In the meantime the treaty of Madrid (1526) released Francis I. from prison and he made haste to violate the stipulations extorted from him by force. He formed an alliance for the liberation of Italy, with the Pope, the Venitians and Francis Sforza. The French monarch proclaimed himself the apostle of liberty for oppressed people and awakened everywhere the spirit of resistance to the Spanish power. A strange delusion that the French monarch sought to enfranchise Italy seized upon the most illustrious men of our Peninsula. The Genoese were especially forward in urging the Pope to abandon the Imperial alliance and join the French league. Foremost among those who shared this delusion was Giammateo Ghiberti of Genoa, chancellor of Clement VII., a knight of stainless honour and a prelate uncontaminated by the moral leprosy which raged in the Roman court. The choicest spirit in literature and science supported the generous hopes of Ghiberti. Among them was Pietro Bembo who had been secretary to Leo X., Ludovico Canossa, the French ambassador in Venice, and Jacopo Sodoleto, an extraordinary genius whom the amorous overtures of the beautiful Imperia failed to degrade. Sodoleto, a man deeply religious and patriotic had urged Clement to make bold reforms in the bosom of the church. He founded in Rome, with the cöperation of Ghiberti, Bembo, Caraffa and many others, the oratorio of divine love, and he openly professed his belief in the doctrine of justification by faith, a dogma of the evangelical churches.