title and legend in multiple plots

Hi, i'm a newbie in matplotlib, I have a multiple plot, I

    > have small titles for each subplot and I'd like to add a
    > bigger title for all the figure and a legend to all the
    > figure as well. If I set a title before subplotting it is
    > deleted. Later I can set only titles to the subplots.
    > Could someone please help? thanks

You need to add figure text and figure legends -- see these examples:

  http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/examples/figtext.py

  http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/examples/figlegend_demo.py

Hope this helps,
JDH