Those who were most deeply compromised betook themselves to the neighbouring Florentine territory, and on April 29, Girolamo’s little son Ottaviano Riario was proclaimed lord of Forlì and Imola. Caterina Sforza, who assumed the regency, took bloody vengeance on those within reach of her hand, for the murder of her husband and the danger of her children. This affair, however, brought upon Florence a difficulty which shows how uncertain were her relations both legal and political. In a rugged part of the Apennines, north-east of the road from Florence to Bologna, lies Piancaldoli, now a village of less than a thousand inhabitants. In the war of 1478, Girolamo Riario took possession of it, and the Florentines had never been able to make him give it up. Now they thought the time had arrived to obtain justice and avenge the insult. Their troops marching towards Romagna, in the direction of Imola, received orders to secure Piancaldoli. At this Lodovico became highly excited, not so much for the sake of the unimportant town as because he suspected that it might be the commencement of greater acquisitions. Giovan Pietro Bergomino, his commissioner with the troops sent against Forlì, came to high words with the Florentine commissioner Averardo de’ Medici. Both sides grew so excited that Ercole d’Este thought it necessary to step between them. Lorenzo showed not the slightest disposition to yield. He told the Ferrarese ambassador that things must be bad indeed if the Republic could not seek to recover her own property by means of her own people without asking leave of Milan, which at that very moment had sent her troops against Forlì without any agreement with Florence, this being an expedition of far more importance than that against Piancaldoli, and one which ought to have been carried out only in alliance with the Republic.