All these considerations induced Sixtus to yield and leave Venice to prosecute the war alone.  This it did against a quadruple alliance, for the Pope, when the haughty republic of the lagoons refused to disgorge its Ferrarese prey at his orders, promptly changed sides, and was as keen against the aggressor as he had previously been favorable to it.  The Venetians sustained two severe defeats, while their fleet was almost shattered by a storm.  The pecuniary strain was beyond their resources longer to maintain.  They therefore resorted to the customary project of inducing some other power to intervene.  In this case they took the step of inviting the Duke of Orleans to lay claim to the dukedom of Milan, and the Duke of Lorraine to the throne of Naples.  The move was successful as regards Ludovico of Milan; he withdrew from the alliance, and much against the wish of the other allies the peace of Bagnolo was concluded in August, 1484.  To Sixtus the news came as the knell of his dearest hopes.  He gave way to one wild outburst of passion, in which he cursed all who had been engaged in making peace, then apoplexy supervened, and within a few hours he was a corpse.  He was succeeded by Cardinal Cybo, a warm friend toward the Medici, and one who had such a profound admiration for the genius of Lorenzo in statecraft that he seldom took any step without consulting him, though unfortunately he did not always follow the Magnifico’s advice.

If no one else reaped honor and glory from this Ferrarese war, Lorenzo undoubtedly did so.  By both sides the fact was admitted that he had acted throughout as a far-seeing, sagacious diplomatist, who, while giving preeminence, as was natural, to the welfare of his own state, had sought to conserve the cause of letters, even amid the turmoil incident upon the collision of political interests.  He had proved the friend even of the enemies of his own country, when once they had passed from the scene of conflict, as, for example, when he dared Girolamo Riario to raise a finger in the direction of dispossessing the son of the Pope’s general, Ruberto Malatesta, of his Rimini estates.  He was the friend of the oppressed everywhere, and in more cases than one his powerful protection saved the children of his friends from being robbed by powerful relatives.  This connection between Florence, Naples, Milan, Rome, and Ferrara tended to the promotion of intellectual intercourse between them.  As printing was now being briskly prosecuted all over Northern and Central Italy, the interchange of literature went on ceaselessly among them.

This, however, was Lorenzo’s last great war.  True, he was implicated in the prolonged quarrel between the papacy and King Ferrante of Naples, yet it was more as a mediator between the two antagonists than as the ally of the last-named that he took part in it; although, as Armstrong points out, he paid for the services of Trivulsio and four hundred cross-bowmen, that by enabling the Neapolitans to check San Severino, the leader of the papal-Venetian troops, he might induce Innocent VIII to lose heart and retire from the struggle.