Our next object will be the Fontana di Termini, the water of which is called Felice, from the name of Sixtus the Fifth, before his elevation to the pontificate; since by him the water was conducted from Colonna to Rome, and this fountain erected under the direction of Fontana. You are surprised both at the quantity of water, and the display of architecture at these Roman fountains. Here are four Ionic columns, with three niches in the intercolumns, from which the water issues; and so far the architectural composition is good, but above there is a pedestal, made of a most disproportionate size, in order to receive the great letters of the inscription, and over that a sort of circular pediment, and other ornaments, which are quite sickening. The sculpture in the niches is large and conspicuous, but in bad taste, and the two beautiful Egyptian lions of basalt, which adorn the lower part, are the most estimable part of the composition. Even these are ill used by the insertion of small pipes, through which they awkwardly squirt out a little water. Santa Maria della Vittoria just by, in the Strada di Porta Pia, if not one of the beautiful, is at least one of the rich churches of Rome. It was built by Carlo Maderno, who has used a Sicilian alabaster of a dark brown colour, which is not a good material for architecture, and overcharged it with gilding and ornaments. There is even a pretence of forming the doors of this alabaster, which is in bad taste. Doors should either be of wood or metal. The door of a tomb alone, which is supposed to open only once in two or three years, may be permitted to be of marble. The church is not visited so much for its architecture, as for some fine paintings of Domenichino, Guercino, and Guido;[1] and for a Santa Teresa in marble by Bernini, which is said to be his masterpiece. The saint is supposed to be dying in the ecstacies of divine love, but the figure wants nature, and the death is a smirking angel, with a gilt dart. Under the principal altar, (which is very rich and very ugly) are preserved the bones of some female saint, I forget who, covered up in a waxen image, and this is gaily dressed in blue and white satin; because, as the priest who conducted me round the church, judiciously observed, the skeleton was a black and disagreeable object, very inconsistent with the appearance of such an elegant altar.