He served on several dozen official diplomatic missions, first locally in towns such as Arezzo and Cortona, later on more distant assignments to Pisa, Lucca, Naples, and Rome.

[2] Afterward, Rinaldo incited Niccolò Fortebraccio to "attack the Lucchese under cover of some fictitious quarrel," [3] an action that led Florence to attempt the conquest of Lucca.

However, with the downturn of Florentine fortunes during the war with Milan, Cosimo returned with popular acclamation barely a year later, and Rinaldo degli Albizzi was in his turn exiled.

Although he tried several times to convince the Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, to intervene and restore him to power in Florence, his hopes ended in 1440 with the Florentine victory at the Battle of Anghiari.

They had twelve children, eight sons and four daughters:[4] In Roberto Rossellini's three-part miniseries The Age of the Medici (1973), Rinaldo degli Albizzi was portrayed by Hungarian actor Tom Felleghy.