 In addition to saving books from destruction, Bessarion had also a more practical political agenda for his homeland; he was among the most vocal advocates for the call for a new crusade to free Greece from Ottoman control. He was therefore engaged in several diplomatic missions, in Germany and then in Vienna, which aimed to convince Western rulers to fight the Turks. After an attempt in 1464 failed because of the death of Pope Pius II in Ancona, Bessarion worked until the end of his days to build support  for a project that appeared more and more illusory with every passing year. It was on the way back from one of these diplomatic missions in 1472, this time to France, that Bessarion fell ill and died in Ravenna. He was interred in his titular Church, SS. Apostoli in Rome, where Antoniazzo Romano and Melozzo da Forlì had decorated a chapel in his name between 1464 and 1467.