Monday, September 7, 2020

BORGHESE GALLERY

 GALLERIA BORGHESE

Casino Borghese

1608/13 Flaminio Ponzio (1560/1613) for the Card. Scipione Caffarelli Borghese (1577/1633), son of the sister of Paul V Borghese (1605/21), to be used mainly as a museum

Completed in the years 1613/about 1617 by Jan Van Santen aka Giovanni Vasanzio (1550/1621), after the death of Flaminio Ponzio

Vasanzio dealt with the completion of the building and most of the exterior decoration that used to include statues and as many as 144 ancient bas-reliefs

“The model is that of the Roman suburban villa, set almost a century earlier by Peruzzi with the Villa Farnesina. But where the Peruzzi had used a somewhat classical austerity, Vasanzio covered the entire U-shaped façade with niches, indentations, classical statues and reliefs, a late example of ‘horror vacui’ (fear of empty space) typical of Mannerism that had found its classic expression in the Casino of Pius IV by Pirro Ligorio and Villa Medici by Annibale Lippi” (Rudolf Wittkower)

Renovated with internal work in the years 1766/93 by Antonio Asprucci (1723/1808) and assistants for Marcantonio IV Borghese

“The whole ornamental program designed by Asprucci creates one of the most exciting European buildings of the Age of Enlightenment where there is a great combination of the solemn aura of antiquity and the flamboyance of Baroque style to the sound of an educated melody, sometimes erudite, never pedantic” (Alberta Campitelli and Maria Giulia Barberini)

In 1807 Camillo Borghese sold to Napoleon 523 pieces of ancient art (statues, busts and reliefs) many of which used to decorate the exterior of the building

The objects that decorate the exterior now (including two important “Loricate statues with heads of Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius”) come from Gabi and they were kept until the end of the nineteenth century in the Casina dell’Orologio

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the seventeenth century DOUBLE STAIRCASE was removed. It was recently rebuilt during the restoration work

In 2013 498.477 people have visited the museum using an efficient booking system which prevents lines and allows to enjoy the works of art with no large crowds

Porch

“The prevailing character of the original archaeological collection is evident in this porch, where there are no modern paintings or frescoes, a feature of all the other rooms instead. (...) Since the first arrangement here remained fragmentary sculptures, contrary to what happened inside, where arbitrary integrations were applied. This difference assigns to this porch the evocation of the authenticity of discovery which was common in the first collections of marbles in the porches and courtyards of Roman palaces” (Paolo Moreno - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Three fragments of reliefs with scenes of the Dacian wars” about 117 from the same frieze of the Trajan's Forum from which the fragments in the Arch of Constantine were taken

 Other fragments of this long frieze are in the Antiquarium of the Forum and in Villa Medici

“The naturalism of the reliefs of Trajan's Column is overcome by a sense of human mass that begins to concentrate the power of the message, as in the late imperial production. The work is part of the program of celebrations organized by the successor Hadrian, and culminated in the dedication of the Temple of the Divine Trajan (about the exact location of which, in relation with the Trajan's Forum, scholars keep discussing), and it could have been part of its decorative frieze” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Front of sarcophagus with battle of Romans and barbarians” about 200 AD, originally from the Vatican Necropolis and later in the porch of the old St. Peter's Basilica

 “Front of sarcophagus with Apollo and the Muses divided into two parts” about 225/250 with the figure of Apollo transformed into a Muse

“Statue of Serapis” second century AD on “Fragment of a sarcophagus’ front festooned with marine parade” about 130/140

“Head of Dionysus”about 150 on “Portrait of a Young Girl” about 40/50 on “Headless bodies of father and daughter” about 150/200 on “Fragment of a sarcophagus’ front festooned with marine parade” about 130/140

Interesting composition made out of fragments of different meaning and from different places, absolutely typical of a very long period, which lasted centuries, during which the historical and philological interest was dominated by hedonistic taste and horror vacui (fear of emptiness)

“Torso of Apollo seated” about 100/150

“It seems that the character would be intent on a challenging action since the muscles of the arms are in tension. The plant colossal, the softness of the modeling, the fullness of the forms, the veristic complacency in underscoring the folds of the stomach, would lead to a date beyond the period of Praxiteles (IV century BC) which would have been suggested by the treatment of the surface, and would indicate the dating of the original in the Hellenistic period, perhaps from the area of Alexandria. The Roman copy, true to the spirit of the original, is dated to the first half of the second century AD” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Torso of woman of the Grande Ercolanense type” second century AD

