Galleria Borghese
Encyclopedia
The Borghese Gallery is an art gallery in Rome
, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. It is a building that was from the first integral with its gardens, nowadays considered quite separately by tourists as the Villa Borghese gardens
. The Galleria Borghese houses a substantial part of the Borghese collection
of painting
s, sculpture
and antiquities, begun by Cardinal Scipione Borghese
, the nephew of Pope Paul V
(reign 1605–1621). The Villa was built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio
, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese himself, who used it as a villa suburbana
, a party villa at the edge of Rome.
Scipione Borghese was an early patron of Bernini
and an avid collector of works by Caravaggio, who is well represented in the collection by his Boy with a Basket of Fruit, St. Jerome, Sick Bacchus and others. Other paintings of note include Titian
's Sacred and Profane Love, Raphael's Entombment of Christ and works by Peter Paul Rubens and Federico Barocci.
described it as "an Elysium of delight" with "Fountains of sundry inventions, Groves and small Rivulets of Water". Evelyn also described the Vivarium that housed ostriches, peacocks, swans and cranes "and divers strange Beasts". Prince Marcantonio IV Borghese
(1730–1800), who began the recasting of the park's formal garden architecture into an English landscape garden, also set out about 1775, under the guidance of the architect Antonio Asprucci, to replace the now-outdated tapestry and leather hangings and renovate the Casina, restaging the Borghese sculptures and antiquities in a thematic new ordering that celebrated the Borghese position in Rome. The rehabilitation of the much-visited villa as a genuinely public museum in the late eighteenth century was the subject of an exhibition at the Getty Research Institute
, Los Angeles, in 2000, spurred by the Getty's acquisition of fifty-four drawings related to the project.
In 1808, Prince Camillo Borghese
, Napoleon's brother-in-law, was forced to sell the Borghese Roman sculptures and antiquities to the Emperor. The result is that the Borghese Gladiator
, renowned since the 1620s as the most admired single sculpture in Villa Borghese, must now be appreciated in the Musée du Louvre. The "Borghese Hermaphrodite" is also now in the Louvre.
The Galleria Borghese includes twenty rooms across two floors.
The main floor is mostly devoted to classical antiquities of the 1st–3rd centuries AD
(including a famous 320-30 AD mosaic
of gladiator
s found on the Borghese estate at Torrenova
, on the Via Casilina
outside Rome, in 1834), and classical and neo-classical sculpture such as the Venus Victrix
. Its decorative scheme includes a trompe l'oeil
ceiling fresco
in the first room, or Salone, by the Sicilian artist Mariano Rossi makes such good use of foreshortening that it appears almost three-dimensional.
, which comprise a large percent of his lifetime output of secular sculpture, starting with a juvenile, but talented, work such as the Goat Amalthea with Infant Jupiter and Faun (1615) to his dynamic Apollo and Daphne
(1622–25) and David
(1623) considered seminal works of baroque
sculpture. In addition, three busts by this sculptor are in the gallery, two of Pope Paul V
(1618–20) and an insightful portrait of his first patron, Cardinal Scipione Borghese
(1632). Finally it has some early, somewhat mannerist works such as Aeneas, Anchises & Ascanius
(1618–19) and the Rape of Proserpine (1621–22).
, Greek
, and Roman
) and instruments from America
, Africa
, and Oceania
. The bulk of the collection was donated by opera
singer Evan Gorga
and it is the largest collection ever given to the museum.
or nearby are the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna
, which specialises in 19th- and 20th-century Italian art, and Museo Nazionale Etrusco, a collection of pre-Roman objects, mostly Etruscan
, excavated around Rome.
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. It is a building that was from the first integral with its gardens, nowadays considered quite separately by tourists as the Villa Borghese gardens
Villa Borghese gardens
Villa Borghese is a large landscape garden in the naturalistic English manner in Rome, containing a number of buildings, museums and attractions. It is the second largest public park in Rome after that of the Villa Doria Pamphili...
. The Galleria Borghese houses a substantial part of the Borghese collection
Borghese collection
The Borghese Collection is a collection of Roman sculptures, old masters and modern art collected by the Roman Borghese family, especially Cardinal Scipione Borghese, from the 17th century on. It includes major collections of Caravaggio, Raphael, and Titian, and of ancient Roman art...
of painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
s, sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
and antiquities, begun by Cardinal Scipione Borghese
Scipione Borghese
Scipione Borghese was an Italian Cardinal, art collector and patron of the arts. A member of the Borghese family, he was the patron of the painter Caravaggio and the artist Bernini...
