He will soon be with you, as to-day he must be at Bologna. It appears to me that we must now throw ourselves entirely into the arms of His Lordship and discover as soon as possible what are his ideas and his intentions towards us, and this quickly, for I have had no letter from him. I have thought it better to write to him and enclose the letter, but I rely more on your interview with him, when you can tell him as much as you think fit of what I have written. I commend myself to you.--Florence, September 11, 1479. I must remind you of what I wrote yesterday about the Marquis of Mantua. If he is deposed that country will immediately be included among our enemies, it would be our ruin. Laurentius de Medicis.[270] In November Niccolò Martelli, the trusted friend of Lorenzo, was still in Milan, and on the 12th Lodovico Sforza (il Moro) told him to inform Lorenzo that the King of Naples would be willing to listen to overtures of peace, and that he strongly advised him to strike while the iron was hot. Ten days later he told the same thing to Pier Filippo Pandolfini, the Florentine ambassador, adding that Lorenzo ought not to trust Venice who thought only of her own interests, and would leave Florence in the lurch. He could himself promise little or nothing as Milan was sore pressed, and he wished Lorenzo to know this, in order to avoid future recrimination. He advised immediate action, and was ready to undertake negotiations with Naples. It is clear that Lodovico had been charged by King Ferrante to sound Lorenzo. On November 24th Filippo Strozzi, who had lived long in Naples and knew the King well, left Florence on a secret mission. “I was to tell the King,” he writes in his journal, “that Lorenzo placed himself in the King’s hands, and would willingly do all the King desired if he only gave peace to Florence, and restored to her the towns she had lost. I found H.M. at Arnone [at the mouth of the Volturno] hunting, and when I delivered my message he answered that he had later news; that Lorenzo was coming in person, and so we would wait and see what his visit would bring forth.”[271] The following letter from Lorenzo to the Signoria was written after he had started for Naples. Many in Florence feared that he might meet the same fate as Piccinino, who had been invited to Naples and foully murdered by the King’s orders. _To the_ Signoria _of Florence, from_ Lorenzo de’ Medici