He was bent on proclaiming the ultimate triumph of Catholicism, not only over antiquity, but also over the Renaissance.

His inscriptions, crosses, and images of saints are the enduring badges of serfdom set upon the monuments of ancient and renascent Italy, bearing which they were permitted by the now absolute Pontiff to remain as testimonies to his power.
Retrenchment alone could not have sufficed for the accumulation of so much idle capital, and for so extensive an expenditure on works of public utility.

Sixtus therefore had recourse to new taxation, new loans, and the creation of new offices for sale.

The Venetian envoy mentions eighteen imposts levied in his reign; a sum of 600,000 crowns accruing to the Camera by the sale of places; and extensive loans, or Monti, which were principally financed by the Genoese.[72] It was necessary for the Papacy, now that it had relinquished the larger part of its revenues derived from Europe, to live upon the proceeds of the Papal States.

The complicated financial expedients on which successive Popes relied for developing their exchequer, have been elaborately explained by Ranke.[73] They were materially assisted in their efforts to support the Papal dignity upon the resources of their realm, by the new system of nepotism which now began to prevail.