DK Travel : Rome : Galleria Borghese

Galleria Borghese

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The Borghese Gallery is one of the world’s greatest small museums. A half dozen of Bernini’s best sculptures and Caravaggio paintings casually occupy the same rooms as Classical, Renaissance and Neo-Classical works. The setting is the beautiful frescoed 17th-century villa set in the greenery of Villa Borghese park, all of which once belonged to the great art-lover of the early Baroque, Cardinal Scipione Borghese. Scipione patronized the young Bernini and Caravaggio, in the process amassing one of Rome’s richest private collections.
For more masterpieces in Rome (see Artistic Masterpieces)

Top 10 Exhibits

1. Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne

A climactic moment frozen in marble (1622–5). As Apollo is inches from grabbing Daphne, the pitying gods transform her into a laurel.
2. Bernini’s Rape of Persephone

Bernini carved this masterpiece at age 23 (1621–2). Muscular Hades throws his head back with laughter, his strong fingers pressing into the maiden’s soft flesh as she struggles to break free of his grasp.
3. Bernini’s David

Young Bernini’s David (1623–4) was the Baroque answer to Michelangelo’s Renaissance version. The frowning face is a self-portrait.
4. Caravaggio’s Madonna of the Serpent

Baroque tastes disliked this altarpiece’s lack of ornamentation (1605). It spent only weeks on St Peter’s altar before being moved to a lesser church then sold to Borghese.
5. Canova’s Pauline Bonaparte

Napoleon’s sister caused a scandal with this half-naked portrait (1805–8), lounging like a Classical goddess on a carved marble cushion.
6. Caravaggio’s Self-Portrait as a Sick Bacchus

This early self-portrait (1593) as the wine god was painted with painstaking detail, supposedly when the artist was ill. It shows finer brushwork than later works.
7. Raphael’s Deposition

The Borghese’s most famous painting (1507), although neither the gallery’s nor Raphael’s best. The Perugian matriarch Atalante Baglioni commissioned the work to honour her assassinated son (perhaps the red-shirted pall-bearer).
8. Bernini’s Aeneas and Anchises

Pietro Bernini was still guiding his 15-year-old son in this 1613 work. The carving is more timid and static than in later works, but the genius is already evident.
9. Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love

Titian’s allegorical scene (1514), painted for a wedding, exhorts the young bride that worldly love is part of the divine, and that sex is an extension of holy matrimony.
10. Correggio’s Danae

A sensual masterpiece (1531) based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses . Cupid pulls back the sheets as Jupiter, the golden shower above her head, rains his love over Danae.

Practical Information

There’s a decent café in the museum basement, although the Caffè delle Arti (06 3265 1236) at the nearby Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna is better, with a park view. Entrance to the gallery is strictly by reservation. Book your ticket well ahead of time – entries are timed and tickets often sell out days, even weeks, in advance. Villa Borghese, off Via Pinciana Tel. 06 328 10 www.galleria borghese.it Open 9am-7pm Tue-Sun Adm €8.50, €5.25 EU citizens 18–25 (free under 18 and over 65) Max. viewing time 2 hours