The Galleria Borghese (Italian for 'Borghese Gallery') is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. At the outset, the gallery building was integrated with its gardens, but nowadays the Villa Borghese gardens are considered a separate tourist attraction. The Galleria Borghese houses a substantial part of the Borghese Collection of paintings, sculpture and antiquities, begun by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V (reign 1605–1621). The building was constructed by the architect Flaminio Ponzio, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese himself, who used it as a villa suburbana, a country villa at the edge of Rome.
The Casino Borghese was erected in an area that in the seventeenth-century was outside the walls of Rome, with the closest access being the Porta del Popolo. At the origins, the villa grounds covered an area with a circumference of nearly 3 miles.[2] The main building was designed by the Flemish architect Giovanni Vasanzio. The portico had spolia derived from the Arch of Claudius, once on the Via Flaminia.[3]
By 1644, John Evelyn 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landscape garden, also set out about 1775, under the guidance of the architect Antonio Asprucci, to replace the now-outdated tapestry and leather hangings and renovate the Casina, restaging the Borghese sculptures and antiquities in a thematic new ordering that celebrated the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,[4] spurred by the Getty's acquisition of fifty-four drawings related to the project.
In 1808, Prince Camillo Borghese, Napoleon's brother-in-law,[5] 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 Hermaphroditus" is also now in the Louvre.
The Borghese villa was modified and extended down the years, eventually being sold to the Italian government in 1902, along with the entire Borghese estate and surrounding gardens and parkland.
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 gladiators 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.
The main floor's main large hall, called the Salone, has a large trompe-l'œil ceiling fresco in the first room by the Sicilian artist Mariano Rossi makes such good use of foreshortening that it appears almost three-dimensional. The fresco depicts Marcus Furius Camillus relieving the siege of the Capitoline Hill by the Gauls. The grotteschi decorations were painted by Pietro Rotari, and the animal decorations by Venceslaus Peter Boemo.[6]
The first hall off the Salone, is the Camera di Cerere, with marble vase depicting Oedipus and the Sphinx. The second hall has a ceiling frescoed by Francesco Caccianiga with the Fall of Phaeton. The third hall houses Bernini's Apollo and Daphne.[7]
Gian Lorenzo Bernini at the Borghese
Many of the sculptures are displayed in the spaces for which they were intended, including many works by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, which comprise a significant percentage of his output of secular sculpture, starting with early works such as the Goat Amalthea with Infant Jupiter and Faun (1615) and Aeneas, Anchises & Ascanius (1618–19) [8][9] to his dynamic Rape of Proserpine (1621–22), Apollo and Daphne (1622–25) [10] and David (1623) [11] which are considered seminal works of baroque sculpture. In addition, several portrait busts are included in the gallery, including one of Pope Paul V, and two portraits of one of his early patrons, Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1632).[12] The second Scipione Borghese portrait was produced after a large crack was discovered in the marble of the first version during its creation.
Halls
Porch and Entrance Hall: The entrance hall houses a Roman statue of Augustus, the Gladiator Mosaic, as well as the sculpture The Truth by Bernini;
Hall I of Pauline: Its walls are decorated with original antique reliefs and others dating from the 18th and 19th centuries. It houses busts of Valadier (Bacchus, Hermes), and in its center, the famous sculpture by Canova Pauline Borghese as Venus Victrix, which gave its name to the room;
Hall II of David: this hall is also called the "Room of the Sun" because of the painting on its vault representing the fall of Phaethon. The statue of David by Bernini stands at its centre. It also features Annibale Carracci's Samson in Prison, as well as Greek sarcophagi from the 2nd century;
Hall III of Apollo and Daphne: it houses Bernini's sculpture Apollo and Daphne, also the theme of the painted vault at the end of the 18th century. The hall also houses Hellenistic and Roman sculptures, and works by the painter Dosso Dossi;
