Ferruccio proposed to the government of the Republic that he should march on Rome and terrorize the Pope by the threat of a sack into making peace with Florence on favourable terms, but although the war committee appointed him commissioner-general for the operations outside the city, they rejected his scheme as too audacious.

Although the besieged in Florence, knowing that a large part of the Imperialists under the Prince of Orange Philibert of Châlon, had gone to meet Ferruccio, wished to co-operate with the latter by means of a sortie, they were prevented from doing so by their own treacherous commander, Malatesta Baglioni.

Maramaldo's deed earned him immortal infamy, even turning his own surname into a synonym for "villainous" in Italian, while the verb maramaldeggiare exists as well-meaning "to bully a defenceless victim".

During the Risorgimento, when the country of Italy was being assembled from parts occupied by foreign empires or dynasties, the figure of Ferruccio became a historical metaphor for the present struggles.

L'Assedio di Firenze, the most famous novel of Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi, was based on and greatly glorified his life; he is indeed cited in "Il Canto degli Italiani", the national anthem of Italy composed in 1847 by Goffredo Mameli.