... The Magnificent Lorenzo is of opinion that the acts of the Pope will be worse than his words. The ambassadors of the League have arranged with His Sanctity that Imola and Forlì should go to the Count’s sons,[347] but the Magnificent Lorenzo believes that from what he hears the children have been poisoned. In this case the Pope has every claim on that State as being Church property and the Lords invested by the Church being dead ... His Magnificence would far rather see Forlì and Imola in private hands than in those of a powerful prince. But if they are to belong to a potentate he had rather it should be Milan than the Church; for Milan has several Baronies, and might bestow the State on some lord, as did Duke Galeazzo, but the Church would never do so, as for some time she has been a sworn enemy to the Barons and the Lords, and whatever she seizes she holds. Also the rule of the Church is so admirable that it does harm to its neighbours! And although I argued with him to see whether these were his real convictions he remained staunch, saying that the time would come when the Church would be more dangerous than the Signoria of Venice, and that this belief more than anything else induced him to favour H.M. the King [of Naples]....--Florence, April 25, 1488.[348] Agnolo Poliziano _to_ Lorenzo de’ Medici _Magnifice Domine mi_,--We arrived safely at Acquapendente yester evening at 8 o’clock, I wrote to you also from Montepulciano. To-morrow we leave for Viterbo. We are all in high spirits and find good cheer, and all along the road we pick up new tunes and May songs, which seem to me more original here than elsewhere, _alla Romanesca, vel nota ipsa vel argumento_. I commend myself to Your Magnificence.--Acquapendente, May 2, 1488. Your Magnificence’s servant, Ang. Politianus.[349]