When the pontiff had declared his readiness to interpose his good offices between the contending powers, for the restoration of peace, the Florentines sent Leonardo Aretino to the Roman court, invested with the dignity of embassador of the Tuscan republic.[149] In the nomination of their representative, they gratified the wishes of Martin V. who had long entertained a great respect for Leonardo, and had in vain attempted, by the offer of considerable preferment, to induce him to enter into his service.[150] So highly did Leonardo’s constituents approve of his conduct in his diplomatic capacity, that immediately after his return to Florence, in the latter end of the year 1427, they appointed him to fill the honourable and lucrative office of Secretary or Vice-chancellor of the Florentine state. If credit may be given to his own assertion in a letter to Feltrino Boiardo, he accepted this dignity with reluctance, and lamented the imperious necessity, which compelled him, from a sense of duty, to relinquish the pleasures of literary retirement, for the cares incident to a public station.[151] His reluctance is, however, otherwise accounted for in an epistle which Poggio wrote to him on this occasion, and from which it appears, that when the office in question was first offered to his acceptance, it was proposed that the marks of dignity usually attached to it should be withdrawn; but that on his refusal to accept it on those conditions, the administrators of the government agreed to confer upon him the full honours which had been received by preceding Vice-chancellors, to which terms he acceded. When Poggio was informed that his friend was established in his new office, he congratulated him by letter on this accession to his civic honours, which, however, he observed, was, like matrimony, likely to be attended with considerable difficulty, trouble, and uneasiness.[152]