Sixtus V (pope)

Sixtus V ruled with a hard hand, wiping out the bandits who had plagued the Papal States by executing them in large numbers. He remade Rome as a modern city, cutting new straight avenues, raising Egyptian obelisks in the squares, and finishing the dome of St. Peter's. He fixed the number of cardinals at seventy, a limit that held for centuries, and reorganized the central offices of the Church.