Another fact in Lorenzo’s favor was that he had the warm support not only of the beautiful Ippolyta Maria, daughter of Cosmo’s friend, Francesco Sforza of Milan, and now wife of Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, King Ferrante’s heir, as well as of Don Federigo, the monarch’s younger son, who, along with Ippolyta, was a friend to the “New Learning,” but he also had the whole body of Neapolitan humanists on his side, scarce one of whom but had experienced in some form or another the Medicean bounty.  Such powerful advocacy was not without its influence in bringing about the result; while Ferrante more and more realized that if the Florentine Medici were crushed he would have no ally to whom to look for help when the inevitable shuffle of the political cards took place on the death of Sixtus.

In February, 1480, therefore, Lorenzo returned in triumph to Florence, to be received with rapture by his fellow-citizens.  Had he delayed a few months longer, his visit and his ad-miseri-cordiam appeals would not have been needed.  In August of that year Keduk Achmed, one of the Turkish Sultan’s (Mahomet II) ablest generals, besieged and took the city of Otranto.  In face of the common danger to all Italy, Sixtus was compelled to accept the treaty made by Ferrante with Lorenzo, and a general peace ensued.  The decade accordingly closed with an absolution for all offences granted by the Pope to Florence, conditional on the Tuscan republic contributing its share to the expenses of the military preparations to resist the invasion of the Turk.

Notwithstanding the war, the progress of the Renaissance during the first decade of Lorenzo’s rule was very marked.  To the rapid diffusion of printing this was largely due.  Lorenzo had not imbibed the prejudices against the new art entertained by Cosmo and Federigo of Montefeltro.  He looked at the practical, not the sentimental, side of the question as regards the new invention.  Having seen that the press could throw off, in a few days, scores of copies of any work, of which it took an amanuensis months to produce one; also that the scholars of all Italy could be furnished almost immediately, and at a low price, with the texts of any manuscript they desired, while they had to wait months for a limited number of copies whose cost was wellnigh prohibitive, he supported the new invention from the outset.  Having resolved to further his father’s efforts to establish printing in Florence, he stimulated the local goldsmith, Bernardo Cennini, to turn his attention to type-casting in metal, and even agreed to pay him an annual grant from the year 1471 until he had fairly settled himself in business.  Nor did he confine his favors to him.  John of Mainz and Nicholas of Breslau, who arrived in Florence, the former in 1472 and the latter in 1477, also participated in his open-hearted liberality.  Printing struck its roots deep into the Tuscan community and flourished excellently.  Though the Florentine craft never attained the reputation of the Venetian Aldi and Asolani, the Giunti of Rome, the Soncini of Fano, the Stephani of Paris, and Froben of Basel, it had the name, for a time at least, of being one of the most accurate of all presses.