be his master, Brunetto Latini. Above the entrance door the wall still bears faint traces of Hell. Episodes from the life of S. Mary Magdalene are painted on the right hand wall and continued on the opposite one, where the two windows are divided by a pilaster on which is painted S. Venantius, whose name is almost illegible. Below is another inscription (with many abbreviations) which indicates the date of the frescoes,[62] as Messer Fidesmini da Varano was Podestà of Florence in 1337, the year of Giotto’s death.[63] Work was still going on in the palace in 1342 when Baglione Baglioni was installed as Podestà by Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens and Count of Lecce, whose arms, a lion with two tails, are still to be traced on the large windows of the courtyard. When the Florentines rose against the tyrant, Baglioni fled and took refuge with the Albizzi while the people sacked the palace, burst open the prisons, made a bonfire of all the archives and carried off everything that was portable, even the windows. Six citizens were elected to govern the city in the place of the Podestà, and took up their abode in the palace. They effaced the Duke’s arms and summoned, writes Vasari, Tommaso di Stefano,[64] commonly called Giottino, to paint him and his followers “in infamous fashion, hanging by the neck,” on one side of the tower, with verses descriptive of their evil deeds attached to each figure.[65] This was not the first time that malefactors were thus held up to public execration. In 1288 Ciampollo di Cantino and Andrea di Guido Cavalcanti, whose lives were spared at the intercession of the ambassadors of Siena, were condemned to lose all their possessions and to be painted on the walls of the Podestà’s palace. In 1308 Carlo Ternibili of Amelia, who stole the seal of the Commune, was not only painted on the tower with the seal in his hand, but on the gates of the town. In 1345 Neri Fioravanti, with seven _maestri_ under him, one of whom was Benci di Cione, finished the great Hall of Council, restored various rooms and the vaultings of others, which were painted by Bartolo di Corso and Jacopo di Baldo, artists of whom nothing, save their names, is known, and put battlements round the top of the walls; while the eastern door and the magnificent staircase, which was only completed in 1367, were begun. Under the lion at the foot of the staircase are the arms of Baruffaldi de Griffis, who was Podestà at that time.