IN the speech which he addressed to the people after the murder of his brother, Lorenzo alluded to the danger then threatening the Republic from foreign enemies. His anxiety was only too well founded. Girolamo Riario had taken measures to support the enterprise of the conspirators. Giovan Francesco da Tolentino advancing with a band of a thousand foot from the district of Imola, had already passed the Florentine boundary, and Lorenzo Giustini had set out from Umbria with an equal number of armed men. Lorenzo’s first thought was to cover the passes of the Apennines, thus rendering any attack on that side very difficult for the enemy, as the German freebooters experienced to their misfortune about the middle of the fourteenth century. However, the first news of the events in Florence sufficed to induce the intruders to retreat. But Lorenzo was not at ease. The revelations of Montesecco had fully explained to him Riario’s fierce hatred and the Pope’s dangerous indulgence towards his nephews. It was necessary to prevent future plots, either by reconciling opponents or by rendering them harmless, and to gain friends abroad Lorenzo spared no labour. The city was provisioned, the guards at the gates were strengthened, and a sharp eye was kept on all who passed in and out. A band of armed men whom Giovanni Bentivoglio caused to advance as far as the Mugello, for the protection of Florence, secured the Apennine side from a sudden attack. Lorenzo took care to win over those who belonged to families involved in the plot, and who were in continual dread of discovery. He calmed and assured by friendly advances Averardo Salviati, a near relation of the archbishop, who kept hidden from fear. His chief cause of anxiety was Sixtus IV. A cardinal was in the palace of the Signoria deprived of his freedom. An archbishop had been shamefully killed without a trial, and several ecclesiastics had lost their lives.