San Giovanni in Marignano

San Giovanni in Marignano sits on 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.