Art highlights in the Borghese Gallery in Rome include top sculptures by Bernini, the largest Caravaggio painting collection, and top works from antiquity.
The Borghese Gallery (Museo e Galeria Borghese) in the Villa Borghese Park is one of the best art galleries to visit in Rome. This opulent baroque villa is filled with art from antiquity, fine paintings including the largest Caravaggio collection in the world, and sculptures. The marbles by Bernini, of which four were specifically commissioned for the Borghese collection, are among the art highlights of the entire Baroque period. Buy tickets well in advance — time-slot reservations are essential and only a limited number of visitors per day are allowed to enjoy the art in this exceptional gallery.
Top Art Highlights in the Borghese Gallery in Rome
Top art highlights in the Borghese Gallery include:
- Gian Lorenzo Bernini — several sculptures including David; Apollo and Daphne; The Rape of Proserpina; Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius; and Truth Unveiled by Time.
- Caravaggio — the largest collection of his paintings including Young Sick Bacchus, Boy with Fruit Basket, St Jerome Writing, St John the Baptist, David with the Head of Goliath, and Madonna of Palafrenieri.
- Canova — Paolina Borghese as Venus Victorious
- Raphael — The Deposition and Lady with a Unicorn.
- Titian — Sacred and Profane Love
The core of the Borghese Gallery Collection was acquired by various means by Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1577-1633). He was not a very religious man but as the nephew of Pope Paul V that was not a disqualifying trait. Much of the art and baroque decorations of the early 17th-century Villa Borghese are secular in nature with the aesthetics often of more importance to the cardinal than the religious message. He famously encouraged a young Bernini and Caravaggio but his exquisite taste was wide and he collected works from antiquity to the contemporary, which in this case meant early baroque.
Bernini Highlights in the Borghese Gallery
The art highlights of the Borghese Gallery include several sculptures by the Baroque artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The four most important ones were commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese from a young and inexperienced Bernini. These four sculptures are still among the highlights in the Borghese Gallery:
- Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius (1619)
- The Rape of Proserpina or The Abduction of Proserpina (1621–22)
- Apollo and Daphne (1622–1625), and
- David (1623–24).
For more on these sculptures and rare Bernini paintings, see Top Bernini Sculptures in the Villa Borghese Gallery in Rome.
Caravaggio Paintings in the Borghese Gallery
Cardinal Sciopine Borghese loved the work of Mersi Michelangelo called Caravaggio (1571-1610) and acquired several of his paintings. As a result, the Borghese Gallery has with six paintings the largest collection of Caravaggio art in the world — a few further fruit still lives are disputed. All these paintings hang in Room 8 — the Silenus room which has at its center a large marble dancing satyr from antiquity (2nd century, restored by Bertel Thorvaldsen in 1830).
Young Man with a Basket of Fruit, ca. 1593, is an early work and confirmed Caravaggio’s talent for painting fruit, which was his earner early in his career.
Self-portrait in the Guise of Bacchus, or more commonly, Sick Bacchus, ca. 1595, is most likely a self-portrait Caravaggio painted shortly after arriving in Rome in a period when he was sick. It partly explains the unhealthy complexion of the young man while the fruit was painted to perfection.
Sick Bacchus and Young Man with a Basket of Fruit were among the art Pope Paul V confiscated from Giuseppe Cesari in 1607. The Pope handed the works to his art-loving nephew Cardinal Scipione Borghese soon after.
Saint Jerome Writing, ca. 1605, was painted for Cardinal Scipione Borghese. It shows Saint Jerome as an old man studying the scriptures, which he according to tradition translated from Greek into Latin.
Madonna and Child with St. Anne (Madonna Dei Palafrenieri), 1606, was painted for the Palafrenieri archconfraternity and briefly hung in St Peter’s Basilica. It shows the child Christ helping Mary to crush a snake, the symbol of sin. It was removed from St Peter’s for unclear reasons but Mary’s pronounced cleavage, her face resembling a famous prostitute, and the boy Christ being too naked are usually blamed. There is also the possibility that the painting was simply physically too big for the space on the altar. However, Scipione Borghese saw it, liked it, and promptly bought it.
