San Leo, Rimini: What to See in the Cagliostro Village

There are villages that capture your heart at first sight, taking you back in time and filling you with a desire for stories, legends, and curiosities. There is a village in Romagna, just near Rimini, called San Leo, which has fewer than 3,000 inhabitants, but absolutely deserves to be visited!

Situated on a rocky spur from which the entire Valmarecchia can be seen, with the outlines of San Marino and the Adriatic coast distinctly recognizable, the fortress of San Leo has uncertain origins. A disputed territory between the Malatesta and the Montefeltro families until the mid-1400s, it was actually the most famous of the latter family, Federico da Montefeltro, who rebuilt the fortress to make it an even more impregnable stronghold. It then passed to the Borgia, back to the Montefeltro, and then to the Della Rovere, until its final transfer to the Papal State in 1631.

The architectural beauty of the fortress, which seems to emerge directly from the rocky spur upon which it rests, is only surpassed by the intrigue surrounding its most enigmatic "guest": the Count of Cagliostro. But let's start from the beginning. After its transfer to the Church, the fortress was used as a prison of the Inquisition, for all the heretics and non-believers who found their punishment here. Indeed, today, the fortress hosts a museum of torture instruments: the garrote, the stretching rack, the confession chair, ... Giuseppe Balsamo, better known as Cagliostro, found his death here after four years of imprisonment in a cell specially constructed for him, the "cagliostrina" or "cell of the well": a chamber with a single opening in the ceiling, measuring 2 square meters, with just one air point represented by a window. But at least he had a beautiful view. Having escaped from the Bastille and then locked up at Castel Sant'Angelo, he spent the last 4 years and 5 days of his life practically walled in alive. There are even those who swear they can still sense his ghost roaming the rooms of the castle...