The conclusion of Cioli’s reply of 19th September to this ominous despatch of Niccolini’s gives us an insight into the attitude which the Tuscan Government, even at that time, desired to assume towards the papal chair in this unfortunate business. Cioli writes:— “His Highness has heard the letters of your excellency of the 4th and 5th, and by this affair of Signor Mariano and that of Signor Galileo he was placed in so much difficulty that I do not know how it will be. I know well that his Holiness will never have to blame the ministers for giving bad advice.”[286] Two letters from Count Magalotti,[287] who was usually well informed, arrived almost at the same time as this despatch. Both bear the date of 4th September; one is to Mario Guiducci, the other to Galileo, who in a letter of 23rd August, which is lost, had expressed his anxiety to Magalotti lest his work should be pronounced suspicious, and the Copernican doctrine condemned as heretical by the authorities. Magalotti’s news was, on the whole, reassuring. According to the opinions of persons who are generally present at the sittings of the Congregation of the Holy Office, he thought he could assure Galileo that it would never go so far as for the Copernican system to be condemned by the _supreme authority_.[288] He thought, with Riccardi, that they would not entirely prohibit the “Dialogues,” but only correct them, so as to sustain the decree of 5th March, 1616. He also urgently advised, like Niccolini, that they should arm themselves with the utmost patience, and rather confer with Cardinal Barberini than with Urban, “for reasons which it is not necessary to discuss here.”