Diotisalvi seems to have had an understanding with Niccolò Soderini. We have seen how Niccolò, then more than sixty years old, had been from his youth upward one of the zealous adherents of the Medici. But he belonged also to the number, always very great in Florence, of those who wished for a supreme authority, but not the government of one family; equality of all rights for citizens qualified for the guidance of the State, and the freest possible form of government. There were scarcely any citizens more esteemed than he and his brother Tommaso. But it was otherwise with Luca Pitti. He was of a despotic nature, and had already shown that violent proceedings cost him nothing. Willingly or not, Cosimo had allowed him so much liberty that he already considered himself the head of the State while Cosimo was still alive. It was very unlikely, therefore, that he would be subordinate to the weaker son. Diotisalvi is said to have encouraged him in the hope of taking his place, thinking it easy to put aside the incapable man. The fourth in the association was Agnolo Acciaiuoli, lately returned from Milan, where he was highly esteemed by Francesco Sforza, and had much contributed to maintain the harmony so desirable for the Republic between the Duke and the King of Naples, when this seemed endangered by a tragical event, the murder of Jacopo Piccinino, a son of the famous _condottiere_, at the King’s instigation.[125] Even though it may have been represented to Agnolo that the majority of the city wished for a change, still the motives which estranged him from the Medici seem to have been purely selfish; whether it was that he was incensed at a legal decision in a matter of property unfavourable to his eldest son, or on account of the archbishopric of Pisa not having been granted to another son, or, finally, on account of the preference which Piero gave to the Rucellai family, when it was proposed to marry his youngest daughter, whose hand the Acciaiuoli wished to obtain. Agnolo attached himself to the others later, and they do not seem to have entirely let him into the secret of their intentions.[126]