“The statue belongs to a type widely used in the imperial period as decoration for gardens: in this case also the opening of the vessel reveals the use as fountain. This statue was so much appreciated that a replica in modern times was made and it was located symmetrically opposite to adorn the transition from the porch to the entrance hall” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Entrance hall

VAULT

“Apotheosis of Romulus” 1775/79 by the Sicilian Mariano Rossi (1731/1807)

“Rossi has been criticized for frequently repeating himself despite that was typical of the painters with a large production on commission. Another shortcoming that has been criticized is some impropriety of drawing and some errors in the proportions but the effect of chiaroscuro, the harmony of colors and his talent in composition end up being appreciated also by the most meticulous observer and make him one of the greatest exponents of the late Italian Baroque” (Antonella Tedesco - www.abitarearoma.net/s-giuseppe-alla-lungara-e-le-opere-di-mariano-rossi)

On the WALLS decorations with animals painted by Peter Wenzel (1745/1829)

In the FLOOR spectacular ancient “Mosaic with gladiators and hunts in the circus” about 325 discovered in 1834 in Torrenova on Via Casilina

“Gaps and restoration make it difficult to reconstruct the general appearance of the work, but the composition itself was not consistent, as it is understood by the disproportion of the figures” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Two marble candelabra” second century AD restored and completed

“It is possible that the ancient parts of both candelabra belonged to a single copy dismembered to obtain independent decorative elements” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“This type of hairstyle popularized by Marciana, sister of Trajan, and by Matidia, was chosen at first even by Sabina, daughter of Matidia and wife of Emperor Hadrian. The object on the turban assimilates the woman to Diana” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Head of a deity” about 130 on “Statue of Artemis of the Colonna type” about 140

“Colossal statue of fighting Satyr “ about 130 on “Marble slab with relief representing a Dionysian parade” first century BC

“Group of Venus and Mars” about 150 AD on “Funerary altar with a dedication to Statius” first century AD

“Colossal head of Isis” about 160/180 on “Fragment of sarcophagus slab festooned with Nereids carrying weapons of Achilles” about 140/150

“Colossal head of Hera” first century AD on “Fragment of sarcophagus slab festooned with Nereids carrying weapons of Achilles” about 140/150

“Portrait of Vespasian (69/79)” about 70

“An isolated tuft stands on the head, a detailed to be found also on a portrait in Naples and on one in the Capitoline Museums. Considered by Nibby one of the best portraits of Vespasian, it was compared for the first time by Raissa Calza to the portrait in the Uffizi: in fact the square structure of the face, the mouth thin and tight and the shape of the eyes are similar. The bust is modern” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Statue of Claudius (41/54) as Jupiter” 54 on “Burial altar with the deceased on kline (bed used during meals)” about 85

“Statue of Meleager” about 140/150

“This copy of Meleager is from an original referred to Scopa Paro, in his final activity (330/325 BC). The legendary winner of the boar of Calydon had luck in Roman times as celebratory image of the heroic virtues of the deceased” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Marcus Curtius throws himself into the abyss” horse about first or second century AD, knight 1617 by Pietro Bernini (1562/1629) restored by Agostino Penna (active since 1768/d. 1800)

Originally it was located outside the building and in 1776 it was moved to the current location inside at the behest of Antonio Asprucci

“Through the solution of orienting the relief of the horse on a different axis, Bernini was able to give the illusion of the moment of the hero’s jump, a symbol of Roman virtue that with individual sacrifice gets the win against the enemy. In 1606 Scipione Borghese had gone to help the people affected by the floods of the Tiber: this gesture favored the metaphorical transposition of the image of Marcus Curtius on the portrait of the Cardinal” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Marble slab with relief representing a Dionysian parade” first century BC

“Statue of Satyr” first century AD

“Menader was an Athenian playwright who died in 293/292 BC (...) The two eyes close to each other and the furrowing of brows are a reminder of the strabismus the writer suffered of” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Statue portrait of Salonina” about 175 (changed about 268) on “Funerary monument of Petronia Musa” about 120

“Portrait of Augustus (27 BC/AD 14)” about 10 BC

“Portrait of Galba (68)” probably not authentic but Renaissance copy of a lost portrait of Galba

