The preceding rapid sketch may show the materials of which the invading hosts were composed, and the nature of the approaching danger. Its imminence appalled even those powers who, like Sforza, thought more of their own ends than of the general weal; and Alfonso II., who had succeeded to the crown of Naples on the death of his father Ferdinand, in January, 1494, was indefatigable in uniting them on the defensive. With Pietro de' Medici, we have already seen that the latter was in close relations. Among the princes of Romagna, Gallic influence had obtained no footing. The Venetians, occupied in the defence of their eastern dependencies from the Turks, and trusting, perhaps, to see Charles redeem his promise of a crusade against the Crescent, were inclined to neutrality. Genoa was in the hands of a faction entirely under the influence of Ludovico il Moro,[*246] who, though bound by treaty to Charles, was already alienated at heart from the connection, and ready on the first opportunity to discard it. The Pontiffs position, like his usual policy, was somewhat complicated. We have formerly found his predecessors generally hostile to the dynasty of Aragon, as well as to that of Hohenstaufen, and tolerably consistent in support of the Angevine races, whose original title the Neapolitan crown was a papal grant. Further, claims of the popes as lords paramount of that kingdom, and the annual payments which in that capacity they demanded, were fertile grounds for rancour, which but a few years before had broken out into hostilities. We have also seen Ferdinand assisting Virginio Orsini in purchasing those estates from which Alexander was bent upon expelling him. But a deeper cause for mortification and personal enmity arose out of the resistance by that King and his son to the matrimonial alliance of a princess of their house with one of the Pope's spurious sons.[*247] For a time, therefore, his Holiness balanced between the parties, and appears even to have allowed his name to be used by Ludovico Sforza in proposing to Charles the conquest of Naples.[*248] But his object was merely to annoy and alarm Ferdinand; and when he found this idea seriously adopted by the young monarch of France, he hastily backed out, and employed his spiritual and temporal influence to dissuade him from the enterprise.[249] Alfonso warmly supported his Holiness in this new policy, and, in order to clench him in it, betrothed his natural daughter, Sancia, with a dowry of lands worth 10,000 ducats of rent, and jewels to the value of 200,000 ducats, to Giuffredo Borgia, the Pope's youngest child, whom he created Prince of Squillace. This son-in-law not being yet marriageable, the King had an excuse for taking him to be brought up near his bride, with the intention of securing a hostage for his unstable parent's good faith. As a further bait, the principality of Tricarico, with estates of 12,000 ducats a year, and one of the seven