Perhaps from Andrea del Castagno's Palazzo del Podesta Fresco Cycle (now destroyed) In 1440, Castagno moved to Florence under the sponsorship of Bernadetto de' Medici, for whom he painted his first recorded work - a series of mural paintings (now destroyed) depicting the fate of rebels hanged after the Battle of Anghiari in the war between Florence and Milan. These pictures earned him the nickname Andreino degli Impiccati (Little Andrew of the Hanged Men). Other early works included his fresco of Crucifixion and Saints in the Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova, and his frescoes in the San Tarasio Chapel of the Church of San Zaccaria in Venice (1442), some of which still survive. While in Venice he also painted a fresco of Death of the Virgin (1443) in St. Mark's Basilica. On his return to Florence in 1444, he designed a stained glass window for the city's cathedral. In 1445 he painted the fresco of Madonna and Child with Saints (Contini Bonacossi Collection, Uffizi Gallery), and became a member of the Guild of the Medicians.
Podestà (pronounced [podeˈsta], English: Potestate, Podesta) was the name given to the holder of the highest civil office in the government of the cities of Central and Northern Italy during the Late Middle Ages. Sometimes, it meant the chief magistrate of a city state, the counterpart to similar positions in other cities that went by other names, e.g. rettori ("rectors"). In the following centuries and up to 1918 the term was used to designate the head of the municipal administration in particular in the Italian-speaking territories of the Austrian empire. The title was taken up again during the Fascist regime with the same meaning. The Podestà's office, its duration and the residence and the local jurisdiction were called podesteria, especially during the Middle Ages, and in later centuries, more rarely during the fascist regime.[1] Currently, Podestà is the title of mayors in Italian-speaking municipalities of Graubünden in Switzerland. However, this is not the case for the rest of the Canton of Ticino, where the title of "Sindaco" (English: Mayor) is used.