“Head of a deity” about 130 on “Statue of Artemis of the Colonna type” 140

“Busts of the Twelve Caesars” by G.B. Della Porta (about 1542/1597)

Room I

In the center “Judgment of Paris” surrounded by four paintings embedded with “Stories of the Trojan War”: “Juno asking Aeolus to unleash storms against Aeneas”, “Minerva asks Atropos to cut the life’s thread of Troy”, “Aeneas flees Troy” and “Venus convinces Zeus to rescue Aeneas” 1779 by Domenico De Angelis (1735/1804) with false niches and columns by G.B. Marchetti (1730/1800) who also did all of the geometrical decorative paintings in the building

Reliefs above the doors “Mercury weighs the destinies of Achilles” and “Achilles learns about the death of Patroclus” by Vincenzo Pacetti (1746/1820)

Reliefs above the niches of the back walls and entrance “Wedding of Peleus and Thetis”, “Children of Medea bringing poisoned gifts to Creusa”, “The Tale of Alope” and “Laodamia and Protesilaus” 1780 by Agostino Penna (known since 1768/d. 1800) who used ancient sarcophagi as models

Portraits in the oval niches:

“Britannicus” about 50

“Roman Woman” about 90

“Scipio Africanus” by an anonymous artist of the seventeenth century

“Roman Child” about 160

“Sabina” about 137/139

In the center of the room:

“Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix” 1805 masterpiece by Antonio Canova (1757/1822)

The wooden bed hides a recently restored mechanism that allows to rotate the statue

“Canova’s statues are not simulacra. To see in them some kind of casts of real people demonstrates at the same time ignorance of anatomy and ignorance of the conditions under which a work was produced. There is no natural vision of bodies, neither there is an ideal canon of a body, that is to say a constant one, from which formal qualities would derive. Not unlike what happens with the famous Greek nose - never observed 'live' but produced by a plastic desire - the set of almost constant volumetric values ​​constituting the human pattern of Canova is not made 'ipso facto' by nature. In every age the model images male and female are strictly cultural, mostly unconscious, and are the foundation of what we reject and what attracts us. Well then nothing is more artificial than the bodies of Canova, by accentuation, deletion, removal, parallelism and oppositions. They give shape to an ideal, indeed complex and by no means a naturalistic copy” (André Corboz - from the essay “Pygmalion, Servant of Two Masters” in the catalog of the exhibition “Canova”)

“Herm of Bacchus” 1773 by Luigi Valadier (1726/85)

“Statue of Venus Genetrix” first century AD in Pentelic marble, copy of the Venus Louvre-Naples from the 410 BC original by Callimachus

“The woman is caught by surprise as she is going to undress, prelude to the nakedness revealed eventually by Praxiteles. (...) Around 410 BC Callimachus, a multipurpose artist, was working in the Athens of Nicias, disappointed by the disaster of the Sicilian expedition, and already nostalgic of a magnitude that would never return. (...) For the subject and the clarity of the execution out of Pentelic marble, the statue in this room is an unsurpassed response and echo from the past to the 'Pauline' by Canova” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Head of a deity restored as Isis” about 140

“It is a classicist work inspired by a model that should be dated to around the middle of the fifth century BC, as the features of the face would show” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Statue of Nymph restored as Muse” first century AD

“Three cloaked children” second century AD

“Fragment of the side of a sarcophagus with Minos sacrificing to Poseidon” about 160/180

“Two fronts of sarcophagi with Apollo and the Muses in between columns” about 220/230

Antonia Minor (36 BC/37 AD) was the daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia who was the sister of Emperor Augustus (27 BC/14 AD). Augustus was therefore Antonia Minor’s uncle and she was also sister of Emperor Tiberius (14/37), grandmother of Emperor Caligula (37/41) and mother of Emperor Claudius (41/54). She would also have been the great-aunt of Emperor Nero (54/68), because her sister Antonia Major was grandmother of Nero. Nero, however, was born six months after the death of Antonia Minor

“Relief with Ajax and Cassandra” first century BC in Parian marble

“The restoration of 1997 revealed a striking evidence: the marble is in several places calcined by deep burns, the effect of which had been hidden by an artificial coating. This damage is typical of stone elements of buildings destroyed by fire and it confirms the hypothesis repeatedly published of this piece being part of some architectonical decoration. (...) The presence of the Latin letters suggests a neoclassical version, made for a public building of Rome inspired by models common in Taranto in the fourth century BC” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Statue portrait of woman of the Spes type” about 110 on “Circular altar with bucrania and garlands” about 5 BC