Hall IV of the Emperors: this sumptuous hall decorated with stucco, marble, frescoes and paintings, owes its name of Gallery of the Emperors to its Roman busts displayed along the walls. Antonio Asprucci carried out its decoration from 1778 to 1780, mixing precious materials and using the most advanced techniques of the time. The wall niches house antique statues, including the Artemis Borghese, a Greek original from the 4th century. Two major works by Bernini, The Rape of Proserpina in marble, and Neptune with Dolphin in bronze, stand alongside the Farnese Bull by Antonio Susini. The two dodecagonal tables are by Luigi Valadier and the four white marble vases with the Seasons by Maximilien Laboureur (1739-1812). The Rape of Proserpina, the paragon urns by Lorenzo Nizza and the porphyry tables and cups date from the time of Cardinal Scipione Borghese.[13] The ceiling canvases were painted by Domenico De Angelis, who took up the theme of the myth of Galatea. The Sienese artist Giovan Battista Marchetti (1730-1800) created the perspective architecture of grotesques that frame them. The frieze painted under the impost of the ceiling and the stucco reliefs on the walls are inspired by the theme of sea divinities. The hexagonal tiles on a blue micromosaic background, imitating the antique, were designed by Tommaso Conca. The Roman mosaic pilasters are influenced by Raphaelesque models. The marble ornamentation of the floor is in harmony with the trompe-l'oeil decorations of the ceiling;[13]
Hall IV of the Emperors
Ceiling of Hall IV
Details
Hall V of the Hermaphroditu: The Sleeping Hermaphroditus is one of the 2 copies of the original bronze sculpture of Polykleitos. The sculpture was restored by Bernini who transformed its marble base into a mattress on which the character rests. Also, a Roman mosaic from the 2nd century representing a fishing scene;
Hall VI of Aeneas and Anchises: It houses the marble statue of Aeneas and Anchises, a work of Bernini's youth;
Egyptian Hall VII.
Egyptian Hall VII: made between 1778 and 1782, this hall, which houses numerous sculptures, including a marble Faun on Dolphin from the Roman period, was designed by Antonio Asprucci. The decoration is inspired by Ancient Egypt and is a model of the taste of the time, which mixes archaeological rarities and exotic oddities.[14] Tommasso Conca painted the ceiling, including the central canvas with Cybele pouring out gifts on Egypt, and the History of Antony and Cleopatra on the walls. The architectural ornaments on the ceiling are by Giovan Battista Marchetti. On the floor, three mosaic fragments depict mascarons of Ocean and other marine personifications; the mosaic Roman calendar dates from the first half of the 3th century;[14]
Silenus's Hall VIII.
Silenus's Hall VIII: during the rearrangement of the 18th century, Antonio Asprucci installed the group of Lysippus of Silenus carrying the infant Bacchus in the center of the hall, which then took the name of "Room of Silenus". All the decoration was then arranged on the theme of Silenus. The canvas with the Sacrifice of Silenus painted by Tommaso Conca is on the ceiling, surrounded by the monumental architectures of Giovan Battista Marchetti. Since 1834, the Dancing Satyr has replaced the Lysippos group, now in the Louvre Museum[15] This hall is known for containing six masterpieces by Caravaggio: Boy with a Basket of Fruit, Young Sick Bacchus, Madonna and Child with Saint Anne (Dei Palafrenieri), David and the Head of Goliath, Saint Jerome, and finally Saint John the Baptist;
Hall IX of Dido: It is entirely dedicated to Italian or foreign artists of the Renaissance, such as Pinturicchio, Bronzino, Raphael, Botticelli or Del Sarto. There are two "tondi", one by Botticelli (Madonna and Child with Angels) and one by Fra Bartolomeo (Adoration of the Child), as well as two paintings by Raphael, including the Young Woman with Unicorn. Also, a Madonna and Child by Perugino;
Hall X of Hercules (or Hall of Sleep): This room was called the Hall of Sleep until the end of the 18th century because of the presence of a sculpture representing the allegory of sleep. Its name was later changed to the Hercules Room because of the paintings on the vault depicting the Labors of Hercules. Works by Italian Mannerists cover the walls, such as the Portrait of a Man by Parmesan, or the Danaë by Correggio. The famous painting Venus and Cupid the Honey Thief by Cranach the Elder is also there;
Hall XI of Ganymede: the Conversion of St Paul (1545), by Garofalo is kept there;
Hall XII of the Bacchae: It houses a Portrait of a Gentleman by Lorenzo Lotto (1535), and a Holy Family by Sodoma (1510);
Hall XIII of Celebrity
