Antonio Canova was an Italian Neoclassical sculptor, famous for his marble sculptures. Often regarded as the greatest of the Neoclassical artists, his sculpture was inspired by the Baroque and the classical revival, and has been characterised as having avoided the melodramatics of the former, and the cold artificiality of the latter.
The Galleria Borghese 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. 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 House of Borghese is a family of Italian noble and papal background, originating as the Borghese or Borghesi in Siena, where they came to prominence in the 13th century and held offices under the commune. During the 16th century, the head of the family, Marcantonio, moved to Rome, where they rose in power and wealth following the election of his son Camillo as Pope Paul V in 1605. They were one of the leading families of the black nobility and maintain close ties to the Vatican.
Scipione Caffarelli-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.
Paula Maria Bonaparte Leclerc Borghese, better known as Pauline Bonaparte, was an imperial French princess, the first sovereign Duchess of Guastalla, and the princess consort of Sulmona and Rossano. She was the sixth child of Letizia Ramolino and Carlo Buonaparte, Corsica's representative to the court of King Louis XVI of France. Her elder brother, Napoleon, was the first emperor of the French. She married Charles Leclerc, a French general, a union ended by his death in 1802.
The Venus of Urbino is an oil painting by Italian painter Titian, depicting a nude young woman, traditionally identified with the goddess Venus, reclining on a couch or bed in the sumptuous surroundings of a Renaissance palace. Work on the painting seems to have begun anywhere from 1532 or 1534, and was perhaps completed in 1534, but not sold until 1538. It is currently held in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence.
The Portrait of a Young Woman is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance master Raphael, made between 1518 and 1519. It is in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Palazzo Barberini, Rome.
Portrait of Pope Paul V is a painting attributed to the Italian artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), now in the Galleria Borghese, Rome.
Events in the year 1808 in Art.
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.
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.
DonCamillo Filippo Ludovico Borghese, Prince of Sulmona and of Rossano, Duke and Prince of Guastalla, was a member of the Borghese family and was best known for being a brother-in-law of Napoleon. In 1803, Borghese married Napoleon's younger sister, Pauline Bonaparte, which led to Napoleon granting him multiple titles. After Napoleon was defeated, Borghese fled from France and left his wife behind. Consequently, he was stripped of the titles granted to him by Napoleon, although he retained his family's ancestral titles. While in Florence, he died at the age of 56, and the cause of death is unknown.
Vincenzo Pacetti (1746–1820) was an Italian sculptor and restorer from Castel Bolognese, particularly active in collecting and freely restoring and completing classical sculptures such as the Barberini Faun — his most famous work— the Hope Dionysus and the Athena of Velletri and selling them on to rich collectors as finished artefacts. He was the brother of Camillo Pacetti.
Heroic nudity or ideal nudity is a concept in classical scholarship to describe the un-realist use of nudity in classical sculpture to show figures who may be heroes, deities, or semi-divine beings. This convention began in Archaic and Classical Greece and continued in Hellenistic and Roman sculpture. The existence or place of the convention is the subject of scholarly argument.
Olimpia Aldobrandini was rich and powerfull Italian noblewoman. By birth, she was member of an old and influential Aldobrandini family of Rome, and the sole heiress to the great family fortune.
Don Paolo Borghese, Duke of Bomarzo, Prince of Sant Angelo of San Paolo was an Italian nobleman of the Borghese family. He was born in Cafaggiolo. His father and mother were Marco Borghese, Duca di Bomarzo, and Isabel Fanny Louise Porges.
Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker is a colossal heroic nude statue by the Italian artist Antonio Canova, of Napoleon I of France in the guise of the Roman god Mars. He holds a gilded Nike or Victory standing on an orb in his right hand and a staff in his left. It was produced between 1802 and 1806 and stands 3.45 metres to the raised left hand. Once on display in the Louvre in Paris, it was purchased from Louis XVIII in 1816 by the British government, which granted it to the Duke of Wellington. It is now on display in Robert Adam's stairwell at the Duke's London residence, Apsley House.
Imperial Venus is a 1962 French-Italian historical film directed by Jean Delannoy and starring Gina Lollobrigida, Stephen Boyd and Raymond Pellegrin. It depicts the life of Pauline Bonaparte, the sister of Napoleon. For her performance Lollobrigida won the David di Donatello for best actress and the Nastro d'Argento for the same category.
Adamo Tadolini was an Italian sculptor. One of a family of sculptors, he studied in Rome with the neo-classical sculptor Antonio Canova and is linked to him in style.
The Museo Canova is a museum established in 1833 at the birthplace of the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova (1757–1822) in Possagno in the province of Treviso in the Veneto, Italy. The museum is dedicated to the life and work of the sculptor and is composed of several parts.
