they are touching. They say, too, that Hercules has one of his feet underground, while the other seems to be resting on hot coals.”[110] On either side, nearer the door, were placed two terminal statues, which are still there; one by Bandinelli is intended to represent the power and magnanimity of Tuscany, the other, a woman about to change into a laurel, by Vincenzio de’ Rossi, the grace and intellect Tuscany has shown in the arts. They are commonly called Philomen and Baucis. When Piero Soderini was elected Gonfalonier for life in 1502, Landucci notes in his Diary, “For the first time the wife of the Gonfalonier, by name Madonna Argentina, went to live in the Palazzo de’ Signori. It seemed odd indeed to see women abiding in the palace.” Large sums were spent in decorations, and Soderini determined that Leonardo da Vinci should paint the great Hall of Council. It seems certain that Leonardo devoted two years to this work, the beauty of which is minutely described by Vasari, who says he abandoned it because having attempted to paint on the wall in oils the colours ran. Michelangelo was then deputed to paint one side of the hall, and his cartoon excited extraordinary enthusiasm and admiration in all who beheld it. Vasari accuses Baccio Bandinelli of tearing the magnificent drawing to pieces during the riots of 1512, when the Gonfalonier Soderini was deposed and the Medici returned to power. Giuliano de’ Medici entered Florence first, he dismounted at the Albizzi palace, as the family palace in the Via Larga had been sacked when the Medici were driven out. There he waited until joined by the Cardinal Giovanni, when they went to the Palazzo de’ Signori and established themselves there as masters. The great bell was rung to summon the people to a parliament, and at sundown on the 16th September the Signoria assembled on the ringhiera and read the new laws to the people. Landucci notes in his Diary that “on the 2nd October the Medici caused their arms to be re-painted on their palace, on the Annunziata and in many other places, they also caused the effigy of the Gonfalonier to be removed out of the S.S. Annunziata.[111]