The sentence and the face

Battlements, a bell tower and bare walls without ornament: this building looks more like a fortress than a courthouse. That suits its purpose, because this was the seat of the judge who was brought in from outside the city to stand above all parties, with cells on the upper floors and executions in the courtyard.

In January 1302 the sentence against Dante was read out here. He was in Rome at the time, on a mission to the pope, so he never appeared. The charge was corruption and defiance of the pope, the punishment was exile and a fine, and when he failed to turn up to pay that too, a second sentence followed: burning at the stake if he ever returned.

A discovery waits inside. In 1840 researchers working in the chapel on the upper floor, which long served as a prison room, uncovered a painted gathering beneath a layer of whitewash. Among the figures is a young man in red, who has been regarded ever since as the earliest portrait of Dante and comes from Giotto's circle. You need a ticket for that chapel and the rest of the museum, and the courtyard with its staircase is one of the finest things in the city.

Borgo dei Greci runs east from here, towards the great square with the striped church.