The final two paintings were works Caravaggio carried with him when trying to return to Rome in 1610. (He died en route.) It is often speculated that Caravaggio intended to gift the works to Cardinal Scipione Borghese in the hope that he would intercede with his uncle, Pope Paul V, in order to get a pardon from the death sentenced passed on Carvaggion in 1606 on charges of murder.
St John the Baptist, ca. 1610, was a popular character for many painters and Caravaggio painted him frequently — usually as a young man and usually nude (but genitals mostly covered). In this version, a young John sits lost in thought next to a ram, the symbol of man’s redemption through the sacrifice of Christ.
David with the Head of Goliath (1609-10) was one of Caravaggio’s last works. Previously Caravaggio painted many versions of this Biblical scene but here he used his own face for the severed head of Goliath. Young David is uncharacteristically pensive rather than triumphant in this work.
(A similar scene (but with an outsized Goliath’s head) by Caracciolo Giovanni Battista called Battistello hangs behind Bernini’s David.)
Pauline Bonaparte by Antonio Canova
The semi-nude Paolina Borghese Bonaparte as Venus Victrix (Paulina Borghese as Venus Victorious) by Antonio Canova (1757-1822) is one of the best-known modern sculptures in the Borghese Gallery. The marble sculpture was commissioned in 1804 by Prince Camillo Borghese in honor of his young wife Paolina, sister of the emperor Napoleon. A topless Paolina reclines on a Roman couch with an apple in her hand — a reminder of Aphrodite’s (Venus) victory at the judgment of Paris.
Although there is considerable doubt whether she actually posed naked for Canova, Paolina probably enjoyed the controversy. When asked how she could do it, she reputedly replied it wasn’t difficult, the room was heated. The original plan was for a fully dressed, more chased Diana, virgin and goddess of hunting. Paolina scoffed at the idea, as she had a reputation for promiscuity, no one would believe her a virgin, and the semi-naked Venus was commissioned.
The sculpture was not intended for full public display. It only entered the Borghese Gallery collection in 1838 — more than a decade after Paolina’s death.
More controversial from this era was that Camillo Borghese gave in to pressure from Napoleon and sold the crown jewels of the Borghese’s antiquities collection to the Louvre, where the top works including the Sleeping Hermaphrodite on a Bernini-carved mattress and the Borghese Gladiator may still be seen today.
Other Painting Highlights in the Borghese Gallery
Further famous paintings in the Borghese Gallery by top artists include among others:
- Raphael (Raphael Sanzio): Portrait of a Lady with Unicorn and Deposition
- Titian: Venus Blindfolding Cupid and Sacred and Profane Love
- Corregio: Danae
- Domenichino: The Hunt of Diana
- Frederico Barocci: Aeneas Fleeing from Troy
- Lucan Cranach the Elder: Venus and Cupid with a Honeycomb
- Pieter Paul Rubens: Lamentation over the Dead Christ, Susanna and the Elders
Although the best antiquities of the Borghese Collection were sold to the Louvre in the Napoleonic Era, many Roman sculptures, sarcophagi, and smaller artifacts are scattered throughout the museum. Although many are a bit overrestored by current tastes, these are still well worth seeing and fit in remarkably well with the baroque decorations of the villa.
Visit the Borghese Gallery in Rome
The Borghese Gallery in the Villa Borghese Park is one of the finest art museums to visit in Rome. Opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 9:00 to 19:00 with admission hourly. (The previous maximum stay of only two hours is not currently enforced.) Time-slot reservation tickets are essential and best booked well in advance.
See also:
- Visit the Villa Borghese Gallery in Rome: Buy the Cheapest Tickets and Tours for details and how to secure the best deals.
- Top Art Highlights in the Borghese Gallery — including six Caravaggio paintings
- See Top Bernini Sculptures in the Borghese Gallery — sculpture masterpieces and three rare paintings.
- More photos of the Borghese Gallery on Flickr.
- Buy the cheapest tickets at TicketOne or check Tiqets and Get Your Guide for more availability and tours.
