Sala Sant'Agostino

Sala Sant'Agostino occupies a former parish cinema beside the ancient church of Sant'Agostino, a major site of the fourteenth-century Riminese school of painting.

Why it matters

The hall belongs to the parish complex of Sant'Agostino, whose church — originally dedicated to San Giovanni Evangelista — is documented from a donation deed of 1069 and passed to the Augustinian Hermits in 1256, origin of its familiar name. Early-Trecento frescoes by masters such as Giovanni da Rimini made the church a foundation of local painting; after the 1916 earthquake a dispersed cycle surfaced, including a Last Judgment attributed to a Riminese master, now held between the Sala dell'Arengo and the Museo della Città. The Sala is part of the complex's later civic history.

What to notice

The hall forms part of a complex beside the medieval nave and its fifty-five-metre bell tower, the tallest in the city. The sacristy preserves pipes from an improvised 1945 organ assembled from ammunition boxes and tin cans.

Context and history

The building began as a cinema serving the parish and neighbourhood. The conversion forms part of a longer history of loss and restoration: earthquakes and war damaged the complex, while detached frescoes were transferred to museums.