The year 1467 did not begin peacefully. It was very well known in Florence that the exiles, untaught by the failure of those who had made a similar attempt under far more favourable circumstances, after the fall of the Albizzi, had, for the greater part, quitted the places of exile assigned them, and retired to the Venetian territory. Here they tried every means of returning home with foreign assistance. Some applied even to the Venetian Signoria, and others to the General-in-Chief, Bartolommeo Colleone. Venice had no honourable excuse for breaking with the Florentines. Outwardly the two states were in harmony. In the beginning of January 1467, both had joined the defensive alliance concluded at Rome under the protection of Pope Paul II. which was to secure peace in Italy. Florence had accepted the conditions, stipulating that ‘the French King, whose authority essentially aided the preservation of peace and the safety of the different states, should be permitted to join the alliance at his pleasure, with authority next to that of the Pope.’[138] This stipulation, however, did not appear to satisfy the Republic when, before long, the political sky was clouded, so that in the following March, Francesco Nori, a confidant of the Medici, was sent to Louis XI. to propose an offensive and defensive alliance, irrespective of their engagements with the other Italian powers.[139] The hostile disposition of Venice was unmistakable, although an open breach of the peace was avoided. The old grudge on account of the views on Milan, frustrated by the Medici, came again into the foreground. It was proposed to employ the hatred of the exiles in order to obtain in Florence a government with obligations towards Venice, and therefore dependent on her, and to overturn the power in Milan already shaken by Francesco Sforza’s death. Bartolommeo Colleone was to be the instrument.