The victory of Albizzi seemed to be assured when Cosimo went into exile in October 1433. The ordinary machinery of a Florentine _coup d’état_ had been set in motion. The people had been convened in the piazza, and had approved the appointment of a _balia_ or revolutionary committee. But by a strange oversight on the part of so experienced a partisan, Rinaldo had failed to obtain for this committee the right of refilling the bags with the names of candidates for office. The result was that the weakness of his position was only slightly modified. His own party was divided and inclined to be mutinous because the _catasto_ was not abolished. And the alienation of public opinion by military failures could only be removed by some conspicuous success. In 1434 Florence became involved in a war in Romagna between Filippo Maria Visconti and the Pope. Again her troops were defeated in the field, and her ally, Eugenius IV., driven from Rome by the Colonnas, was forced to seek a refuge within her walls. In this moment of depression the accident of lot resulted in the formation of a signoria in September 1434, which was favourable to the Medici. Rinaldo [Sidenote: Recall of the Medici, 1434.] in his turn was summoned before a hostile magistracy, and he came accompanied by eight hundred armed men. But he lost the favourable opportunity for overawing his opponents by consenting to an interview with Eugenius IV., who had offered his mediation. This delay proved fatal. The _popolo minuto_ took up arms and surrounded the piazza; while the signoria called in armed peasants from the country. The parliament created a _balia_ in the interests of the party, which had for the moment the upper hand. The Medici and Alberti families were recalled and declared eligible for office. Rinaldo degli Albizzi with his son and about seventy partisans were banished from Florence, and few of them ever returned to their native city. Cosimo de’ Medici, who was in Venice when the news of this sudden revolution reached him, re-entered Florence on October 6, 1434. For the next three centuries the history of Florence is bound up with the history of the house of Medici.