In October, 1459, the Duke of Calabria made a descent on the Neapolitan coast, and his arrival gave the signal for an almost universal rising of the great barons of the kingdom. At this crisis of his fortunes, Ferdinand succeeded, through the Duke of Milan's strenuous exertions, in detaching from the Angevine party Venice and Florence, which assumed a neutral position. He also summoned Piccinino from schemes of personal aggrandisement in La Marca, to defend his crown; but that greedy freebooter, indignant at being called off his quarry, took the usual licence of condottieri, and opened a correspondence with his master's competitor. Warned of this by the Count of Urbino, the King and the Duke of Milan made every effort to retain Giacopo under the banner of Aragon, and we are assured that the Count, in their interest, went so far as to promise him a surrender of part of his newly recovered territory, should the adventurer not make good for himself any other seigneury.[106] But trusting little to that slippery soldier, they desired Federigo and the Lord of Pesaro to concert measures for preventing his march into the Abruzzi. Their precautions were, however, defeated, for Piccinino, who then lay in Romagna, sent his baggage and camp-followers to be embarked at the nearest ports, and partly by dexterously misleading them as to his route, chiefly by forced marches of extraordinary rapidity, in three days scoured the Adriatic coast, and reached the Tronto without impediment. On the last day he is said to have done fifty miles, with twenty squadrons of men-at-arms and two thousand infantry--a feat which cost him many horses, and which he was believed to have effected by aid of the Lady of Loretto, before whose shrine he found time to prefer a passing orison. Possibly more important to his success was the adhesion of Ercole d'Este, and of the Lords of Rimini and Camerino, to the cause of Anjou, as well as orders privately given by the papal legate to accelerate the passage of his formidable company through the ecclesiastical territory. [Footnote 106: BALDI, III., p. 79. Pius had arranged all this with Federigo at Siena, in February, 1460, and had advanced him money, in order, if necessary, to corrupt Piccinino's troops--_Commentaria_, p. 97. At p. 100 the Pontiff insinuates against Federigo the same charge which the Urbino writers have preferred against his own legate, of facilitating their transit into the enemy's country, which unquestionably could not have been effected without collusion or remissness in some quarter.]