It is not known what means the duke intended to employ for carrying out the contemplated revolution. Perhaps both Fieschi and Farnese were yet undecided. It is not impossible (we have strong testimony for the theory) that they waited, with the hope of enlisting on their side one who had even more audacity and strength than themselves, and who would have brought no mean forces into the alliance. One of those reformers who makes centuries glorious was maturing a scheme of greater scope than that of Fieschi. Francesco Burlamacchi, born of a noble house in Lucca, had conceived the lofty design of revolutionizing, under popular auspices, the Tuscan cities oppressed by Cosimo; allying them to the still surviving republics of Lucca and Siena; embracing in the new nation Perugia, which since 1540 had maintained itself under popular government against the Papacy; taking away from the Apostolic See the temporal power, and restoring the church to the consecrated poverty of the Gospel. He confided in the popular discontent at domestic and foreign tyranny, and not less in the reformed doctrines which were advocated by the most distinguished Italians, especially by those of Lucca. He proposed his scheme to his friends and sought partisans among the Florentine exiles, the faction of the Strozzi, and even among the German Lutherans who had at their head Phillip Landgrave of Hesse, and Frederick, duke of Saxony. Impatient of delay, he went in person to Venice, then the asylum of the Tuscan and Genoese exiles, and solicited their coöperation. He made an arrangement with Leone Strozzi, prior of Capua, by which the latter agreed to support the enterprize; but Strozzi thought it wiser to procrastinate until the result of the Germanic war should be known. Burlamacchi, having been created commissary of ordnance at Montagna, resolved to undertake his daring enterprize without waiting longer for foreign aid. He intended to rouse the people to arms, march rapidly upon Pisa--whose fortress, commanded by Vincenzo del Poggio, would be opened to him without bloodshed--to capture Florence, and thence spread the generous fire of liberty over the Peninsula. The revolution was planned with great prudence and all contingencies were amply provided for. Unfortunately, however, he was obliged in the exercise of his office as Confaloniere of justice to issue a proclamation against one Andrea Pezzini who was cognisant of the conspiracy. This person in order to gratify his malice, revealed the whole scheme to Duke Cosimo. The government of Luca, mortally terrified by the Pope and the emperor, arrested Burlamacchi, in August 1546, and obtained from him by torture a confession of his revolutionary designs. Luca consigned him to the imperial ministers by whom he was beheaded in Milan.