“Portrait of man with oriental hairstyle” second century AD in morato marble

Gold bracelet “Retour d'Egypte” by Jean Baptiste Claude Odiot (1763/1850) and inkwell with pen in gilt bronze, malachite, rock crystal, gold by Luigi Valadier (1762/1932)

“Statue of cloaked woman restored as Flora” about 160 on “Circular altar with scene of sacrifice to Hercules Invictus” about 20 BC

The statue of woman was found in Frascati and it was restored in 1827 by Massimiliano Laboureur (1767/1831)

“Relief with Artemis kourotrophos (nurse of infants)” about 140/160

The child should be Telephus, son of Hercules, given by a servant to Artemis. Johann Joachim Winckelmann used to love this relief and described it as bellissimo

“Group of Aphrodite with Eros sitting” about 100/150 BC

Relief “Eros on eagle” attributed to Pietro Bernini (1562/1629) by Cesare D'Onofrio

“Bust of Clement XII” Corsini (1730/40) about 1735 by Pietro Bracci (1700/73)

Room II

“Jupiter strikes Phaeton unable to drive the chariot of the sun” 1775/79 by Francesco Caccianiga (1700/81)

Figures and medallions by Gioacchino Agricola (known since 1758/85)

In the middle of the room:

Sculpture “David” 1624 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680)

It was executed in seven months, after the Rape of Proserpine, at the same time of the Apollo and Daphne

“It is evident the overcoming of the Mannerist arrangement with a twisted figure obtained by a solid execution and a spiral structure that develops the action of throwing the stone. This is a masterful interpretation that emphasizes the psychological and realistic aspects. The fixity of the Renaissance statue is outdated and, as viewers, we can imagine the gigantic antagonist because we feel involved in the action: there is no rift between our real space and the fictitious one of the statue, which Bernini conceived leaning against a wall. This pictorial conception of sculpture required a unique vantage point and it was intended to reveal the climax of an action rousing moments of great emotional tension” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

“Torso of Child restored as statue of a Satyr” first century AD

“Statue of Aphrodite of the Capitoline type” about 120/130 on “Burial altar of Antistia Tryphena and Titus Antistius Cosmus” about 100

“Statue of Dionysus restored as Apollo” second century AD on “Burial altar of Marcus Ulpius Eliade” about 150

“Herm of Pan” about 35

“The god of shepherds and flocks, having lost the character of the wild goat (...) has taken the form of a young man with small horns in his hair. (...) The sharp cut of the eyelids and the incisiveness of the hair make us almost feel the bronze model. It is the creation of a pupil of Polykleitos: the reduction as herm dates to the time of Tiberius” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Slab with relief representing Satyrs courting Nymphs” first century BC

“Sarcophagus cover with the presentation of Apollo and Artemis to Zeus” about 150

Painting on canvas “Samson in prison” about 1593 by Annibale Carracci (1560/1609)

“The anatomical study of the naked body focuses on the muscles of the abdomen, revealing a knowledge of Venetian art - certain drawings by Tintoretto come to mind - absorbed by Annibale Carracci during his trip in the lagoon, made at the beginning of his formation. It may be that the painting is a sketch, connected to the many paintings of telamons executed by Hannibal in his fresco cycles” (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Fragment of sarcophagus with marine sacred procession” about 220

“Sarcophagus cover with Amazons at the Trojan War” about 200

“Two slabs of a sarcophagus with Heracles’ labors in between columns” about 160

In the second slab Hercules’ labors were completed arbitrarily in modern times and the last two on the right (dragon and Centaur) are unrelated with the original cycle

“The monument belongs to the Asian production of sarcophagi with arches of which it represents one of the first examples. In the main frieze (...) are represented the labors performed by Heracles in the Peloponnese region by order of Eurystheus: the killing of the Nemean lion, the hydra of Lerna, the Erymanthian boar, the deer of Cerine and the birds of Stinfale” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Herm of Dionysus beardless” about 70/90

“Herm of Dionysus bearded” about 70/90

“Herm of Dionysus Lenaîos” about 70/90 so named for the basin (lenos) used to press grapes

“Head of Heracles of the Pozzuoli-Antinori type” about 185

The head was found in Tusculum, the altar in Gabi

Painting on canvas “Andromeda” about 1612 by Rutilio Manetti (1571/1639)