, the nephew of Pope Paul V
Pope Paul V
-Theology:Paul met with Galileo Galilei in 1616 after Cardinal Bellarmine had, on his orders, warned Galileo not to hold or defend the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus. Whether there was also an order not to teach those ideas in any way has been a matter for controversy...
(reign 1605–1621). The Villa was built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio
Flaminio Ponzio
Flaminio Ponzio was an Italian architect during the late-Renaissance or so-called Mannerist period, serving in Rome as the architect for Pope Paul V.Ponzio was born in Viggiù near Varese, and he died in Rome...
, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese himself, who used it as a villa suburbana
Villa
A villa was originally an ancient Roman upper-class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity,...
, a party villa at the edge of Rome.
Scipione Borghese was an early patron of Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian artist who worked principally in Rome. He was the leading sculptor of his age and also a prominent architect...
and an avid collector of works by Caravaggio, who is well represented in the collection by his Boy with a Basket of Fruit, St. Jerome, Sick Bacchus and others. Other paintings of note include Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
's Sacred and Profane Love, Raphael's Entombment of Christ and works by Peter Paul Rubens and Federico Barocci.
History
The Casina Borghese lies on the outskirts of seventeenth-century Rome. By 1644, John EvelynJohn Evelyn
John Evelyn was an English writer, gardener and diarist.Evelyn's diaries or Memoirs are largely contemporaneous with those of the other noted diarist of the time, Samuel Pepys, and cast considerable light on the art, culture and politics of the time John Evelyn (31 October 1620 – 27 February...
described it as "an Elysium of delight" with "Fountains of sundry inventions, Groves and small Rivulets of Water". Evelyn also described the Vivarium that housed ostriches, peacocks, swans and cranes "and divers strange Beasts". Prince Marcantonio IV Borghese
Marcantonio IV Borghese
Marcantonio III Borghese, 5th Prince of Sulmona was the head of the Borghese family of Rome. Pro-Bonaparte in sympathies, he was the father of Camillo Filippo Ludovico Borghese....
(1730–1800), who began the recasting of the park's formal garden architecture into an English landscape garden, also set out about 1775, under the guidance of the architect Antonio Asprucci, to replace the now-outdated tapestry and leather hangings and renovate the Casina, restaging the Borghese sculptures and antiquities in a thematic new ordering that celebrated the Borghese position in Rome. The rehabilitation of the much-visited villa as a genuinely public museum in the late eighteenth century was the subject of an exhibition at the Getty Research Institute
Getty Research Institute
The Getty Research Institute , located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts". A program of the J...
, Los Angeles, in 2000, spurred by the Getty's acquisition of fifty-four drawings related to the project.
In 1808, Prince Camillo Borghese
Camillo Filippo Ludovico Borghese
Don Camillo Filippo Ludovico Borghese, Prince of Sulmona and of Rossano, Duke and Prince of Guastalla was a member of the Borghese family, best known for being brother-in-law to Napoleon.- Biography :...
, Napoleon's brother-in-law, was forced to sell the Borghese Roman sculptures and antiquities to the Emperor. The result is that the Borghese Gladiator
Borghese Gladiator
The Borghese Gladiator is a Hellenistic lifesize marble sculpture actually portraying a swordsman, created at Ephesus about 100 BCE. It is signed on the pedestal by Agasias, son of Dositheus, who is otherwise unknown.-Rediscovery:...
, renowned since the 1620s as the most admired single sculpture in Villa Borghese, must now be appreciated in the Musée du Louvre. The "Borghese Hermaphrodite" is also now in the Louvre.
Collections
- See also Borghese collectionBorghese collectionThe Borghese Collection is a collection of Roman sculptures, old masters and modern art collected by the Roman Borghese family, especially Cardinal Scipione Borghese, from the 17th century on. It includes major collections of Caravaggio, Raphael, and Titian, and of ancient Roman art...
.
The Galleria Borghese includes twenty rooms across two floors.
The main floor is mostly devoted to classical antiquities of the 1st–3rd centuries AD
Anno Domini
and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....
