It was a city of squares and towers, of busy, narrow, twisting streets, of fortress - like palaces with massive stone walls and overhanging balconies, of old churches whose facades were covered with geometrical patterns in black and white and green and pink, of abbeys and convents, nunneries, hospitals and crowded tenements, all enclosed by a high brick and stone crenellated wall beyond which the countryside stretched to the green surrounding hills. Through the narrow slit of its single window, so he later recorded, he looked down upon the city. A few minutes later the captain of the guard told him to follow him up the stairs but, instead of being shown into the Council Chamber, Cosimo de' Medici was escorted up into the bell-tower and pushed into a cramped cell known as the Alberghettino - the Little Inn - the door of which was shut and locked behind him. As he entered the palace gate an official came up to him and asked him to wait in the courtyard: he would be taken up to the Council Chamber as soon as the meeting being held there was over. His name was Cosimo de' Medici and he was said to be one of the richest men in the world. One September morning in 1433, a thin man with a hooked nose and sallow skin could have been seen walking towards the steps of the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence.
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