Hall XIV Lanfranco Gallery: this gallery was originally an open loggia from which one could admire the gardens behind the villa. Closed at the end of the 18th century, the loggia was transformed into a gallery, on this occasion the fresco of the Council of the Gods by Giovanni Lanfranco was preserved. Several works by Bernini can be seen there, as well as the terracotta statue of Louis XIV. Numerous paintings from the 17th century cover the walls, including four "tondi" by L'Albane with mythological subjects, The Prodigal Son by Guercino, as well as a self-portrait by Bernini;
Hall XV of Aurora: The Last Supper by Bassano (1546), one of the masterpieces of Mannerist painting;
Hall XVI of Flora: The Coral Fishing, by Jacopo Zucchi (1580), a student of Vasari, is kept there;
Hall XVII of Gualtieri of Antwerp: It presents works by Flemish painters, such as Francken the Younger (The Antiquarian's Shop) or David Teniers the Younger (Drinker);
Hall XVIII of Jupiter and Antiope: two of the most important works by Rubens: Susan and the Elders and Lamentation over the Dead Christ, are kept there;
Hall XIX of Paris and Helen: five paintings on the vault illustrate the episodes of the Trojan prince Paris. Among the many paintings, we will remember those of Domenichino (Hunt of Diana, 1617), Annibale Carracci (Jupiter and Juno, 1602) and Giovanni Lanfranco (Norandino and Lucina surprised by the ogre, 1624);
Hall XX of Psyche (or Hall of the Centaur): the ceiling from the 18th century represents the loves of Eros and Psyche. The room is dedicated to the great Venetian masters of the 15th and 16th centuries: Giorgione (Passionate chorister, 1507), Titian (the Sacred and Profane Love, 1514), Veronese, Carpaccio, Giovanni Bellini, Lorenzo Lotto, but also the Sicilian Antonello of Messina (Portrait of a Man, 1475).
Gian LorenzoBernini was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his age, credited with creating the Baroque style of sculpture.
Annibale Carracci was an Italian painter and instructor, active in Bologna and later in Rome. Along with his brother and cousin, Annibale was one of the progenitors, if not founders of a leading strand of the Baroque style, borrowing from styles from both north and south of their native city, and aspiring for a return to classical monumentality, but adding a more vital dynamism. Painters working under Annibale at the gallery of the Palazzo Farnese would be highly influential in Roman painting for decades.
Villa Borghese is a landscape garden in Rome, containing a number of buildings, museums and attractions. It is the third-largest public park in Rome, after the ones of the Villa Doria Pamphili and Villa Ada. The gardens were developed for the Villa Borghese Pinciana, built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese, who used it as a villa suburbana, or party villa, at the edge of Rome, and to house his art collection. The gardens as they are now were remade in the late 19th century.
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. His legacy is the establishment of the art collection at the Villa Borghese in Rome.
The Galleria Doria Pamphilj is a large private art collection housed in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome, Italy, between Via del Corso and Via della Gatta. The principal entrance is on the Via del Corso. The palace façade on Via del Corso is adjacent to a church, Santa Maria in Via Lata. Like the palace, it is still privately owned by the princely Roman family Doria Pamphili. Tours of the state rooms often culminate in concerts of Baroque and Renaissance music, paying tribute to the setting and the masterpieces it contains.
The Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica or National Gallery of Ancient Art is an art museum in Rome, Italy. It is the principal national collection of older paintings in Rome – mostly from before 1800; it does not hold any antiquities. It has two sites: the Palazzo Barberini and the Palazzo Corsini.
David is a life-size marble sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The sculpture was one of many commissions to decorate the villa of Bernini's patron Cardinal Scipione Borghese – where it still resides today, as part of the Galleria Borghese. It was completed in the course of eight months from 1623 to 1624.
Museo di Capodimonte is an art museum located in the Palace of Capodimonte, a grand Bourbon palazzo in Naples, Italy designed by Giovanni Antonio Medrano. The museum is the prime repository of Neapolitan painting and decorative art, with several important works from other Italian schools of painting, and some important ancient Roman sculptures. It is one of the largest museums in Italy. The museum was inaugurated in 1957.
Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius is a sculpture by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini created c. 1618–19. Housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, the sculpture depicts a scene from the Aeneid, where the hero Aeneas leads his family from burning Troy.
The Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi is a palace in Rome, Italy. It was built by the Borghese family on the Quirinal Hill; its footprint occupies the site where the ruins of the baths of Constantine stood, whose remains still are part of the basement of the main building, the Casino dell'Aurora. Its first inhabitant was the famed art collector Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V, who wanted to be housed near the large papal Palazzo Quirinale. The palace and garden of the Pallavicini-Rospigliosi were the product of the accumulated sites and were designed by Giovanni Vasanzio and Carlo Maderno in 1611–16. Scipione owned this site for less than a decade, 1610–16, and commissioned the construction and decoration of the casino and pergolata, facing the garden of Montecavallo. The Roman palace of this name should not be mistaken for the panoramic Villa Pallavicino on the shores of Lake Como in Lombardy. The Palace has also been the scene of important cultural and religious events. On June 6, 1977 Princess Elvina Pallavicini invited in Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi the archbishop monsignor Marcel Lefebvre for a conference on the Second Vatican Council and for the celebration of a Traditiona Mass, under the careful direction of the marquis Roberto Malvezzi, and Frigate Captain marquis Luigi Coda Nunziante di San Ferdinando. Many members of Alleanza Cattolica, the baron Roberto de Mattei, the pharmacologist Giulio Soldani, the sociologist Massimo Introvigne, the psychiatrist Mario Di Fiorino and Attilio Tamburrini and his brother Renato Tamburrini took part to the event.
Apollo and Daphne is a life-sized marble sculpture by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, which was executed between 1622 and 1625. It is regarded as one of the artistic marvels of the Baroque age. The statue is housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, along with several other examples of the artist's most important early works. The sculpture depicts the climax of the story of Apollo and Daphne, as written in Ovid's Metamorphoses, wherein the nymph Daphne escapes Apollo's advances by transforming into a laurel tree.
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. Cardinal Scipione Borghese also bought widely from leading painters and sculptors of his time, and Scipione Borghese's commissions include two portrait busts by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Most of the collection remains intact and on display at the Galleria Borghese, although a significant sale of classical sculpture was made under duress to the Louvre in 1807.
Villa Borghese Pinciana is a villa built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese.
Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix is a semi-nude life-size reclining neo-Classical portrait sculpture by the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova. Reviving the ancient Roman artistic traditions of portrayals of mortal individuals in the guise of the gods, and of the beautiful female form reclining on a couch, it was commissioned by Pauline Bonaparte's husband Camillo Borghese and executed in Rome from 1805 to 1808, after the subject's marriage into the Borghese family. It then moved to Camillo's house in Turin, then to Genoa, only arriving in its present home around 1838.
The Sleeping Hermaphrodite is an ancient marble sculpture depicting Hermaphroditus life size. In 1620, Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini sculpted the mattress upon which the statue now lies. The form is partly derived from ancient portrayals of Venus and other female nudes, and partly from contemporaneous feminised Hellenistic portrayals of Dionysus/Bacchus. It represents a subject that was much repeated in Hellenistic times and in ancient Rome, to judge from the number of versions that have survived. Discovered at Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, the Sleeping Hermaphrodite was immediately claimed by Cardinal Scipione Borghese and became part of the Borghese Collection. The "Borghese Hermaphrodite" was later sold to the occupying French and was moved to The Louvre, where it is on display.
The Rape of Proserpina, more accurately translated as The Abduction of Proserpina, is a large Baroque marble group sculpture by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, executed between 1621 and 1622, when Bernini's career was in its early stage. The group, finished when Bernini was just 23 years old, depicts the abduction of Proserpina, who is seized and taken to the underworld by the god Pluto. It features Pluto holding Proserpina aloft, and a Cerberus to symbolize the border into the underworld that Pluto carries Proserpina into.
Italian Baroque art was a very prominent part of the Baroque art in painting, sculpture and other media, made in a period extending from the end of the sixteenth to the mid eighteenth centuries. The movement began in Italy, and despite later currents in the directions of classicism, the Rococo, Italy remained a stronghold throughout the period, with many Italian artists taking Baroque style to other parts of Europe. Italian Baroque architecture is not covered.
Two Busts of Cardinal Scipione Borghese are marble portrait sculptures executed by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1632. Cardinal Scipione Borghese was the nephew of Pope Paul V, and had commissioned other works from Bernini in the 1620s. Both versions of this portrait are in the Galleria Borghese, Rome.
The Galleria Spada is a museum in Rome, which is housed in the Palazzo Spada on Piazza Capo di Ferro. The palazzo is also famous for its façade and for the forced perspective gallery by Francesco Borromini.
The Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca' d'Oro is an art museum located in the Ca' d'Oro on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy.
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