The tribunals occasionally abused their powers, committed some crimes, and made errors. The murder of the Carraras was a national sin; the execution of Foscarini a grievous blunder. But they were a popular body, and withstood every attack upon them. They were a bulwark against treachery: they protected the people from the insolence and arbitrariness of nobles: they maintained equality, and were stern censors of morals. Their best defence is the fact that they endured to the fall of the Republic. [Illustration: PONTE DI PAGLIA] Much undeserved obloquy has been cast upon the Ten even by historians of repute when treating of the famous prisons under their charge, the so-called _Pozzi_ and _Piombi_ (wells and leads). Lurid pictures have been drawn of victims tortured in cells hot as furnaces under the leads, and in dungeons beneath the canal, where neither _light_ nor warmth ever penetrated, and where the prisoner _saw_ the instruments of his torture on the wall before him. But in truth the _Pozzi_ were as little underground as the _Piombi_ were (immediately) under the leads. The Ducal Palace had been furnished with prisons from its construction by Angelo Participazio and its restoration by Seb. Ziani until the new prison over the Bridge of Sighs, and beyond the _rio del Palazzo_, was completed in 1606. Except the _Torreselle_ (prisons in the towers), one of which, at the angle of the palace overlooking the Ponte della Paglia, was demolished in 1532 by order of the Ten, the old prisons were situated on the east wing of the palace between the inner court and the _rio del Palazzo_, and later extended to the other side towards the Molo on the south. They were on the ground floor, which was sub-divided into two storeys of cells. Some of the windows looked on the public courtyard, and at one period the prisoners could talk with passers-by. They were not known as _Pozzi_ before the seventeenth century. After the erection of the new jail on the opposite side of the Rio the so-called _Pozzi_ were used for the more dangerous prisoners, and on the fall of the Republic in 1797 four only were found therein, scoundrels who richly deserved their fate. The Republic bore a unique reputation for its humane treatment of prisoners. Zanotto,[38] from whose admirable monograph we mainly draw, quotes the testimony of Friar Felice Fabri, who, visiting Venice in the middle of the fifteenth century, was struck by the merciful treatment of the prisoners of the Republic. In 1443 the Great Council appointed an advocate to defend the cause of the poor detained prisoners, and in 1553 a second advocate was chosen. In common with the whole of Christian Europe Venice used torture to extract confessions, but she honourably distinguished herself by appointing a surgeon to examine the prisoners and to report if they were able to bear the infliction. In 1564 the Ten ordered an infirmary to be prepared for sick prisoners. The disinfection and cleanliness of the cells and the