The worst of the crimes committed by Sixtus V and Domenico Fontana against the antiquities of the city was the destruction of the Septizonium. Artists of the period have left invaluable sketches of this last fine example of classic architecture. It had been built by Septimius Severus against the Palatine, probably as an architectural screen to the mass of confused buildings in its rear. It faced south down the road by which travellers from Africa entered the city. It had survived the sieges, the earthquakes, and the fires of more than thirteen centuries; yet Sixtus V, without a qualm, demolished it for the sake of the blocks of travertine and peperino and its beautiful marble columns, which he wished to use in his own architectural enterprises. It is impossible not to wonder what were Fontana’s feelings as he superintended the destruction of this masterpiece of his own profession. He does little more than mention the fact in his memoirs, and this may be in itself significant. Some of the material went into the fabric of the Moses fountain; but the Romans never forgave either Sixtus V or Fontana. Considering the dearth of water in Rome in the sixteenth century and the character of Sixtus V, the conception of the central idea of this fountain--that of Moses striking the rock--was not only happy but almost inevitable. Although the Pope was an ardent churchman, it was easier for him to believe in the conversion to Catholicism of the conqueror of Ivry than to understand that the Roman ruins had any other than a commercial value. Leo X had believed in art “for art’s sake.” He had believed in nothing else. To Sixtus V, on the other hand, all the efforts of painting, sculpture, and architecture were to be for the glory of God, more particularly as that glory was understood and expounded by himself. The Neptunes and Tritons of later pontificates would have seemed to him creations of the devil. The Old Testament was to him, as it was to the English Puritan of the next century, the source of artistic inspiration; and for his great fountain the Hebrew lawgiver, bringing the water out of the rock at the Divine command, was alone adequate. It was not unnatural for him to think of himself as standing in the place of Moses. SIXTVS · V · PONT · MAX · PICENVS AQVAM · EX · AGRO · COLVMNAE VIA · PRAENEST · SINISTRORSVM MVLTAR · COLLECTIONE · VENARVM DVCTV · SINVOSO · A · RECEPTACVLO MIL · XX · A · CAPITE · XXII · ADDVXIT FELICEMQ · DE · NOMINE · ANTE · PONT · DIXIT COEPIT · AN · I · ABSOLVIT · III · MDLXXXVII