Vasari’s statement that Arnolfo filled up most of the old tower to build his own upon was disproved in 1814. The architect del Rosso, in executing some restorations in the old palace, discovered a small dark room which had been walled up, and which he surmised, probably correctly, to have been the famous Alberghettino, or Barberia, where Cosimo the Elder was immured, and in later days Savonarola. In one corner of this room is a rectangular opening, or well, the bottom of which is about ten and a half feet below the level of the courtyard; various underground passages, to which access is obtained by a man-hole in the guard-room, communicate with it and seem to bear out the old tales of secret trapdoors down which unhappy prisoners disappeared for ever. Vasari is also wrong in saying that part of the church of San Piero Scheraggio was destroyed at the same time, for it was only partially swept away to widen the street a century later.[103] The tallest part of the Palazzo Vecchio with five windows on the northern side and six on the western (not counting the modern balcony) crowned with the square, so-called Guelph battlements, is Arnolfo’s original building and his design was faithfully carried out after his death in 1301. The tower, so majestic, and at the same time so elegant is a model of daring and skill, half resting as it does on the alur, or covered passage, supported by machicolations, which surrounds the top of the palace. Half-way up the tower is another alur, adorned with swallow-tailed, or so-called Ghibelline battlements, whence rise four columns with Gothic capitals, supporting the battlemented top of the tower with its golden lion, the emblem of Florence, as a weathercock. It was not until 1344 that the bell of the Council, which till then had been suspended on the battlements of the palace, was hung in the tower, so that it might be better heard on the opposite side of the Arno. In its place was put the bell from Vernio, which rang to warn the guards whenever a fire burst out in the town. In 1363 the bell of Foiano, taken when the castle was sacked, was brought to Florence and placed above the alur, to tell the merchants that the dinner hour had come. The big bell cracked and in 1373 was recast by a certain Ricco di Lapo, when it was said that it could be heard for thirteen miles round the city. When the Florentine arms were victorious, it rang for days in token of triumph, until Duke Alessandro de’ Medici destroyed it in 1532.