(including a famous 320-30 AD mosaic
Gladiator Mosaic
The Gladiator Mosaic is a famous mosaic of gladiators, dated to the first half of the 4th century. It was discovered in 1834 on the Borghese estate at Torrenova, on the Via Casilina outside Rome...
of gladiator
Gladiator
A gladiator was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their legal and social standing and their lives by appearing in the...
s found on the Borghese estate at Torrenova
Torrenova (Rome district)
Torrenova is the 16th zone of Rome, part in the VIII, part in the X Municipio....
, on the Via Casilina
Via Casilina
The Via Casilina was an ancient Roman road in Latium.It was created from the fusion of two other ancient Roman roads, the Via Latina and the Via Labicana. It connected Rome to ancient Casilinum . It entered Rome...
outside Rome, in 1834), and classical and neo-classical sculpture such as the Venus Victrix
Venus Victrix (Canova)
"Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix" is a semi-nude life-size reclining neo-Classical portrait sculpture by the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova...
. Its decorative scheme includes a trompe l'oeil
Trompe l'oeil
Trompe-l'œil, which can also be spelled without the hyphen in English as trompe l'oeil, is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions.-History in painting:Although the phrase has its origin in...
ceiling fresco
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
in the first room, or Salone, by the Sicilian artist Mariano Rossi makes such good use of foreshortening that it appears almost three-dimensional.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini at the Borghese
Many of the sculptures are displayed in the spaces they were intended for, including many works by Gian Lorenzo BerniniGian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian artist who worked principally in Rome. He was the leading sculptor of his age and also a prominent architect...
, which comprise a large percent of his lifetime output of secular sculpture, starting with a juvenile, but talented, work such as the Goat Amalthea with Infant Jupiter and Faun (1615) to his dynamic Apollo and Daphne
Apollo and Daphne (Bernini)
Apollo and Daphne is a baroque life-sized marble sculpture by Italian Gian Lorenzo Bernini housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome.It depicts the climax of the story of Daphne and Phoebus in Ovid's Metamorphoses...
(1622–25) and David
David (Bernini)
David is a life-size marble sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The sculpture was part of a commission to decorate the villa of Bernini's patron Cardinal Scipione Borghese – the Galleria Borghese – where it still resides...
(1623) considered seminal works of baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
sculpture. In addition, three busts by this sculptor are in the gallery, two of Pope Paul V
Pope Paul V
-Theology:Paul met with Galileo Galilei in 1616 after Cardinal Bellarmine had, on his orders, warned Galileo not to hold or defend the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus. Whether there was also an order not to teach those ideas in any way has been a matter for controversy...
(1618–20) and an insightful portrait of his first patron, Cardinal Scipione Borghese
Scipione Borghese
Scipione Borghese was an Italian Cardinal, art collector and patron of the arts. A member of the Borghese family, he was the patron of the painter Caravaggio and the artist Bernini...
(1632). Finally it has some early, somewhat mannerist works such as Aeneas, Anchises & Ascanius
Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius
Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius is a sculpture by the Italian sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini, c. 1619. It is housed in the Galleria Borghese, Rome. It depicts Anchises being carried by Aeneas, and Ascanius following them....
(1618–19) and the Rape of Proserpine (1621–22).
The National Museum of Musical Instruments
This collection is made up of instruments from not only western cultures but also instruments from ancient cultures (such as EgyptianAncient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
, and Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
) and instruments from America
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
, Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, and Oceania
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
. The bulk of the collection was donated by opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
singer Evan Gorga
Evan Gorga
Evangelista Gennaro Gorga was an Italian lyric tenor. He is best known for originating the role of Rodolfo in the original production of Giacomo Puccini's La bohème at the Teatro Regio Torino in 1896.-Early life:...
and it is the largest collection ever given to the museum.
Nearby museums
Also in Villa Borghese gardensVilla Borghese gardens
Villa Borghese is a large landscape garden in the naturalistic English manner in Rome, containing a number of buildings, museums and attractions. It is the second largest public park in Rome after that of the Villa Doria Pamphili...
or nearby are the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, or the National Gallery of Modern Art , is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, dedicated to modern art....
, which specialises in 19th- and 20th-century Italian art, and Museo Nazionale Etrusco, a collection of pre-Roman objects, mostly Etruscan
Etruscan civilization
Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to a civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany. The ancient Romans called its creators the Tusci or Etrusci...
, excavated around Rome.
External links
- Official website (English)
- Architecture and gardens on the Villa Borghese or Casino
- Reviews of Galleria Borghese
- Satellite photo — the Galleria Borghese is the villa in the center of the photograph surrounded by landscaped gardens.
- Roman Map of the area with related services