While Piero found refuge at Venice and Urbino, Cardinal Giovanni travelled in Germany, in the Netherlands and in France.
In 1815 he represented him at the congress of Vienna, and succeeded in obtaining for the Netherlands a considerable augmentation of territory.
On the 18th of August 1477, by his marriage at Ghent to Mary, who had just inherited Burgundy and the Netherlands from her father Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, he effected a union of great importance in the history of the house of Habsburg.
Maximilian was compelled to assent to the treaty of Arras in 1482 between the states of the Netherlands and Louis XI.
Maximilian did not, however, abandon the struggle in the Netherlands.