We return from this digression to the thread of our narrative. The long wars had lessened the gains of our trades-people; even the silk operatives were by the want of markets reduced to extremities. In that year, too, food was dear throughout Italy; and the merchants who held grain kept it back from sale in order to raise the price. Gianluigi, wishing to provide for the pressing wants of so many operatives, called to him Sebastiano Granara, consul of the weavers, obtained a list of the most distressed families, and sent them sums of money with a request to keep secret the name of the donor, and to inform him whenever they were again in urgent need. He frequently requested the artisans and mechanics who were natives of his lands (they were more than two hundred) to come to him in Vialata, where he opened to them his granaries, and otherwise succoured them. By such acts of generosity he acquired the favour of the people, who were ready, as a proverb has it, “to carry water for him in their ears,” and to defend his person at their own peril. Having by such practices obtained the sympathy of the new nobles and the humble classes who lived by their daily labour, the count began to provide the arms and soldiers which he should need, and, with great tact, availed himself in the exigency of the discords among the neighbouring governments. Pierluigi Farnese, after having obtained from Paul III. the investiture of Parma and Piacenza, soon found that he had not sufficient forces to maintain his power in these provinces. Gerolamo Pallavicini, marquis of Cortemaggiore, and others of that family to whom the duke had prohibited the trade in salt, raised an armed rebellion. The Rossi, Sanseverino, Pusterla of Milan, and other feudatories, were supporting the insurrection. It was also encouraged by Giovanni del Verme, lord of the Romagna, a personal enemy of the duke, and by Beatrice Trivulzio, who being incensed against Paul III. for conceding the port of the Po in Piacenza to Michelangelo Bonaroti, excavated a new harbour, and deprived the divine architect of his reward. The duke collected an army, and, as soon as he felt able to contest the field, demanded from some of his enemies the restitution of his dominions in their possession, claiming that these lands and feuds had been ceded to them by his predecessors to the prejudice of the ducal rights. The Pallavicini, who were particularly included in this demand, made such preparations as were possible to secure their own rights and repel all the duke’s attempts at aggression.