What is San Giovanni in Marignano known for?

Over two hundred underground grain pits beneath the streets, the cereal reserve of the Malatesta state from the fifteenth century onward. Summer-solstice festival held since 1988 around the legend that witches stopped here on their journey to Benevento on Saint John's Eve. Rectangular Malatesta-plan castrum with fourteenth-century walls, two surviving gates and the original axial street layout in the Conca plain.

Where is San Giovanni in Marignano?

San Giovanni in Marignano is a comune in the province of Rimini, Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, about 25 kilometers from Rimini.

Emilia-Romagna · Rimini

San Giovanni in Marignano

A walled Conca-valley borgo, granary of the Malatesta state, where the Notte delle Streghe has marked the summer solstice since 1988.

25 km / 16 mi

Nearest hub (Rimini)

9,408

Population

Apr–Jun, Sep–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Borghi più belli d'Italia

Why come

San Giovanni in Marignano sitson the low Conca-valley plain, five kilometers inland from Cattolica and twenty kilometers south of Rimini. Ravenna monasteries reclaimed the marshy ground in the twelfth century, and from the late thirteenth century the village became the principal grain reserve of the Malatesta state. More than two hundred fosse del grano survive beneath the centro storico, underground pits dug along the main streets under the shelter of the medieval walls, used from the 1400s onward for cereal storage. The Malatesta-period walls are still legible in long sections. The town gives onto the legend of Saint John's Eve: witches were said to pass through here on their summer-solstice journey toward Benevento. Since 1988 the Notte delle Streghe in late June has filled the borgo with reenactments, fire rituals, and crowds from across the Riviera, marking the opening of the Romagna summer.

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Gallery

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Known for

Centro storico fortificato
Walled medieval nucleus on the rectangular Malatesta plan, with surviving sections of fourteenth-century walls and two gates on the main axis.
Fosse del grano
Over two hundred medieval grain pits beneath the streets, dug from the fifteenth century onward to store cereal as part of the Malatesta granary system.
Chiesa di San Pietro
Eighteenth-century parish church on the main piazza, with a wooden crucifix from the school of Donatello and a Renaissance baptismal font.
Teatro Massari
Late-nineteenth-century horseshoe-plan theatre in the centro storico, restored in 1996 and active with a small annual prose and music program.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Jun, Sep–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through June and September through October are the working months. The Conca plain is mild in spring, with the wheat fields turning gold by late May. The Notte delle Streghe in the four days around 24 June is the calendar date that locals plan the year by; the borgo fills with reenactors, fire spectacles, and crowds from Cattolica and Rimini. July and August touch thirty-five degrees and the centro storico empties between two and five. November through February brings Adriatic damp and fog inland; many trattorie close from December into February. The autumn grain festival and the smaller medieval reenactments around the walls extend the season into October.

How to get there

From Rimini, San Giovanni in Marignano is roughly 25 km by road. Allow about 21–30 minutes depending on traffic and route choice (autostrada vs scenic).

Drive time to the nearest gateway airports