In the year 426, during the reign of Theodosius the Younger, there was a great destruction of the temples and fanes. “The destruction of the idolatrous fanes,” says an ecclesiastical writer, “was from the foundation; and so complete, that we cannot perceive a vestige of the former superstition. Their temples are so destroyed, that the appearance of their form no longer remains; nor can those of our times recognise the shape of their altars. As for their materials, they are dedicated to the fanes of the martyrs. Temples are not found among the wonders admired by Theodoric, except the half-stripped Capitoline fane is to be enumerated; and Procopius confines his notices to the Temple of Peace, and to the Temple of Janus. In the reign of Justinian, the temples were partly in private hands, and, therefore, not universally protected as public edifices. Pagan structures would naturally suffer more at the first triumph of Christianity than afterwards, when the rage and the merit of destruction must have diminished. It is not then rash to believe, that many temples were destroyed or despoiled, and the materials employed to the honour of the new religion. Du Barga asserts that there were marks on the obelisks of their having been all overthrown, with the exception of one, which was not dedicated to any of the false gods of antiquity.” The destruction of the baths are attributed to the same piety, and those of Diocletian and Caracalla showed, in the eighth century, evident marks of human violence. Pope Gregory III. employed nine columns of some ancient building for the church of St. Peter. The rebuilding of the city walls by four popes, in the same century, was a useful but a destructive operation. Pope Hadrian I. threw down an immense structure of Tiburtine stone to enlarge the church of St. Maria in Cosmedin. Donus I. had before (A. D. 676) stripped the marble from a large pyramid, generally known by the name of Scipio’s Tomb. Paul II. employed the stones of the Coliseum to build a palace. Sixtus IV. took down the Temple of Hercules, and destroyed the remains of an ancient bridge to make four hundred cannon-balls for the castle of St. Angelo. Paul III. and his nephews laboured incessantly at the quarry of the Coliseum. He devastated, also, many other buildings. Sixtus V. threw down several statues still remaining in the capital. Urban VIII. took off the bronze from the portico of the Pantheon, and some of the base of the sepulchre of Cecilia Metella; and Paul V. removed the entablature and pediment of a structure in the Forum of Nerva, and also the remaining column of the Temple of Peace. Lastly, Alexander VII. took down the arch called “di Portogallo,” in order to widen the Corso. The inferior clergy, too, were great depredators; insomuch that a volume of no inconsiderable size has been composed by one of their own order to enumerate the Pagan materials applied to the use of the church.