What is Santarcangelo di Romagna known for?

Over 150 man-made caves on eight levels under the centro, in continuous use from pagan rites to wartime shelters. International street theater festival running every July since 1971, the longest-running in Italy, founded by Roberto Bacci and others. Screenwriter for Fellini, Antonioni, and Tarkovsky, born here in 1920, his Strada delle Meridiane runs through the centro.

Where is Santarcangelo di Romagna?

Santarcangelo di Romagna is a comune in the province of Rimini, Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, about 13 kilometers from Rimini.

Emilia-Romagna · Rimini

Santarcangelo di Romagna

A Via Emilia hill town on the Marecchia plain, with over 150 tufa caves under the centro and a Malatesta fortress on its summit.

13 km / 8 mi

Nearest hub (Rimini)

22,148

Population

Apr–Jun, Sep–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Cittaslow

Why come

Santarcangelo di Romagna sitson a low hill between the Marecchia and the Uso rivers, eleven kilometers northwest of Rimini on the Via Emilia. Roman in origin, named Pagus Acervolanus, the town grew under the Malatesta of Rimini, who fortified the hill in 1386 with the Rocca Malatestiana that Carlo Malatesta built and contemporaries called an eighth wonder of the world. Under the centro storico, over 150 man-made caves on eight levels cut into the soft tufa rock form an underground city: pagan place of worship, burial chambers, wine cellars, and in 1944 air-raid shelters that saved most of the population. The town gave the world two dialect poets, Raffaello Baldini and Tonino Guerra, whose verses earned Santarcangelo the title capital of Romagnolo dialect poetry. Guerra, also Fellini's screenwriter, designed the Strada delle Meridiane that runs through the centro. The Festival Internazionale del Teatro in Piazza, founded in 1971, fills the streets every July.

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Known for

Rocca Malatestiana
Hilltop fortress built by Carlo Malatesta in 1386, with the surviving keep, walls, and the Torre del Campanone over the centro.
Grotte Tufacee
Over 150 man-made caves on eight levels cut into the tufa under the centro storico, used as pagan sanctuaries, wine cellars, and 1944 air-raid shelters.
Piazza Ganganelli
Central square named for Pope Clement XIV (Giovanni Ganganelli, born here in 1705), with a triumphal arch from 1779.
Collegiata di Santarcangelo
Eighteenth-century collegiate church, holding the Compianto sul Cristo Morto attributed to the school of Niccolò dell'Arca and a Bellini crucifix.
Teatro Il Lavatoio
Town theater inside a converted nineteenth-century public washhouse, base for the Festival Internazionale del Teatro in Piazza since 1971.
Museo del Bottone
Eccentric private museum opened in 2008, holding over 18,000 buttons from the Napoleonic period to contemporary fashion houses.

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 on the Marecchia plain. Spring brings clear evenings on the hill and water in the underground grottos; autumn dries the surrounding fields and brings the wine and olive presses back to work. July fills the streets with the Festival del Teatro in Piazza, with companies performing in the piazze, the Rocca courtyard, and the lavatoio. August touches thirty-five degrees and Piazza Ganganelli empties between two and five; the coast at Rimini, twenty minutes away, takes the crowds. November to February sits under Po-valley fog, with the Rocca rising out of it. The Fiera di San Martino in early November is the calendar event in the centro storico.

How to get there

From Rimini, Santarcangelo di Romagna is roughly 13 km by road. Allow about 20–16 minutes depending on traffic and route choice (autostrada vs scenic).

Drive time to the nearest gateway airports