Palazzo Pretorio

In the historic center stands the bell tower of the medieval Palazzo Pretorio. Built between 1337 and 1346 and restored in the 15th and 17th centuries, it was the seat of the civil authority; on the main facade and on the eastern side of the building there are various coats of arms of the Podestà from the time of the Republic of Siena and those of the Medici era. In particular, on the right side of the main portal there is a pillory where criminals or presumed criminals were exposed to public ridicule. Inside, everything stopped in 1923, the year in which the community prison was abolished. In the cells with low doors and little light, we still find wooden tables with small straw mattresses. The prison occupies the central floors of the ancient Palazzo Pretorio, five thousand square meters now abandoned, where justice was administered from the Middle Ages up to the last century. The cells have had the same names for centuries: ''la bufala'', intended for prisoners in solitary confinement, the ''women'' cell, the ''men's public'', open onto the atrium, those of the ''clock'' , placed under the gears on the tower, and the ''paradise'' cell. On the walls, sentences, messages, the calculations of the weeks and months, the drawings that cross and overlap to stop at the very beginning of the 20s. On the first level there were the rooms of the Criminal Chancellery, the judge's room, the room for the air and courtroom, remodeled in the 1970s to create the apartment for the town clerk. Seat of the Vicariate and prison of the Republic of Siena in 1300, Palazzo Pretorio became the Captaincy of Justice under the Medici Grand Duchy and has been enlarged several times over the centuries. Its underground areas are also suggestive: the horse sheds and basements are lost in ancient tunnels dug into the tuff.