TEMPIO MALATESTIANO

English Malatesta Chapel burial chapel in Rimini, Italy, for Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the lord of the city, together with his mistress Isotta degli Atti and the Malatesta family. The temple was converted, beginning in 1446, from the Gothic-style Church of San Francesco according to the plans of the Early Renaissance Florentine architect Leon Battista Alberti. Construction was unfinished at the time of Sigismondo's death in 1468. An exquisite relief sculpture decorating the interior was largely done by Agostino di Duccio (c. 1449) and Bernardo Ciuffagni. In the Chapel of the Reliquaries there is a fresco of Sigismondo kneeling before Saint Sigismund, his patron saint.