The principal object of Francis being thus effected, he was not indisposed to reconciliation with the Holy See, for which Leo had sedulously retained an opening by keeping Ludovico Canossa throughout the contest as an accredited agent at the French head-quarters. But the Pontiff met the usual reward of trimmers. The tardy accommodation offered by his envoy came too late to save Parma and Piacenza, for which alone he had become a party to the war. The French monarch would not hear of renouncing what he insisted were intrinsic portions of the Milanese, but offered to meet with the Pontiff and arrange in person a lasting amity, Bologna being named for the interview. Upon the diplomatic arrangements which there occupied these potentates in the end of the year we need not touch, further than to notice that the intercession of Francis in favour of the Duke of Urbino, which the latter had hastened, after the battle of Marignano, to bespeak by means of a special envoy, proved quite ineffectual. It obviously was dictated less by any interest in the Duke's welfare than by the wish to thwart a favourite project of his fickle ally, and it at once was met by reference to an article which the Pope had adroitly inserted in the treaty, that Francis should in no way interfere for the protection of any undutiful vassal of the Holy See. From Bologna Leo proceeded to Florence, where he remained most of the winter, maturing his schemes for the ruin of Francesco Maria. The death of Ferdinand of Spain in January, 1516, soon reawoke the ambitious hopes of Francis, by reminding him of his predecessor's dormant claims upon the Neapolitan crown. But a new combination of circumstances gave another turn to his thoughts. The efforts of the Venetians to recover Verona and Brescia from Maximilian brought the latter into Lombardy at the head of fifteen thousand Swiss troops, by whom Lautrec, the French general, was for a time hard pressed, and Leo, ever anxious to conciliate a conqueror, hastily sent Cardinal Bibbiena with reinforcements to the Emperor's camp. Yet the storm, passing off suddenly and harmlessly, left few traces besides jealousy, which the prudence of that wily legate scarcely prevented from arising in the mind of Francis towards his slippery ally.