Even as the Palazzo Vecchio or Palace of the Priors is essentially the monument of the _Secondo Popolo_, so the Palazzo del Podestà or Palace of the Commune belongs to the _Primo Popolo_; it was commenced in 1255, in that first great triumph of the democracy, although mainly finished towards the middle of the following century. Here sat the Podestà, with his assessors and retainers, whom he brought with him to Florence--himself always an alien noble. Originally he was the chief officer of the Republic, for the six months during which he held office, led the burgher forces in war, and acted as chief justice in peace; but he gradually sunk in popular estimation before the more democratic Captain of the People (who was himself, it will be remembered, normally an alien Guelf noble). A little later, both Podestà and Captain were eclipsed by the Gonfaloniere of Justice. In the fifteenth century the Podestà was still the president of the chief civil and criminal court of the city, and his office was only finally abolished during the Gonfalonierate of Piero Soderini at the beginning of the Cinquecento. Under the Medicean grand dukes the Bargello, or chief of police, resided here--hence the present name of the palace; and it is well to repeat, once for all, that when the Bargello, or Court of the Bargello, is mentioned in Florentine history--in grim tales of torture and executions and the like--it is not this building, but the residence of the Executore of Justice, now incorporated into the Palazzo Vecchio, that is usually meant. It was in this Palace of the Podestà, however, that Guido Novello resided and ruled the city in the name of King Manfred, during the short period of Ghibelline tyranny that followed Montaperti, 1260-1266, and which the Via Ghibellina, first opened by him, recalls. The Palace was broken into by the populace in 1295, just before the fall of Giano della Bella, because a Lombard Podestà had unjustly acquitted Corso Donati for the death of a burgher at the hands of his riotous retainers. Here, too, was Cante dei Gabbrielli of Gubbio installed by Charles of Valois, in November 1301, and from its gates issued the Crier of the Republic that summoned Dante Alighieri and his companions in misfortune to appear before the Podestà's court. In one of those dark vaulted rooms on the ground floor, now full of a choice collection of mediæval arms and armour, Cante's successor, Fulcieri da Calvoli, tortured those of the Bianchi who fell into his cruel hands. "He sells their flesh while it is still alive," says Dante in the _Purgatorio_, "then slayeth them like a worn out brute: many doth he deprive of life, and himself of honour." Some died under the torments, others were beheaded.