When Piero died, foreign affairs were by no means secure. The dispute about Rimini was not terminated. Pope Paul II. was extremely indignant at the assistance which Florence and Naples had given his disobedient vassal, and by means of which this vassal had been able to oppose him successfully. He indulged in the most violent expressions against the Medici, even before the assembled Consistorium. His rage against Ferrante even led to action. The old quarrel between Rome and Naples on account of the feudal relation injurious to both, but still legal, had also come to an outbreak between Ferrante and Paul. The king did not pay the tribute, and, when enjoined to do so, was always ready with one excuse or another. Now it was the embarrassment into which troubles at home had plunged him, now it was the expenses for the aid granted to the Church in the contest with the restless counts of Anguillara. If pressed, he answered by claiming Benevento and Terracina and places in the Abruzzi, claims which were not always unfounded, in consequence of the complicated and wavering connections of the empire with the Church. At last, when all seemed to be peacefully settled, a quarrel broke out between the Pope and the Orsini, on account of the rights claimed by the latter over the Alum district of Tolfa, which Paul had contested with force of arms, while the king defended them in like manner. It went so far that Ferrante threatened to league himself with the Turks; the Pope, however, answered him by not only threatening to drive him from Naples, but by actually planning a new campaign against the Aragonese with John of Anjou. This happened just after the affair with Malatesta had ended, and who knows what intrigues would have been begun, had not the war of the Catalans against the Aragonese, in which Anjou commanded, occupied him till a higher hand interfered?