“Herm of Heracles cloaked” about 180

“Herm of Heracles as a child” about 160/170

Painting on canvas “David with the head of Goliath” 1612 by di G.B. Caracciolo detto Battistello (1570/1637)

“Frieze with Anthemius” about 112 probably found in the Forum of Trajan

“Sarcophagus with marine sacred procession and cover with the Seasons” about 140/150

“From the cover the masks warn of the transience of mortal remains, and the Seasons mark the melancholy of transit: the frequency of these pairs lying in the ancient funerary world was such that Michelangelo was inspired for the personifications of Time on the tombs of the Medici family” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latin - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Painting on canvas “Still Life with Two Lizards” and “Still Life of Birds” late 1500s, maybe by the Master of Hartford

“Portrait of Alexander the Great” first century AD on a modern bust

“In this romantic face one sees expressed what Nearchus from Lato, one of the most capable staff of Alexander the Great, called 'the perpetual desire to do something new and extraordinary'. The portrait is among the closest to the literary descriptions of Alexander by Lysippus for the leonine hair and the passionate head movement upwards” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Statue of child as Heracles fighter” about 140/160)

“Statue of a child as Herakles resting of the Pozzuoli-Antinori type” second century AD

Room III

In the center “Apollo and Daphne” and, on the sides “Allegories of Seasons” in monochrome 1780/85 by Pietro Angeletti (about 1737/98). Geometrical drawings by G.B. Marchetti (1730/1800)

In the middle of the room:

Sculpture “Apollo and Daphne” 1625 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680) with the help for the base, the tree and the leaves of Giuliano Finelli (1602/53) a master in sculpting marble in a fine and spectacular way

In the base there are carved two interesting Latin verses by Maffeo Barberini himself that, translated into English, read: Everyone chasing the fleeting pleasure of a form, remains with a handful of leaves in his hand, or at best picks bitter berries

“Even for the young Bernini, like Domenichino, classical antiquity was a rule to follow, against the wiles of reality and of the petty side of nature, the starting point for achieving the ideal beauty. In his early works there does not seem ever to be subjective realism but a delicate idealism and although they perfectly mimic nature, are nevertheless charged with meanings, especially allegorical ones” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

“Bernini competes with Ovid (whose work 'Metamorphoses' inspired this statue) in showing the nuances of mood, and because figurative art is the master of space, but not of time, which instead belongs to poetry, he must join together the moment of the race with that, immediately following, of the transformation” (Tomaso Montanari)

“Group of Harpocrates with duck” about 110/120

“Group of child with two ducks” about 100/200

Two paintings: “Apollo and Daphne” about 1525 and “The Sorceress Circe” about 1518 Giovanni Luteri aka Dosso Dossi (about 1486/1542)

“Dosso expresses a fantastic vision of the world in the magical setting of his narratives, which deviate from the albeit evident Giorgione matrix, for his vibrant color solutions, forced to the limits of eccentricity. Thanks to his rich qualities of imagination he became interpreter of an original fantastic genre” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

Two paintings on canvas “Wondrous Landscapes” beginning of XVII century by Paul Brill (1554/1626)

“Group with fountain, fishermen and shepherds” about 210 on “Altar with fronds of ivy in relief” early first century AD

“Group of Aphrodite of the Medici type with Eros on dolphin” early second century AD

“Statuette of Kore restored as Isis” about 20/40

“According to Heinrich Bulle it is the interpretation of an archaic figure of Kore by a Neo-Attic artist: the result is a work reproducing antiquity” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Funerary Lion” in alabaster about 75/100 of Egyptian origin

“Colossal head of Apollo” about 150/100 BC

“The size and the treatment of the eyes correlate this head with Neo-Attic works of the first century BC. The comparison with the head of Fortuna Huiusce Diei, now kept at the Central Montemartini, is particularly striking: the work is attributed to the disciples of Euchirus II, father of Eubulides III, and in particular, for the affinity with Igea by Feneo in Arcadia, to the sculptor Attalus, the sculptor of that statue for the Temple of Asclepius. It would be a gigantic acrolith” (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Crater with dance scenes” about 90

“Base of candelabrum” first century AD

Chapel

On the left wall "St. Charles Borromeo, St. Frances of Rome and Eternal Father"

On the right wall “Assumption” 1618 by the French Claude Deruet (1588/1660)

