[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."
There were even rougher modes than these of dealing with malefactors. On one occasion we hear of the most barbarous butchery of some gentlemen whose offences were purely political. Some were "thrown from the windows of the Palazzo Pubblico, and others were hanged from the _lumiere_, or long spikes which project from its lower walls." The _lumiere_ were intended for the heads of Perugia's enemies, and one can fancy the faces of the butchered men looking down on the unforgiving citizens, whilst their blood dripped into the street. All through Perugia's history we find references to the _lumiere_: "On the 3rd of July 1541, the head of Ciancio de Burelio was borne along by one of the twenty-five rebels of the Pope, a student killed him: his head was put on a _lumiere_ outside the Palace of the _Podestà_" (Fabretti, iii. 22).
There were strange ways of catching prisoners in Perugia. We find one statute which shows us that every artizan was obliged to hang certain hooks and gaffs to his house walls "ready to help in the capture of a criminal, and all were expected to help in this said capture."[54]
But if there was rude cruelty shown to prisoners it is fair to say there was also an occasional rude mercy. No doubt the latter was excited in the Perugians by their extreme religious superstition. We hear of an old custom of liberating prisoners "_pro amore Dei_." "Every six months, two _buon' uomini_ (or good men) were chosen to elect certain officials who were given full power to let out five condemned prisoners on Holy Friday, two at Christmas, two on the feast of S. Ercolano, and two on Corpus Domini. Also two women on every feast of the Virgin Mary. In the choice of women, only those condemned for minor offences must be liberated. The men let out must have suffered six months' imprisonment, and the women one month, and neither must have been liberated in this manner (_pro amore Dei_) on previous occasions." Also there was to be strict silence on the nature of the offence. The _Podestà_ published the names of the freed prisoners in three parts of the town so that the citizens might protest if they happened to be so minded. Three days later the prisoners were free and went to render thanks in the Church of S. Ercolano, after which they presented themselves before the civil authorities at the Palazzo Pubblico. These _scarcerati pro amore dei_, as they were called, were excluded from all public offices, "it not being decent," says the statute, "that they should be on the same level as the rest of the Perugians."