Borghese Gallery
The Borghese Gallery tour (or Galleria Borghese, as the original italian) takes place in Villa Borghese, the beautiful city park of Rome. Borghese Gallery has been wanted by Scipione Borghese (the nephew of pope Paolo V Borghese).
In the 1608, Scipione bought the statues of palazzo Coeli and he received from his uncle the pope, during the renovation of St. Peter’s facade, all the sculptures which were in the atrium of the Basilica.
During the tour of the Borghese Gallery we could visit this collection, now located in the Borghese Casino, the beautiful Borghese Gardens which surround the Gallery, designed by Flaminio Ponzio in 1608-1613 and completed by Giovanni Vasanzio in 1617.
We will pay a visit to the buildings in close proximity with the Borghese Gallery, as the Aviary and the Meridian, completed by Giovanni Vasanzio.
Then, we will visit the interior of the Borghese Gallery, designed by Antonio Asprucci and a great number of other artists. The actual collection is the result of the union of the sculptures of Borghese Palace in Campo Marzio with other masterpieces from the suburban palaces. Some pieces in Borghese Gallery are completely part of the architecture of the building.
During the Gallery tour, we will admire a great number of masterpieces, as the famous painting of Titian, Sacred and Profane Love.
In the gallery, beside the classical ones, Scipio the Cardinal put modern marbles sculptures. He commissioned to Lorenzo Bernini the Goat Amalthea, the Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius, the rape of Proserpina, the David and the Apollo and Daphne, all of them made from 1615 and 1623. Thanks to a legal institution called fidecommissario, the collection remained whole until the end of XVIII century. Then, some masterpieces were taken to the Louvre Museum of Paris, in France, thanks to the sell imposed by Napoleon Bonaparte, between 1807 and 1808. Prince Camillo bought other artworks, as the Paoline Statue by Canova and the Danae by Correggio. In 1902, the Borghese Gallery, as the Gardens, were acquired by the Italian State.
