Hawkwood's men were not confined, as it happens, in the prisons of the Palazzo Pubblico, but no pity can be too great for those who were, for the Perugians were by no means dainty in their treatment of prisoners in mediæval times. The street which runs from the _Piazza_ down into the _Via dei Priori_ is still called the _Via della Gabbia_ because of the large iron cage which used to hang above it from the upper windows of the palace. In this cage the Perugians were wont to imprison thieves and other malefactors, and not even the clergy escaped the horrid degradation. In 1442 we read of a priest, Angelo di Marino, who robbed Roberto di Ser Francesco di Ferolo of some of his possessions: "the missing articles," says Fabretti, "were found concealed in the campanile and under the altars, and, together with Angelo, the brothers of the priest were discovered to be accomplices, also a friar of S. Fiorenzo and many other priests and excellent citizens. On the 29th the said Angelo was put into a round cage, and with a cord he was dragged up into the corner wall of the Palace of the Podestà and there he remained for two days, and in the night he was put into prison and in the [Illustration: OLDEST PART OF THE PALAZZO PUBBLICO] loggia of that palace twelve sacks of stolen goods were stored and round that cage there was a garland of false keys ... and on the 28th of January the said Angelo was once again put back into the cage at midday, and it was very cold and there was much snow, and he remained there till the first day of February, both night and day, and that same day he was brought out dead and laid upon his bier in the piazza, and he was buried in the passage of S. Lorenzo which leads into the cloister." A big "open-air" prison looked into the _Via della Gabbia_: a sort of large cavern in the fathomless walls of the old building, and here no doubt the wretched prisoners sat huddled in chains together, a prey to all the pigs and passers-by. A corkscrew staircase leads up from the lower prisons to the higher storeys of the palace, and into this, merely in the thickness of the wall, separate cells are built, windowless, undrained, airless places, where other unfortunate persons were put by the "men of warlike spirit."