On the right is the Palazzo Piccolomini "delle Papesse," adorned with the arms of the Piccolomini and now occupied by the Banca d'Italia, begun in 1460 by the sister of Pope Pius II., Caterina Piccolomini, who in the October of that year petitioned the Signoria for exemption from the Gabella for the various stones and marbles required, on the grounds that "the said Madonna Caterina intends and wishes to make the said house in the most noble fashion and with great cost, to the honour of this magnificent city and of your Magnificences and lofty Lordships."[133] In style it shows a peculiar harmonising of the Sienese Gothic with the domestic architecture of the Florentine Quattrocento. The façade is an effective combination of a rusticated basement with smooth grey stone above. The original designer was probably Bernardino Rossellino, the Florentine master whom Pius was employing at Pienza, the actual architects Antonio Federighi and Urbano da Cortona. The work was interrupted in 1472, owing to Madonna Caterina's lack of means, and finished in 1595 by the Archbishop Ascanio Piccolomini. In the days of this latter genial prelate the palace was a great centre for social gatherings, "to hearken to gracious discussions, judicious discourses, and also disputations touching every noble matter."[134] Beyond the Palazzo delle Papesse is the Palazzo Marsili, a Gothic edifice in red brick--one of the oldest in Siena, but practically rebuilt by Luca di Bartolo in the middle of the fifteenth century. Between these two, the Via del Castoro leads up through the abandoned façade into the Piazza del Duomo. In the days when it was proposed to build the new Cathedral, the Palazzo delle Papesse naturally did not exist, and in its place there would have been a piazza with the chief approach to the Duomo. At the end of the Via di Città is the grey tower, half stone and half brick, of the Forteguerri de' Grandi, one of the oldest noble families of Siena, which was originally connected by a bridge with the palace opposite, which was also of the Forteguerri (later one of the numerous palaces of the Piccolomini). It was here that Niccolò Borghesi was murdered in June, 1500. He was returning from Mass at the Duomo with several armed servants--for he had been warned that Pandolfo was meditating violence--and passing down the Via del Capitano, when Pandolfo's emissaries set upon him, killed his servants on the spot, and left him with just enough life to crawl to the foot of the tower, where he was taken into the house of Giovanni Borghesi, to die with that harmonious blending of the devout Christian and the Stoic philosopher that had characterised him throughout.