This time to that on the vault of Room XIV are the only mural paintings dating back to the time of Scipione Borghese

This room was originally the oratory of the villa

Three paintings: "St. John the Baptist", "Beheading of St. John the Baptist" and “Flight into Egypt” 1593 by Giuseppe Cesari aka Cavalier d'Arpino (1568/1640)

"The painting with St. John the Baptist was maybe part of the seizure of assets of Giuseppe Cesari ordered by Paul V in 1607, the date which is the Ante Quem for the execution of the work" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Madonna and Child" by Ventura Salimbeni (1568/1613)

"Christ dead among the angels" 1566/69 by Federico Zuccari (about 1542/1609)

Altarpiece of rosewood and silver of the end of 1500s by Mattias Wallbaum (1554/1632)

Plaster statue “St. John the Baptist” 1767 by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741/1828) model for a marble statue destined to the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and Martyrs but that was never made

Wax on blackboard “Crucifixion” by Guglielmo Della Porta (1515/77)

Room IV

In the center “Triumph of Galatea”, in the left oval “Galatea desired by Polyphemus" and in the right oval "Galatea loved by Aci" 1778/80 by Domenico De Angelis (1735/1804). Geometrical drawings by G.B. Marchetti (1730/1800)

Under the ledge of the vault:

“Eleven stuccos with scenes of divinities of the sea” 1778/79 by various artists: Laboureur, Carradori, Pacetti, Penna, Salimbeni and Righi

In the middle of the room:

Sculpture “Rape of Proserpine” 1621/22 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680)

The spectacular group with Hades kidnapping Persephone in order to take her with him to hell unleashes explosive sensuality and impresses with the realistic and vivid representation of a mythological event happening in an extraordinarily credible way in front of our eyes

For this work Bernini was evidently influenced by the pictures painted in that period by Annibale Carracci and Peter Paul Rubens and he evidently influenced in turn the way of painting of another genius such as his contemporary Pietro da Cortona

“The concept that he chooses as a representation is always the highlight of the drama” (Rudolf Wittkower)

“The group was thought for a single point of view, the front. As the theme of the abduction can evoke the famous precedent of the 'Rape of the Sabine' by Giambologna,the detachment from the Mannerist culture now seems entirely fulfilled: the god and his prey are not conceived as three-dimensional objects but as figures of a big picture in three dimensions, built through light and shadow, and sculpted to give the illusion of flesh, hair in motion, color. It is stated here for the first time the foundational element of Bernini’s sculpture: the statue is not a picture but an event, and, moreover, an event agitated and transient” (Tomaso Montanari)

“Busts of the Twelve Caesars” beginning of 1600s made by an anonymous seventeenth century artist in porphyry and oriental alabaster

"Two vases in porphyry" probably ancient, restored in 1780 by Lorenzo Cardelli

"Amphora with handles carved as eagle heads" by Silvio Calci da Velletri (active in Rome in the first half of the seventeenth century) on "Octagonal table" of the eighteenth century by Luigi Valadier (1726/85)

"Two urns" in ancient black marble by Silvio Calci da Velletri on rectangular tables of the seventeenth century in red porphyry with standings in white marble carved as lions probably of the nineteenth-century

“Statue of Artemis of the Dresden type restored as muse” about 105

“Statue of Artemis of the Borghese type” about 120/130

"We are in front of a monument of exceptional importance, since we do not know of any other replica of this figure of Artemis: the quality of the marble, recognizable as Pentelic, speaks in favor of an Attic copy made in the period of Emperor Hadrian (117/138)" (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Statue of Artemis" second century AD

"The Borghese statue derives from a Greek original (about 200 BC) of which other Roman copies are known: among the most important are the one in Copenhagen, which gave name to the type, and the one in Ostia, of which only the torso remains" (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Sculpture “Farnese Bull” 1613 by Antonio Susini (about 1582/1624)

"Statue of Dionysus" about 120/130

"Statue of Dionysus with a panther" about 100/150

"Two fragments of a sarcophagus cover with Seasons" about 150/160

"Four vases with representations of the four Seasons" about 1785 by Francesco Massimiliano Laboureur (1767/1831) who carved the reliefs and Lorenzo Cardelli who worked the vessels, inspired by the huge cantharus (basin in the courtyard of an ancient church for worshippers to wash before entering) in the atrium of the church of St. Cecilia in Trastevere

