Leaving the _Sala dei Notari_ one crosses the main staircase of the palace, and passes into the living heart of the building, into a network of separate rooms and offices which it is not necessary to describe at length. The _Sala del Consiglio Comunitativo_, or _d'Udienza_, is beautifully decorated with crimson damask, and delicate arabesques, and has a fine open fire-place carved in _pietra serena_. Adone Doni's picture of Julius III. (see page 181) is hung in this room, and from it one can gain a pretty accurate knowledge of what the _Priori_ and the potentates of Perugia looked like in their gala clothes. In the _Sala degli Archivi_ there is a fresco of Parnassus by Baroccio. The colour is very fresh still, and the nymphs seem hopelessly out of place above the piles of dusty archives. There is a curious history connected with the _Sala del Malconsiglio_--that room with the exquisite fresco by Fiorenzo di Lorenzo over its main entrance door.[53] It was here that the celebrated debate took place concerning the English prisoners (Hawkwood's men) whom the Perugians succeeded in capturing during the great fight down by the Tiber. The prisoners concocted a letter as they lay in their cells, and in the most pathetic terms they appealed to their capturers; "We too are Christians," they urged, "but we die of thirst. Have mercy upon us, have mercy on your poor captives, _your English vassals_." The Perugians, moved, or more probably flattered by the cringing words, in a moment of ill-timed leniency, let their captives free. They lived to regret the action. A short time later Hawkwood and his men attacked them in another battle on the bridge of S. Giovanni. The English gained an easy victory, 1500 of the Perugians fell, and the _Podestà_ and the German captain of their troops were taken prisoners together with a host of other men. Thus it came about that the room in which the council met to decide the release of the English was thenceforth called the _Sala del Malconsiglio_ in memory of the lamentable decision witnessed by its walls.