He then returned to Italy and sought patronage from Cosimo I de' Medici in Florence, but these efforts also failed and he returned to Venice, where his translation of Ovid was published in 1561. In 1562 he was called upon by the Olympic Academy of Verona to write the preface for the first Italian performance of Gian Giorgio Trissino’s Sofonisba. He then turned his hand to Virgil, completing his translation of the first book of the Aeneid a few years later.
He went first to Parma, then to Venice, then to Paris, where he worked on his translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which is his most esteemed work. The first three books of the translation were published at Paris, and dedicated to Henry II. Anguillara's hopes for French royal patronage evaporated with the death of Henry II, and he (probably) completed his Metamorphoses at Lyon in 1560 with the support of Matteo Balbani of Lucca.