Bartolommeo Coleone, a _condottiere_ in the pay of Venice, and Ercole d’Este, brother of the duke of Ferrara. Piero knew enough of these schemes to induce him to draw closer the alliance with Milan and Naples which his [Sidenote: Crisis of 1466.] father had bequeathed to him. His elder son, Lorenzo, received his first experience of diplomacy by being sent on an embassy to Ferrante. The news that Ercole d’Este had advanced in the direction of Pistoia brought matters to a crisis. Piero hurried to Florence from his villa at Careggi, and is said to have escaped an ambush on the way through the vigilance and acuteness of Lorenzo. Galeazzo Maria Sforza was invited to send troops to the assistance of Florence, and the peasants from the Medici estates were armed and brought into the city. On the other side Niccolo Soderini collected two hundred men who were kept in arms in the Pitti palace. Civil war seemed inevitable, but by a tacit agreement active violence was postponed till the new signoria was drawn at the end of August. Fortune or skill favoured the Medici, and a gonfalonier and priors devoted to their interests took up office on September 1. On the next day the great bell called the people to a parliament in the piazza. The armed adherents of Piero commanded every entrance, and the dissentients who obtained admission were too few or too timid to make themselves heard. A numerous _balia_ was proposed by the signoria and approved by acclamation. For the next ten years the priors were to be made by hand. Neroni, Acciaiuolo, and Niccolo Soderini were banished. Luca Pitti, who had been bribed or persuaded to desert his associates, was allowed to remain, but his ostentation had made him unpopular, and he spent the rest of his life in harmless insignificance. His gigantic palace remained unfinished till it was completed by the Medici in the next century.