Figuerroa, knowing the wishes of his master, opened his views to the old nobles who were his intimates and drew them over to his wishes. He terrified them by setting forth the prospect of new conspiracies and the popular affection for Gianluigi which was still strong in the city. He told them that Andrea was too decrepit to combat these approaching perils and that prudence counselled adequate provisions to suppress revolt. Figuerroa found in the minds of the old nobles, morbidly sensitive to the least breath of popular commotion, complacent acquiescence, and he induced some of the faction of San Luca to address a petition to the emperor in Germany, in which they exaggerated the Fieschi movement, showed the uncertain faith of many of the Italian princes and the danger of general revolt and concluded by requesting that the security of Genoa be provided for by a Spanish garrison and a more stable form of government. The emperor answered the appeal by sending Nicolò Perenoto, lord of Granveille and imperial councillor, with some engineers, to construct a fortress on the hill of Pietra Minuta as a rein on the Genoese populace. This fortification garrisoned by a strong Spanish force would have secured the imperial power and stifled all attempts at revolution. But Andrea, who wished to rule Genoa himself, vehemently opposed the erection of a fortress to be occupied by imperial troops. The prince desired to be the sole imperial representative in Genoa and to keep the Spanish crown in a state of dependence upon his loyalty. He therefore resisted the innovation with all his power, and boldly told Granveille that he must lay aside the project. When the imperial minister informed him of the petition sent by the Genoese nobility to the emperor, the old man called to him the persons chiefly concerned in that business, reproached them spiritedly for the weakness they had shown in falling into an imperial trap, and induced them to recant their approval of this scheme of national humiliation. But Granveille still hoped to win Doria’s consent to the wishes of the emperor, and he frequently sent his engineers to Pietra Minuta for the purpose of defining the position of the new citadel. The people saw these surveys, and they one day broke into tumult, rushed to the place and would have killed Granveille and his engineers if the senate had not forseen the danger and stationed troops so as to prevent access to the hill. The emperor was now convinced that he could only carry out his plans by an open war both with Andrea and the people; and he therefore wrote to the prince that he would renounce a project which seemed so distasteful to his admiral.