Today the medieval Palace of the Chief Magistrate is the seat of the municipal library. It probably dates back to the mid-13th century and was already quite damaged in the early twentieth century. Another very serious damage was caused by the earthquake of June 1919, a circumstance that made the restorations even more urgent.
However, we have to wait for 1934 to have a real intervention, thanks to the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, whose president was the Marshal of Italy Guglielmo Pecori Giraldi. The restorations, designed and directed by the engineer Augusto Lorini, who changed the lines of the building according to the period, were completed three years later.
At the beginning of the work, Dino Chini was entrusted with the restoration of the pictorial sections, more precisely the large group of the ancient Coats of Arms of the Podestà (Chief Magistrate) of Borgo San Lorenzo, painted in the entrance hall on the ground floor. Probably he made ex novo the simple geometric decoration of the entrance door and window spouts, the high base plinth of the walls, as well as the geometric and neo-14th century paintings of the close chapel; this is also visible from the outside and dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi. As far as the restoration of the numerous painted coats of arms is concerned, it seems that Dino intervened in a rather consistent manner. In some cases, these show a remarkable graphic and chromatic vivacity, so much so as to recall the style of Galileo; in some sections, the traditional taste prevails, perhaps due to the desire to adapt more to the style of the pre-existing painting. Therefore, not being a conservative restoration as we understand it today, the coats of arms have clearly shown Dino’s intervention, who shows himself having skilled and gifted hands taking inspiration from the stylistic work of the most famous components of the Chini family, for instance, Galileo.
