Boston, where he earned a living as a shoe-maker. The son learned the father’s trade; at fifteen became a draughtsman and sign-painter; then worked for a lithographer; opened a studio and painted some ecclesiastical pictures; in 1840 made a tour of New England painting portraits; lived in Randolph, Mass., in 1845–55 as a shoemaker, for the last years of the decade practising medicine; practised in East Chelsea and received a diploma from the Suffolk County Medical Society; and in 1855 removed to East Milton, where he supplemented his income by carving busts from blocks of granite. In 1860 he made his head of St Stephen (now in the Boston Athenaeum) and in 1861 his “Falling Gladiator” (since 1886 in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts), which Truman H. Bartlett calls “the most remarkable
