The Signoria summoned the people to a parliament on the Piazza, surrounded by armed friends of the Albizzi. The result at first was favourable; but when the newly-appointed Balia had to decide on Cosimo’s fate, the differences of opinion showed themselves. The prisoner had found means to employ his money, and had bribed the Gonfaloniere, among others, with 1,000 gold florins. He has himself remarked that the people did not understand their own advantages; if they had wished for 10,000 gold florins, he would have paid the sum to save himself from the danger. There was no lack of representations of many kinds, even from foreign countries. The end was, that all the Medici, with the exception of Vieri’s descendants, were excluded from office. Cosimo was banished on September 29 to Padua for ten years, his brother for five years to Venice, and others of the family to Naples, Rimini, Ancona, and other towns. On the evening of October 3, as Ormanno degli Albizzi held the Piazza, guarded with his people, and an attack upon Cosimo was feared if the latter left his prison in the palace, the Gonfaloniere caused him, after the penalty had been announced to him, to be brought into his own lodgings under a safe-guard. Here he partook of some supper, left the city by the Porta San Gallo, and rode through Pistoja to the village of Cutigliano, on the road leading over the Apennines to Modena, where he arrived on October 4, the day of St. Francis d’Assisi. ‘On the 11th,’ so he relates, ‘I reached Venice, where many nobles with Lorenzo came to meet me, and I was not received like an exile, but as an ambassador. On the following day I visited the Signoria, to thank them for their influential mediation in my favour. The Signoria received me with kindness and honour, expressed regret at what had happened to me, offered residence and money supplies to whatever extent I wished. Many nobles came to visit me. On the 13th I repaired to Padua, as I had been enjoined, accompanied by Messer Jacopo Donato, who placed his beautiful house, provided with everything, at my disposal.’