On entering  Via del Proconsolo you come across the austere  Palazzo del Bargello, built at the time  Florence was established as a free commune (or city-state) in the Middle Ages.
 Its halls now house an important sculpture museum but, for three centuries, the Bargello was used as a prison where those suspected of heresy and not complying with the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church were held alongside common criminals.
In the late nineteenth century the palace held several Protestant prisoners: with the return to the throne of Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1849 they were not only persecuted again but also deprived of all religious rights. Rosa Pulini (1796-1871) was one of the prisoners of the Bargello at that time and she stood out together with her husband Francesco Madiai, because she was at the centre of a case that that made national and international news headlines. On August the 17th , 1851, the Police surprised the Madiais together with three other people as they were reading the Bible during a private meeting. They were accused of heresy and arrested. They were tried  for “disseminating the so called Evangelical faith and proselytising". The Madiais were found guilty in June 1852 and their  sentence was later confirmed by the Court of Cassation or High Court.
The case was widely reported in the international press and triggered strong reactions by the diplomats of the Protestant powers who began exerting pressure on Duke Leopold II, petitioning for him  to grant pardon to the couple. It was only the following year (March 1853), following new appeals by Napoleon III and the European and American governments, that the Madiais’ sentence  was commuted into exile.