Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta

Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta (19 June 1417 – 7 October 1468), popularly known as the Wolf of Rimini, was an Italian condottiero and nobleman, a member of the House of Malatesta and lord of Rimini, Fano, and Cesena from 1432. He was widely considered by his contemporaries as one of the most daring military leaders in Italy and commanded the Venetian forces in the 1465 campaign against the Ottoman Empire. He was also a poet and patron of the arts.

Sigismondo Pandolfo was born in Brescia, northern Italy, the elder of the two illegitimate sons of Pandolfo III Malatesta and Antonia da Barignani. His younger brother, Malatesta Novello, was born in Brescia on 5 August 1418. An elder (and also illegitimate) half-brother, Galeotto Roberto Malatesta, born in 1411, was the issue of the relationship of their father Pandolfo III with Allegra de' Mori.

Following the family's tradition, Sigismondo after the death of his father debuted as man-at-arms at the age of 13 against his relative Carlo II Malatesta, lord of Pesaro and Pope Martin V's ally, who aimed to annex Rimini, Cesena and Fano to his territories. After his victory, Sigismondo obtained, together with his brothers Galeotto Roberto and Domenico, the title of Papal vicar for those cities. In 1431, though having inferior forces, he repelled another invasion by the Malatestas of Pesaro. When, soon afterwards, his elder brother abdicated, he became lord of Rimini, at the age of 15.

In 1432 he accepted the command of a papal corps, defeating the Spanish condottiero Sante Cirillo and thwarting Antonio I Ordelaffi's attempt to capture Forlì (1435–36). However, the following year Sigismondo occupied the papal city of Cervia and was excommunicated; he was soon pardoned and created commander of the papal army. Later he fought in Romagna and the Marche alongside Francesco Sforza. In the meantime he married his niece Ginevra d'Este, Niccolò III's legitimate daughter by his second wife Parisina Malatesta, first cousin of Sigismondo. On 12 October 1440 she died, and rumours spread that she had been poisoned by Sigismondo. Two years later he married Polissena Sforza, Francesco I's illegitimate daughter; they had two children: a son, Galeotto, born in 1442 and who only lived a few months, and a daughter, Giovanna, born in 1444 and later Duchess of Camerino by marriage. In this period he fought several times against the other condottiero Niccolò Piccinino: first, in 1437, as a Venetian commander, he was defeated at Calcinara sull'Oglio. Later, while defending his lands from the papal invasion army led by Piccinino, Federico III da Montefeltro and Malatesta Novello, he crushed them at Monteluro, managing to obtain some territories of Pesaro, although the latter was successfully defeated by Federico's forces.

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