Malatesta family
Landowners and warrior magnates of papal territory in the southern Romagna, providing one of the best examples of an opportunist signoria of the 14th and 15th centuries rising to princely status, first sustained and then destroyed by both local and papal interests. Rimini was their power base and its revised statutes (1334) surrendered to Malatesta 'Guastafamiglia' ('destroyer of families') nearly all civic autonomy; but Malatesta control extended over other towns (e.g. Fano, Cesena, Pesaro) and inland territory. Granted a papal vicariate (1355), they provided a strong military and political arm to the Church for nearly a century. The breach came with the imprudent Sigismondo, deprived of all but Rimini (1463). In spite of the military renown of his son Roberto (d. 1482), the family's power declined and money was lacking. The brutal Pandolfo V narrowly survived the dynasty's only recorded internal rebellion (1498) and was to lose the Venetian support on which he depended. After Pandolfo's deprivation by Alexander VI (October 1500), the Malatesta saw only two brief periods of restoration to Rimini (1522-23, 1527-28).
