In the North, the religious reform was serving as a stepping-stone for the new dynasty that was climbing to the Norwegian and Swedish thrones, and Muscovy, wrapped in centuries of isolation, had no part in these events—was not aware of them, or scarcely felt their distant consequences. Yet Time was labouring to reknot the bonds Time had himself untied. Western Europe was beginning, in some quarters at all events, to take an interest in the mysterious neighbour by whom she herself was scorned and disowned. As early as the fifteenth century, when the leaven which was to destroy her internal unity and harmony was already working within her, she had watched the rising of yet another peril above her horizon. Answering the tempest against the Papacy that roared within her boundaries, she had heard the mighty clamour of Islam, making ready to assault the Christian world. Stirred by the twofold threat, Rome and Vienna, Genoa and Venice, had looked about them for some new support, and had discovered Russia. Ever since that day, Italian diplomats and Levantine agents had been labouring to bridge the gulf. By his marriage with the daughter of the Paleologus, Ivan IV.'s grandfather had entered the family of the European Princes, under the auspices of the Holy See. In 1473, the Venetian Senate reminded the Muscovite monarch of his claim to the Byzantine inheritance. In 1480 and 1490, the direct heir, Andrew Paleologus, tried to strike a bargain as to his rights, at Moscow. He failed, and began to treat with Charles VIII. of France. But Rome was still supposed to hold the key of this treasure, and Rome, so men fancied, would dispose of it to secure a Russian army to fight the Turks. In 1484, Sixtus IV. found it necessary to reassure Casimir, King of Poland, who imagined his own rights, as an elder member of the Slav family, threatened.
Ivan III., who cared more for realities than for imaginary titles, sent one scornful refusal after another. Yet the matter of the Russian provinces, claimed alike by Muscovy and Poland, was dependent on the hypothesis of a great Slav empire, strengthened by the investiture of Rome. The new diplomatic combinations which arose in this sphere of rival influences and dominations themselves endued the Pan-Russian idea with body and strength.
Though the Grand Duke dismissed Andrew Paleologus to seek other buyers, he gave a far better reception to the Emperor's envoy, Von Turn. He avowed himself ready to make an alliance with Maximilian, with the eventual object of opposing Islam, but to settle historic accounts with his Polish neighbour, in the first place. Without waiting for any Papal bulls, he allowed his subjects to call him by the name of
