In 1435, Alfonso the Magnanimous, the rival of René of Anjou for the kingdom of Naples, had warned Filippo Maria, who then ruled Milan, that the French, once masters of Naples, would seek to extend their territories in the north. Francesco Sforza, who secured Milan shortly after Filippo’s death (1450), conscious that the legitimate claim to Milan had passed with the hand of Valentina to the French House of Orleans, needed no convincing. The result had been a close alliance between these two powers, which had been strengthened by the marriage of Ippolita, Sforza’s daughter, with Alfonso, Prince of Calabria. Lorenzo, true to the traditional policy of the Medici, had joined this league. He hoped, by a triple alliance of Milan, Naples, and Florence, to maintain the balance of power in Italy, resist the desire for territorial aggression shared by Venice and the Papacy, and, by keeping peace within the Peninsula, deprive the foreigner of all excuse for interference. Whether Lorenzo would have succeeded may well be doubted, but certainly his death (April 1492) removed the only man to whom success was possible. | Rupture of the Alliance between Milan and Naples | forces Ludovico to call in the foreigner. Even before Lorenzo died, the alliance between Milan and Naples had threatened to break up. The _coup d’état_ of 1479, by which Ludovico ‘Il Moro’ had seized the reins of power from Bona of Savoy, had received the approval of Ferrante of Naples. In the following year, however (1480), the death of Ippolita, Ludovico’s sister and wife of Alfonso, son of Ferrante, broke the bond between the two families. The subsequent marriage of the young Gian Galeazzo, with Alfonso’s daughter, Isabella (1489), made matters worse. Alfonso became jealous of Ludovico’s rule and wished to see his son-in-law, who had in the year 1492 reached the age of twenty, recognised as duke. This jealousy was shared by Isabella, who was envious of the higher honours conferred on her kinswoman, Beatrice of Este, the wife of Ludovico. Piero de Medici, who had just succeeded Lorenzo at Florence (1492), joined Alfonso in a secret league against Ludovico, to which Ferrante of Naples was somewhat unwillingly prevailed upon to accede. Thus the triple alliance of Milan, Naples, Florence, upon which the safety of Italy depended, was broken, and Ludovico was driven to look elsewhere for support. To Maximilian, who in 1493 was elected emperor, he gave the hand of his niece, Bianca, and gained in return the investiture of his duchy, which had hitherto been denied to the Sforza family. Despairing of more effective aid from that impecunious prince, he next turned to France. San Severino, Count of Cajazzo, was sent to ‘tickle Charles, who was but twenty-one years of age, with the vanities and glories of Italy, and to urge the right he had to the fine kingdom of Naples’ (Commines).