leaving any material impression on the campaign, which declined into a series of unimportant skirmishes. Meanwhile the Pope, the Venetians, and Sforza united in exciting various neighbours of the Florentines, such as the Bentivoglii, the Riarii, and Siena, to molest their frontiers, whilst Virginio Orsini prepared to restore the Medici by arms. This plan, however, fell to the ground, and Guidobaldo was soon after summoned, as a vassal of the Church, to leave his incomplete term of unsatisfactory service under the lilies of Florence, and join the new combination formed by the Pontiff to replace Ferdinand upon the Neapolitan throne. The fate of the French army at Naples, against the wreck of which this expedition was directed, has been already mentioned. The evolutions whereby Guidobaldo, as lieutenant-general of the ecclesiastical forces, in concert with the great Gonsalvo di Cordova, reduced some Angevine feudatories in the Abruzzi, who, supported by the Orsini, for a time resisted the restoration of the house of Aragon, need not occupy our attention. The particulars are involved in contradiction, and the results were unimportant to his fame. No sooner had Ferdinand triumphed over his difficulties than he was called to another sphere. He died in October, 1496, and was succeeded by his paternal uncle Federigo. Of the French, not above five hundred escaped from sword and pestilence to reach home. * * * * * Peace was once more restored to Italy, but not to the breast of that turbulent Pontiff who was her curse. The moment was propitious for resuming his favourite scheme of oppressing the Orsini, in whose extensive estates he saw ample endowments for his own disreputable progeny. The leaders of that family, Virginio, Gian-Giordano, Paolo, and its adopted scion Bartolomeo d'Alviano of Orvieto, had fought against Ferdinand's restoration, and all of them remained prisoners in his hands.[257] The Pope at once perceived the chance thus offered, and hastened to avail himself of it. After conciliating the Duke of Urbino by a pompous reception on the 14th of October, and by assigning him apartments in the Vatican, he held a secret consistory, which attainted the Orsini on general charges of lese-majesty and rebellion, and sanctioned the military occupation of their fiefs in name of the Church. He entrusted the command to his son the Duke of Gandia, associating with him the Duke of Urbino and Fabrizio Colonna (the latter but too willing to promote the downfall of a rival house), and, to inaugurate the expedition, he blessed the banners at St. Peter's, with an imposing military and religious spectacle. [Footnote 257: See their pedigree, so far as concerns our subject, in the table at the end of this volume.]