When the adherents of Cosmo were informed of his imprisonment, they took up arms with a determination to effect his deliverance: but by the direction of his particular friends, who were justly apprehensive that Rinaldo would be provoked by any hostile attempt on their part to signalize his vengeance by the murder of his prisoner, they retired without accomplishing any thing in his favour. When the news of the arrest of Cosmo reached Venice, the seigniory of that republic took such a lively interest in his fate, that they sent to Florence three ambassadors, who were instructed to exert all their influence in his favour. At last these plenipotentiaries could obtain from the Florentine magistracy nothing more than an assurance that the person of Cosmo should be safe. When he was at length sentenced to be banished to Padua for ten years, they requested from the magistrates that during the term of his exile he might be permitted to reside in their city. The petition of the Venetians was granted; but the triumphant nobles still detained Cosmo in custody as an hostage, to secure the acquiescence of his partizans in the new measures which they intended to adopt for the regulation of the state. They were also prompted to protract his imprisonment by the malicious hope, that the hazardous nature of his situation would injure his commercial credit. When Cosmo found himself thus unexpectedly detained, with the connivance of his keeper he sent a message to his friends, directing them to purchase the favour of Guadagni by the timely application of a sum of money. Influenced by this powerful motive, the mercenary chief magistrate, on the night of the third of October, liberated his prisoner from custody, and conducting him through one of the city gates, suffered him without further molestation to proceed on his route to Padua, from whence he proceeded to Venice. On his arrival at the latter city, the illustrious exile was met by the principal citizens, who received him with every mark of honour and respect; and he had not long resided there, before the administrators of the Tuscan government were persuaded, by the reiterated instances of the seigniory, to enlarge the sphere of his liberty to the full extent of the territories of the Venetian republic.[213]