The Galleria Borghese: Beauty, Genius and the Roman Catholic Church

There are museums that overwhelm the senses with their endless corridors of treasures. The vastness of the spaces and the depth of the collections can leave visitors exhausted and numb. Think the British Museum in London and The Louvre in Paris. In Rome, the Vatican Museums require multiple visits to even capture a small percentage of its wonders. The visitor is satisfied, loves the educational component but finds it difficult to absorb the entire experience and put it into perspective. The Galleria Borghese takes a different path. Here, in a jewel box villa on the edge of Rome’s largest and most magnificent park, you encounter something increasingly rare in our age of blockbuster exhibitions: intimacy and accessibility amidst grandeur. It is a place where the art breathes and where centuries of artistic achievement come alive. It is my favourite museum in Rome and that is a very competitive space. We visit regularly and recommend it as a “must see” to all our family and friends lucky enough to be in The Eternal City. 

The story begins, as so many Italian collections do, with ambition and nepotism.  When Camillo Borghese ascended to the Papal throne as Paul V in 1605, he elevated his relatives and enriched his house. It was his nephew, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who transformed the family ambition into lasting glory. Scipione was a collector with supernatural instincts and sometimes questionable ethics- a man who understood that power could be converted into beauty and, more importantly, that beauty would outlast power.  He systematically built the magnificent collection on display today. It is extraordinary - balancing works from the classic Greco- Roman era, the Renaissance and the Baroque. He started with Greek and Roman sculptures and installed them on the ground floor of the villa. He acquired the “Borghese Gladiator” and the “Borghese Hermaphrodite”, sarcophagi that represents the pinnacle of classical achievement. He decorated the walls with Roman frescoes from the Imperial era and the colours still remain vivid after 17 centuries. His stated goal was to make Villa Borghese a “villa of delights”, not a fortress. He succeeded beyond his dreams. 

Borghese lived in the present and he committed to collecting works created by contemporaries. In doing so, he embraced the best of the Baroque artistic explosion. His eye for genius is best recognised in his relationship with Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Scipione met Bernini when Bernini was 19 years old and immediately identified Bernini as someone who would change art history. He saw Bernini as a revolutionary and generational talent. He gave Bernini a series of commissions, and more importantly he gave him artistic freedom. Between 1618 and 1625 when Bernini, still in his 20’s, he created the four masterpieces that anchor the Galleria Borghese to this day. First came “Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius”, followed by “The Rape of Proserpina”, then “David”, and finally “Apollo and Daphne.” To see these works up close is a blessing.  There is technical mastery and the sheer audacity of making marble behave like flesh, wind and water.  They send a powerful message and are psychological studies. All of this was achieved before Bernini’s thirtieth birthday.  They are quintessentially Baroque: dynamic, emotional, theatrical and capturing movement at its climax. 

Scipione’s patronage was invaluable. He created the conditions for genius to explode. He didn’t micromanage the artist. He paid well, praised lavishly and asked only that Bernini pursue his vision and attempt the impossible. They invented a new language in stone. He then released Bernini from his contract and Bernini changed the face of Rome. Bernini did St Peter’s Baldachin and Colonnade, the Ecstasy of St Teresa and the Four Rivers Fountain. I believe the Borghese sculptures remain his most powerful works because they capture genius at the moment of discovery- pure virtuosity - a magician really. 

Cardinal Scipione also loved painting and visited studios of emerging artists regularly. He discovered Carvaggio and became his patron. He acquired more of his work than any other collector and recognised his status as the master of the Baroque style.  Bernini made marble move.  Caravaggio made darkness and pain visible. The Galleria Borghese collection features Caravaggio’s “David with the Head of Goliath”, “Boy with a Basket of Fruit”, “The Sick Bacchus”, “St Jerome Writing”, and “Madonna dei Palafrenieri”. The Vatican had actually rejected several of the works as being too earthly, too rebellious and too realistic.  Cardinal Scipione thought otherwise and loved works that others thought too radical.  Please spend time with the Caravaggios during your visit to the Galleria. 

