Thus did Lorenzo look to the distant as well as the immediate prospect. But Innocent VIII. was not the man to take up a firm position; he let himself be ruled by momentary impulses. On September 3, Gian Jacopo Trivulzio, loaded with honours by the Pope after the settlement of the Osimo affair, on his return to Milan came to Florence; here he was splendidly received by the foreign ambassadors and many distinguished citizens, with Piero de’ Medici at their head, and lodged in the convent of Sta. Croce. The cardinal of S. Peter in Vinculis was with him. Lorenzo was at Pisa. Trivulzio was commissioned by the Pope to tell him that he trusted entirely to him, and would be guided by him; but if he guided him amiss it would be the ruin of both. And hereupon the Pope broke into violent complaints against the king. But the Milanese captain’s account of Innocent was not such as to strengthen the confidence of the Republic in him. ‘Messer Gian Jacopo,’ wrote the Ferrarese ambassador, ‘tells of the Pope’s faint-heartedness and want of head and spirit, and that he acts after the fashion of an utter simpleton;’ and adds that ‘if somebody does not put a little spirit into him and keep him alive, he will come to a most pitiful end.’ On the 6th the news reached Florence that the king had appealed to the council. Though Innocent regarded the appeal as null, and declared it contrary to Ferrante’s own agreements with his predecessor, still it was believed that the threat would frighten him.[318] This, however, proved a mistake.