New elements of discord were meanwhile fermenting, by which the Turkish crusade was indefinitely postponed. The popularity gained by the noble character of Alfonso of Naples, and confirmed by his residence in Italy, descended not to his successor. Ferdinand was already unfavourably known, from his sombre and revengeful temper, his falsehood and avarice; yet we look in vain for provocations or grievances adequate to justify the factious proceedings of his great barons. Resolved to supplant him, they made overtures to Jean, King of Navarre, the successor to Alfonso's hereditary dominions, whose eldest son, Count Viane, had already gathered golden opinions in Lower Italy. But Jean, more anxious to consolidate his kingdom than to augment it by outlying appendages, declined interfering, and the malcontents turned to the Angevine claimant of the Neapolitan crown. René the Good still reigned in Provence, occupied with his pen and pencil, and better fitted to be the bard of chivalry than its hero. His son, the titular Duke of Calabria, had established himself at Genoa in 1458, with almost sovereign authority, on the invitation of her citizens, who, finding themselves worsted in a contest, unwisely renewed by Alfonso, after the peace of Lodi, in order to avenge himself of the obstinately Angevine policy of that republic, naturally called to their aid his French rival. The Duke's winning qualities, and the sound judgment which he had manifested in their service, were well calculated to render him a competitor very formidable to the unprepossessing Ferdinand. The Genoese, whose hearts he had thus gained, were ready to back him with a naval armament, reinforced by some galleys originally fitted out at Marseilles for the Turkish expedition, but placed by Charles VII. at René's disposal. Florence, a tried partisan of the Angevine succession, was faithful to her prescriptive policy, and now urged upon Venice the recent grudge which both republics owed to Alfonso of Aragon. But it was in vain that the Duke sought support from Francesco Sforza and the Pope. The former, with comprehensive glance, calculated the risks of French domination in Italy, and took his stand on the treaty of Lodi, which, uniting all her powers in one solemn national league, guaranteed the succession of Naples. He therefore respectfully declined from the Angevine candidate the same bribe which Celestine had vainly offered him of his father's holdings in the Abruzzi, and during the Congress at Mantua confirmed the Pontiff's inclination for the Aragonese dynasty.