The Cardinal also understood that the Baroque revolution needed to pay tribute to the Renaissance.  He selectively pursued work by Renaissance masters and the collection includes Raphael’s “Deposition”, Titian’s “Sacred and Profound Love” and Corregio’s “Danae.”  The family later added Canova’s “Paulina Borghese as Venus Victoria”- a sculpture of neo-classical  perfection. Napoleon’s sister posed in a reclining position bare breasted and our guide on our most recent visit shared a wonderful story. When Paulina was asked if she was uncomfortable posing semi-nude, she responded by saying “no, the studio was heated.”  Other special works are Domenichino’s “Diana’s Hunt” and Antonella da Messina’s “Portrait of a Man.”  The collection is multilayered. Its heart and soul is Baroque, it recognises Renaissance achievement, it is framed by classical fragments and punctuated by Neo-Classical ideals and perfection. It is not an encyclopaedic survey, but a rather tight collection accumulated by sophisticated and passionate Borghese family patrons over generations. 

A question I wrestle with when I visit any Roman museum, church or gallery is to reconcile the beauty of the masterpieces with the mission of the Roman Catholic Church. There is a paradox here.  The Medieval and Renaissance Church became very powerful, very rich and very corrupt. This collection exists because of the Church- specifically because a nephew of the Pope exploited his connections and influence, amassed extraordinary wealth and chose to spend it on art for his personal residence.  Every sculpture, and every painting on display reflects a tension the Church has never fully resolved: How does an institution founded on Christ’s Blessings of the “poor and the meek”  justify palaces filled with treasures?  How do the Beatitudes coexist with the Borghese?  The answer is uncomfortable and complicated. Yes, this represents corruption, soft perhaps and bloodless when compared to the Borgias, but corruption nonetheless. And yet this same flawed system generated the most extraordinary patronage of human talent in history. The Church’s wealth created conditions for genius to flourish. Without Papal nepotism, without Cardinals and their noble families competing to outdo one another in magnificence and opulence, we would not have Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, Raphael’s Vatican rooms, Bernini’s St Peter’s or a host of other treasures. 

This is the Church’s complex legacy-  a profound spiritual mission intertwined with worldly ambition. The message of Jesus was filtered through Renaissance princes in Cardinal’s robes. We should recognise that the church, for all its failings, understood that beauty matters and that art elevates the human spirit and is inspirational.  What better way to honor God? Should this collection exist? Clearly, the answer is yes but knowing the history is important. Villa Borghese was a Cardinal’s pleasure palace and by the values Jesus endorsed in the Sermon on the Mount it may have been a questionable use of Church resources.  A Church founded on renunciation of material things became the greatest patron of ostentatious displays of wealth ever. Christ preached poverty and the Princes of the Church lived like Princes. Renaissance and Baroque era Popes may not have been perfect vessels for communicating Jesus’ teachings, but they did understand that beauty serves purposes beyond the immediate and the practical and that beauty and excellence feed something essential in the soul- and that is Christian too!! The Galleria Borghese is a gift from a Cardinal who loved power and had an enormous ego. Thankfully, it is a gift that keeps giving and will do so as long as people have eyes to see and hearts to be moved. Ultimately Cardinal Borghese gets a passing grade.  

The Galleria also excels in the quality of the viewing experience.  There is thoughtful crowd control (a rarity in Rome), timed entries with crowd size caps and you can actually see the works of art.  You can sit before “Apollo and Daphne” without being jostled. You can stand inches from a Caravaggio and study his brushwork. The Villa’s intimate scale is never overwhelming. You are also surrounded by 200 acres of gardens outside- tree lined paths, statuary, temples, obelisks, hidden fountains and artificial lakes. Genuine tranquility. Cardinal Scipio Borghese had a great eye for talent and a great eye for real estate- location, location, location!  Visit soon!