Thus was Piero de’ Medici’s family composed. Other connections of equal importance belonged to them. Foremost of all were the two Soderini, Niccolò and Tommaso.[115] Their ancestors are said to have been Counts of Gangalandi, and heads of the Ghibelline party, but they are found as a Florentine plebeian family in the second half of the twelfth century. They attained importance only 200 years later. Tommaso Soderini, like so many of his countrymen, spent a great part of his life in business matters at Papal Avignon, and returned in 1370 to his home, where, as a member of the magistracy of the Guelph party, he took so violent a part in the proscriptions, that in the insurrection of 1378 he was one of the first to have his house plundered and burnt. He went into exile to Tarascon, on the Rhône, but returning home after the victory of the oligarchy, he again attained to office and influence. In 1395, seven years before his death, he was Gonfaloniere. His two sons, Francesco and Lorenzo, went separate ways. Francesco, the son of Elisabetta Altoviti whom Tommaso had married after his return to Avignon, passed through the usual career of distinguished Florentines who attained to civic offices and embassies as soon as they reached the legal age. One of his missions took him to Mantua to celebrate the marriage of Ludovico Gonzaga with Barbara of Hohenzollern, the granddaughter of Frederick I., elector of Brandenburg. Like his father, he belonged to the party of the Albizzi, and had one of the daughters of Palla Strozzi as his wife. When Cosimo de’ Medici went into exile he was one of the magistracy of eight that escorted him to the frontiers. He was not expelled when the Medici gained the victory, but his influence was at an end, and he only became Podestà in towns of Umbria and Romagna, and for a time he lay in prison on suspicion of having shared in the movements of his partisans. Niccolò da Uzzano destined him to be the rector of his university, and Donatello has given us his portrait in one of the statues which are to be seen on the front of the bell-tower of Sta. Maria.[116] It is the figure standing next to the church called that of St. John the Baptist, and in its natural free bearing reminds one of the famous St. George of Or San Michele.