In the beginning of January 1484, at Milan, another congress was held, at which Jacopo Guicciardini was present on behalf of Florence. By actively prosecuting the war by land and sea, it was hoped that Venice would soon be compelled to sue for peace—a consummation for which all longed, as the expenses were becoming burdensome, and each of the allies had its own separate interests. Peace did indeed come to pass in the course of the summer; but it scarcely answered general expectation. To obtain a little relief in their difficult predicament, the Venetians, beside their alliance with the heir of Anjou, now tried to stir up Louis XI. to an expedition against Naples, and the Duke of Orleans to an expedition against Milan, while their enemies were setting the Turks upon them.[247] At last they succeeded in detaching Lodovico il Moro from the league, of which he was but a half-hearted adherent. His own position and projects furnished them with a pretext, and now began the complications which in ten years brought Italy to ruin. In Milan things had drifted into a state that might easily have been foreseen. The duchess-regent, who, _par sottise_, as Commines unceremoniously expressed it, had put herself into Lodovico’s power, now saw her truest counsellor dying in prison at Pavia, her own son used as a tool, and her unworthy favourite driven out of Milan; and when she tried to leave the country she was herself detained in the castle of Abbiategrasso, a prisoner, though the word itself was not uttered in her presence, and she was allowed to see her children occasionally. There she closed her sorrowful career in 1494, so completely forgotten that the exact date and manner of her death are unknown. Lodovico once rid of his sister-in-law, ruled supreme in Milan. His nephew was duke only in name; at sixteen he was still under a guardianship which became daily more oppressive. Alfonso of Calabria, to whose daughter the young duke was betrothed, was not inclined to let this state of affairs continue; Lodovico, on the other hand, was determined to make every possible effort to maintain his position. The Marquis of Mantua had contrived to prevent the rupture which seemed imminent when both princes were in Northern Italy; but his death put an end to all chances of mediation. The reciprocal distrust of Lodovico and the Medici was constantly increasing, and occasionally sharp words passed between them.