While Cosimo de’ Medici thus resided, partly in Padua and partly in Venice, where he was allowed to go, honoured and loved for his well-calculated liberality, in personal connection with some of his friends and in correspondence with others, affairs in Florence rapidly approached another crisis. Other banishments had followed: that of the brothers Pucci, the eldest of whom, Puccio, was one of the most eager adherents of Cosimo, and one who had circulated the gold florins of his patron, when in prison, most skilfully; and Agnolo Acciaiuoli, whose correspondence with the exiles had been discovered. The fortune of war, already unfavourable to the Albizzi, now entirely forsook them. When new quarrels broke out in the Romagna between the Florentines and the Duke of Milan, the former were defeated. The excitement in the city increased to an alarming degree. Rinaldo soon perceived that he was no longer master of the situation. When, towards the end of August 1434, came the election of the Signoria, who were to take office on September 1, Rinaldo perceived that he must use force if he would prevent his enemy’s return. When neither the attempt to force new elections nor the endeavours to attract the old nobility succeeded, and the new Signoria expressed itself without reserve in favour of the Medici, while representations on the other side were useless, the Albizzi began to arm their followers, and to draw a number of discharged warriors to their service, in the hope of having the majority of the city with them, and dictating the law to the highest magistrate. But they calculated wrongly; even the heads of their own party, like Palla Strozzi and Giovanni Guicciardini, did not all flock to them. The city remained divided.