These disturbances in Romagna were the last during Lorenzo’s lifetime in which there occurred political and military interference in the affairs of neighbouring states, and which threatened to create complications with other powers. But the southern side of the Apennines was not altogether quiet. It is a strange but undeniable fact that the man whose efforts in general were directed to preserve peace and secure political equilibrium could not always resist the temptation of forging intrigues against little neighbouring states, and employing restless, discontented parties for this purpose. He must have been urged on by that thirst for aggrandisement which was an inheritance of the Republic and the Medici as well as of Venice and of the Visconti. The fine words about union and brotherhood were belied in action. Lorenzo was, indeed, too prudent and cautious to be easily caught by foreign bait; but he only kept out of a thing when it seemed to him unprofitable or dangerous to himself. In March 1488, Franceschetto Cybò tried to draw him into an attempt against Jacopo IV. Appiani, who had long been quarrelling with Rome; in this attempt he hoped also to gain the support of Ferrante, thinking that the latter would gladly seize an opportunity of reconciliation with the Pope. Lorenzo showed no disposition for the undertaking. If Piombino could not be won for Florence, he naturally preferred to see it in the hands of a petty native lord rather than in those of the Pope, even if the latter was willing to give it to his son, which was not certain; and he did not at all want to push the King of Naples into Tuscan affairs. He well remembered having heard how the king’s father had said in 1448 that if he took Piombino he hoped to get possession of all Tuscany; words which he recalled to the remembrance of the Sienese, who held the little state under their protection, when he sought to inspire them with a good opinion of his friendly and neighbourly views.[357] But towards Siena herself his policy was anything but straightforward. Internal disquietude had never ceased in that city, and was paving the way for a government similar to that of Florence, only that the rising families of Siena—the Petrucci and Piccolomini—could not succeed in gaining a firm footing like the Medici, and the fickleness of the people and the nobility, violently at strife among themselves, far outdid that of the Florentines. The party among the nobility once supported by Alfonso of Calabria returned from exile in 1487, and brought about an apparently sweeping change in the constitution; raising the old classes, or Monti, long degenerated into hostile and exclusive parties, and extending eligibility for office to all sections of the community. This change in the constitution was hailed and joyously celebrated as the restoration of harmony; but it was not long before the reforming faction, who had hitherto ruled, discovered that they were getting the worst of it at