It was necessary to induce the Italian princes to recognise Sforza, in opposition to certain other claims, especially those of the house of Savoy, and Piero de’ Medici was very active in this matter. On March 15 he wrote to Lorenzo[122] in Rome, who was soon able to give reassuring news with regard to the Pope’s inclinations. He had himself applied to the latter immediately after receiving the news. Venice, however little affection she might feel for Sforza, was too much threatened in the Levant not to wish for peace in Italy; King Ferrante was related to the Milanese house. Thus it was not difficult to obtain the recognition of Galeazzo Maria everywhere, and although the Emperor Frederick III., who came again to Italy two years later, ignored the new duke, as well as his father, this was of small importance, from the political weakness of the temporal head of Christendom. That the French King, to whom the Republic wrote on April 3 to express sorrow at the loss of Francesco Sforza, ‘so great a prince and friend, so rare a master of peace and war, so high an honour to the Italian name,’ would share the same opinion, was to be foreseen, although his cousin, Duke Charles of Orleans, never resigned the hereditary claims of his mother, Valentina Visconti, on Milan. In fact, Louis answered on the 18th of the same month from Orleans, promising to interfere himself if it should be necessary.[123] Piero’s letters to his son, eighteen years old, showed sufficiently how he trusted to his insight and wisdom. Soon events were to happen at home which would test these qualities of the youth severely.