[3][4] Under Fascist Italy, the adjoining city walls and surrounding buildings were demolished, leaving the Arch of Augustus to stand as an isolated monument.

[12] Outside the city walls, the arch led to a two-arched bridge onto the river Aprusa (Ausa),[13][14] which was likely Augustan in origin, and repaired in late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and in the 17th and 18th centuries;[15] it was expanded in the 1930s.

[9] At its inauguration, the Arch of Augustus was flanked on either side by square defensive guard towers built at the time of Ariminum's foundation in 268 BC.

[9][16] Excavations in the 1980s recovered coins suggesting that the earliest yellow sandstone walls surrounding the arch dated to the 3rd century BC.

[9] They are popularly attributed to the redesign of the city's urban fortifications under emperor Aurelian, and likely reached the height of the arch before being raised in later centuries.

The fortified gates were likely demolished around the time of the visit, as part of an effort to remove ancient structures that obstructed the view of the Arch of Augustus.

[6] According to Cesare Clementini [it], after briefly recapturing the city, Pandolfo IV Malatesta tried "to cut down the superb Arch of Augustus" during his retreat from Rimini in January 1528, when the arrival of troops from the Papal States under the command of Odet of Foix, Viscount of Lautrec, marked the definitive end of Rimini's Malatestan rule.

[23][25] For its proximity to pedestrians and road vehicles in Rimini's city centre, the railway was considered structurally dangerous and impractical.

[5] The isolation works were envisaged as part of the creation of an "imperial road" between the city centre and the new Stadio Romeo Neri (Viale Silvio Pellico), and representing it as a triumphal arch served the political and ideological propaganda of Fascist Italy as successors to the Roman Empire.

[5] Though the isolation works were intended to highlight the arch's monumental nature,[10][16] it facilitated its treatment by Rimini's urban city planners as a traffic island in later decades.

[36] Beginning on 10 October 2022,[37] a restoration project eliminated weeds on the arch and applied a protective anti-graffiti coating on the lower parts.

The restoration cost €40,000, three-quarters of which came from the archaeological superintendency for the provinces of Ravenna and Forlì-Cesena, and the remaining quarter of which came from Rimini's municipal government.

Alternative hypotheses propose that the bull represents the rule of man over nature, one of several Roman legions connected to Augustus,[6] a purificatory rite symbolising the gate's sacredness,[6][41] or an early symbol of Ariminum as a colonia.

[40] The arch's large size would have made inserted doors impractical, symbolising the Pax Romana, a period of relative peace and order inaugurated by Augustus.

[12] The four divinities recall the classical elements of earth (the disputed goddess), water (Neptune), air (Apollo), and fire (Jupiter), thereby manifesting Augustus' political power over nature and religion.

[43] The cornice and tympanum feature projections whose undersides are decorated with engravings and sculptures of flowers and plants, a hippocampus, a griffin, and jellyfish.

and the other very distinguished roads of Italy having been repaired by his auctoritas.The Arch of Augustus has often been drawn alongside the Ponte di Tiberio,[45][46] with which it is represented on Rimini's coat of arms.

[8][9] The arch was well known in the Renaissance,[2] and it likely influenced the never-completed façade of the nearby Tempio Malatestiano, designed in 1450 by Leon Battista Alberti.

[47] In 1526, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger drew a sketch of the arch for an inspection of the Papal States, who had acquired Rimini.

Classical depictions present the arch's outside face, and typically omitted any adjacent houses in favour of the ancient city walls.