In September, 1433, the Piazza della Signoria was once more invaded by an angry crowd of _popolani_. Their benefactor and favourite, Cosimo de’ Medici, had been treacherously seized and imprisoned in the small, dark Alberghettina, or Barberia, in the tower of the palace, and they feared the Signoria would make away with him. The great bell rang to summon a parliament, and it is said that Cosimo heard the crowd below debating as to his fate. For some days he refused all food fearing poison. He appears to have had grounds for suspicion, as it is said that the Captain of the Guard, Federigo de’ Malavolti of Siena, had been asked to do away with him. He not only refused, but warned his prisoner, and to prove his good faith tasted everything that was placed before Cosimo, and thus induced him to eat. Machiavelli relates that one evening Malavolti brought a facetious and pleasant fellow, a friend of the Gonfalonier, surnamed il Fargonaccio, to supper to amuse Cosimo, and then left them alone together. Cosimo, knowing the man he had to deal with, gave him a token for the governor of the hospital of Sta. Maria Nuova, who on receiving it was to give him 1100 ducats, 100 for himself, and 1000 for the Gonfalonier. Cosimo in his diary remarks: “They were people of small intelligence, for I would have given them 10,000 or more to escape from peril.” Thanks to the Gonfalonier and the many friends Cosimo had in the city and outside, he escaped with his life; but was condemned to exile for ten years. He was recalled a year later and received with all honour by the Signoria in the very palace in which he had been imprisoned. With him came his friend and favourite architect, Michelozzo Michelozzi, who had gone with him to Venice, and built there by his orders the library of S. Giorgio Maggiore. To him was given the task of restoring the noble old Palazzo de’ Priori, which showed signs of collapsing. Vasari in his life of Michelozzi states that, “several columns in the courtyard had suffered; either on account of the great weight they had to bear, or that the foundations were weak and insufficient, or because they were ill-built and the stones badly joined.... Michelozzi made new foundations and rebuilt the columns as they now are, having first put strong, upright beams of thick wood to support the curves of the arches, with three-inch boards of walnut under the vaults, so that the weight which had rested on the columns was evenly distributed and sustained; and little by little he took those down which had been badly put together and rebuilt them with well-wrought stone, in such guise that the building suffered no harm and has never moved a hairsbreadth. And in order to distinguish his columns from the others, he made the octangular ones in the corners with leaves on the capitals sculptured in the modern fashion, and some circular ones which can be well distinguished from the old ones made by Arnolfo. Afterwards, by