Art highlights of the Borghese Gallery in Rome include the world’s largest Caravaggio paintings collection, top sculptures by Bernini, and classical antiquities.
The Borghese Gallery (Museo e Galleria Borghese) in the Villa Borghese Park is one of the best art museums to visit in Rome. This opulent Baroque villa is filled with art from antiquity to the Baroque. The Renaissance and Baroque collection includes six works by Caravaggio — the largest collection of his paintings in any museum — as well as masterpieces by Raphael, Titian, Rubens, and others. Bernini’s marble sculptures are among the art highlights of the entire Baroque period. Buy tickets for the Borghese Gallery well in advance — time-slot reservations are essential and only a limited number of visitors per day get to enjoy this exceptional gallery.
Borghese Gallery at a Glance
- Top artists: Bernini, Caravaggio, Canova, Raphael, Titian, and Rubens
- Caravaggio: Six paintings — the largest collection of his works in one museum
- Bernini: Four major early masterpieces, including Apollo and Daphne and David
- Don’t miss: Canova’s Paolina Borghese as Venus Victorious
- Visiting: Borghese Gallery tickets and visitor information
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Art Highlights · Bernini · Caravaggio · Canova · Top Paintings
Top Art Highlights in the Borghese Gallery in Rome
The Borghese Gallery has only around 20 rooms, but these are filled with art. The entire villa is a work of art with huge ceiling frescoes, opulently decorated walls, and inlaid floors. The sculptures from antiquity to the Baroque and the paintings (mostly Baroque or Renaissance) are of exquisite quality. The strict two-hour visit period gives art lovers hardly enough time to focus on just the best works.
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 world’s 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 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 for a senior church figure.
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 the 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. Cardinal Scipione Borghese commissioned the four most important from a young and still inexperienced artist.
These four Bernini sculptures are still among the highlights in the Borghese Gallery (and of Baroque art in general):
- Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius (1619)
- The Rape of Proserpina or The Abduction of Proserpina (1621–22)
- Apollo and Daphne (1622–1625)
- David (1623–24).
- For more on these sculptures and three rare Bernini paintings, see Top Bernini Sculptures in the Villa Borghese Gallery.
Caravaggio Paintings in the Borghese Gallery
Cardinal Scipione 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 life paintings, usually not on permanent display, are disputed.)
All the Caravaggio paintings are displayed 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 artworks 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 on commission from Cardinal Scipione Borghese. It shows Saint Jerome as an old man studying the scriptures, which he, according to tradition, translated from Greek into Latin.
Caravaggio’s Madonna and Child with St. Anne
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 depicts the child Christ helping Mary to crush a snake, the symbol of sin.
This painting was removed from St Peter’s for unclear reasons. 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.
Caravaggio used the same model for his Madonna of Loreto, also Pilgrims’ Madonna (Madonna dei Pellegrini), in the Sant’Agostino church (one of three churches in Rome with Caravaggio paintings).
See Life of Joachim and Anne: Parents of the Virgin Mary for more on the maternal grandparents of Jesus. Their history, not in the standard Bible, is often depicted in art.
The Late Caravaggios in the Borghese Gallery
The final two paintings were works Caravaggio carried with him when trying to return to Rome in 1610. (As he died en route, these are among his final works.) It is often speculated that Caravaggio intended to gift the paintings 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 sentence passed on Caravaggio in 1606 on charges of murder.
St John the Baptist, ca. 1610, was a popular subject for many painters. 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 event, but here he used his own face for the severed head of Goliath. In this work, young David is uncharacteristically pensive rather than triumphant.
A similar scene (but with an outsized Goliath’s head) by Caracciolo Giovanni Battista, called Battistello, hangs nearby in room 2 behind Bernini’s David.
Pauline Bonaparte by Antonio Canova
The semi-nude Paolina Borghese Bonaparte as Venus Victrix (or Paolina 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 chaste 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 thus 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 his brother-in-law, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, and sold the 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
- Correggio: Danae
- Domenichino: The Hunt of Diana
- Frederico Barocci: Aeneas Fleeing from Troy
- Lucas 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 best art museums to visit in Rome. Opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 9:00 to 19:00. Time-slot reservation tickets are essential and best booked well in advance.
For more on the Borghese Gallery, see also:
- Visit the Villa Borghese Gallery for visitor information and how to buy tickets or book tours.
- Top Art Highlights — including six Caravaggio paintings
- Top Bernini Sculptures — sculpture masterpieces and three rare paintings.
- More photos of the Borghese Gallery on Flickr.
- Buy the cheapest tickets at TicketOne, or check GetYourGuide and Viator for more availability and tours.
See Top Art for Free in Churches in Rome:
- Six of over 20 Caravaggios in Rome are in churches: San Luigi dei Francesi, Santa Maria del Popolo, and Sant’Agostino.
- Michelangelo’s Moses in San Pietro in Vincoli (St Peter in Chains)
- See Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa in Santa Maria della Vittoria
The Palazzo Altemps, Palazzo Massimo, and the Capitoline Museums are rarely crowded despite the top collections of antiquities.