On this spot of the Broletto Nuovo all the busy excited life of mediæval Milan once swayed and surged. This was the point upon which all the different parts of the city converged, and hither at the call of danger marched the militia of each division, called by the name of its gate, Porta Romana, Porta Ticinese, etc., to go forth again, each preceded by its gonfalon, to the defence of the respective gates and quarters. Or if the decree of the Republic were for an offensive expedition, the Caroccio would be drawn forth from its place in the Duomo and brought here, and the combined host, gathering round it, would pass out in order of battle. In the upper chamber of the Palazzo della Ragione public business was transacted, and the portico below was the assembly place for the citizens for the discussion of public affairs and for amusement and sport, all that common social life, shared together by noble and plebeian, of republican Italy in the Middle Ages. Here were brought the captured enemies of the Republic—that is, of the party in power. In some dark and secure corner of the palace there were cages inhabited by living prisoners. The chroniclers relate how Napo della Torre, to revenge his brother Paganino’s death at the hands of Milanese exiles in Vercelli, had thirteen noble prisoners carried to the Broletto and their heads smitten off one by one, till his own young son fell at his feet and vowed that he himself would not live if the life of the thirteenth—a certain physician who had lately cured the boy of a mortal sickness—were not spared. But the statue of Oldrado, burner of heretics, has not looked down on grim scenes only. Here many great feasts took place, such as that one which Francesco della Torre made in 1268 to celebrate the passage through Milan of Margaret of Burgundy, the bride of Charles of Anjou, when two oxen stuffed with pigs and sheep were roasted in the Broletto, and more than three thousand persons were fed; tournaments also were often held here in honour of victories and joyful events. We read of tumults too, and of the Milanese women on one occasion, when a rumour of new taxes had gone forth, besieging the palace with knives in their hands and seizing and selling all the salt, which was then as always a Government monopoly and was stored in an adjacent building.