Not long before, Lorenzo had found out that it is not safe to play with spiritual weapons, however much they might be blunted by misuse in temporal projects. It seems, therefore, hardly intelligible that he could think of letting himself appear to take part in such a senseless enterprise. Possibly he had seen the archbishop when the latter passed through Florence, with his heart full of rancour against the Pope and his nephew. In Lorenzo’s defence it may be urged that affairs in Italy were in a sad plight while the Pope blindly allowed himself to be led by the ambition of his kinsmen. In a letter written about this time to Pier Capponi, ambassador at Naples,[239] Lorenzo says plainly that the authority of religion itself is endangered by a mode of government so unbecoming the supreme pastor. King Ferrante nominated ambassadors to the council, and proposed that the Italian League should be represented, as well as the individual states. He hoped to induce the Kings of Hungary and Spain to favour the cause. But in vain. On September 14, by Lorenzo’s orders, Baccio Ugolini arrived in Basel, in company with a Milanese delegate—Bartolommeo, Archpriest of Piacenza. They at once entered into communication with the _Pronunciator_ of the Council, as Andrea called himself, but they soon became convinced of the utter groundlessness and hopelessness of the whole proceeding. The Florentine’s idea of proposing Pisa as a more suitable spot than Basel, where matters were going wrong already, is interesting only as an echo of the Council of 1409, and a foreshadowing of the _conciliabulum_ of 1511. On December 18, the two delegates, with Philip of Savoy, Lord of Bresse, and other princes and nobles, were present at a solemn sitting of the town-council of Basel, at which the case was decided against the archbishop. Having avowed his obedience to the head of the Empire, and his zeal for the good of the church, but declining to retract his accusations against the Pope, he was arrested; he was then prosecuted, but at the same time, the town council of Basel refused to deliver him up to Rome. Legal proceedings were taken against the imperial city, and were the cause of great trouble, until the dispute was ended by a compromise arising out of the suicide of the rash man who had originated this melancholy episode.[240]