The Pope became convinced that Galileo had ridiculed him in the character of Simplicio to whom Galileo had naturally enough assigned the Pope's syllogistic argument. On the 23rd of September, he ordered the Inquisitor of Florence to notify Galileo (in the presence of concealed notary and witnesses in case he were "recusant") to come to Rome and appear before the Sacred Congregation before the end of the next month;[265] the publication and sale of the _Dialogo_ meanwhile being stopped at great financial loss to the printer.[266] Galileo promised to obey; but he was nearly seventy years old and so much broken in health that a long difficult journey in the approaching winter seemed a great and unnecessary hardship, especially as he was loath to believe that the Church authorities were really hostile to him. Delays were granted him till the Pope in December finally ordered him to be in Rome within a month.[267] The Florentine Inquisitor replied that Galileo was in bed so sick that three doctors had certified that he could not travel except at serious risk to his life. This certificate declared that he suffered from an intermittent pulse, from enfeebled vital faculties, from frequent dizziness, from melancholia, weakness of the stomach, insomnia, shooting pains and serious hernia.[268] The answer the Pope made to this was to order the Inquisitor to send at Galileo's expense a commissary and a doctor out to his villa to see if he were feigning illness; if he were, he was to be sent bound and in chains to Rome at once; if [Transcriber's Note: 'he' missing] were really too ill to travel, then he was to be sent in chains as soon as he was convalescent and could travel safely.[269] Galileo did not delay after that any longer than he could help, and set out for Rome in January in a litter supplied by the Tuscan Grand Duke.[270] The journey was prolonged by quarantine, but upon his arrival (February 13, 1633), he was welcomed into the palace of Niccolini, the warm-hearted ambassador of the Grand Duke. [Footnote 265: Ibid: 17-18.] [Footnote 266: Galileo: _Opere_, XV, 26.] [Footnote 267: Doc. in Favaro: 74.] [Footnote 268: Ibid: 75.] [Footnote 269: Ibid: 76.] [Footnote 270: Ibid: 80-81.]