"Statue of Aphrodite cloaked with dolphin" about 120/130 AD with neck and head made in modern times

"Bronze statuette of Neptune" maybe by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680)

Smaller size copy in bronze of the marble group of 1622 for the fishpond of Villa Negroni-Montalto at the behest of Cardinal Alessandro Peretti

"Bust of Juno" in ancient red marble and oriental alabaster by an anonymous sculptor of the late eighteenth century

Room V

1781/82 “Five episodes of the story of Hermaphrodite” by Nicola Bonvicini (1735/98)

Right under the vault “Putti” in stucco maybe by Vincenzo Pacetti (1746/1820)

FLOOR

On the walls three paintings with “Landscapes” by Paul Brill (1554/1626)

“Statue of Sleeping Hermaphrodite” copy of the second century AD from the original of the second century BC by Policle with head restored by Vincenzo Pacetti and mattress by Andrea Bergondi (active in Rome in the eighteenth century)

It replaced after 1807 another “Hermaphrodite” found during the excavations for the foundations of the church of S. Maria della Vittoria which had been taken by the French and it is still in the Louvre today, featuring a marble mattress sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Cardinal Scipione Borghese used to keep the Hermafrodite in a closet to not disturb the view of his more susceptible guests

There are about twenty copies of the Hermaphrodite but it is believed that this is one of the best

“Hermaphrodite exerts flatters with his torpid move, attracts with his unconscious act: with the change of perspective induced by the movements to which we are invited, it reverses its appearance from female to male, deceiving even the nature of sleep, innocent or nightmarish in turns” (Paolo Moreno - Hellenistic Sculpture)

“The work was not normally visible. Cardinal Scipione was afraid that that creature with such an ambiguous sexuality could disturb the most sensitive among his guests, so he kept it jealously guarded in a wooden cabinet that was very rarely opened. At the end of the eighteenth century, Marchetti had executed the ornamentation of the vault of the room where the statue was preserved, with included five pictures by Nicola Bonvicini, in which was told the poignant story of Hermaphrodite, son of Hermes and Aphrodite, and the nymph Salmaci, also sung by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. The nymph was in love with the beautiful Hermaphrodite, without being reciprocated. In the fountain sacred to the nymph, near Halicarnassus, Salmaci clung so tightly to the body of her beloved who was swimming so as to merge with him, so they could no longer be divided for eternity, giving rise to a new being by the double gender” (Cinzia Dal Maso - From the website www.specchioromano.it)

“Female statue cloaked with portrait of Severina” head about 275, body about 185

“Portrait statue of woman restored as Demeter” second century AD

“Head of Aphrodite” about 105

Painting “Landscape with St. Jerome” by Frederick van Valckenborch (about 1570/1623)

“Torso of child with jug” first century AD found in Nomentum (Mentana). It is one of the few ancient statues in this museum that has never had interventions in order to complete the missing parts

“Portrait of young Titus (79/81)” about 70

“Amphora” about 1783 by Antoine-Guillaume Grandjacquet (1731/1801)

“Fragment of a statue of Athena Parthenos” about 85, in Pentelic marble

"Among the few Borghese monuments not subject to modern remakes, this torso is remarkable as it manages to mantain the original pictorial values. The copy is of the time of Domitian, the promoter of the corresponding cult of Minerva, which meant for him an enlightened government" (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Statue of young satyr playing the syringe" second century AD

"Statue of young satyr playing the flute" second century AD

“Porphyry basin” about 100/200

According to Antonio Nibby it was found in the Mausoleum of Hadrian

"Monuments of porphyry were intended only for the emperor or his family members. The material induces therefore to think of an imperial burial: Nero is the first emperor who is remembered for the use of porphyry for burial (Suetonius). The indication of provenance offered by Nibby circumscribes the possible identification of the person to whom the precious document was intended, as in the mausoleum were buried only Hadrian, the Antonini and Severi until Caracalla. (...) The shape of the upper edge of the tub, not suitable for a cover, can, however, lead to the conclusion that the artifact was destined to an ornamental function rather than a burial one" (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Head of Kore” Italic art maybe executed in Magna Grecia (Southnrn Italy during the period of the Greek colonies about 480/470 BC

One of the most valuable and beautiful pieces of ancient statuary in the whole museum

Room VI

“Council for the Trojan War” 1777/83 by Laurent Pécheux (1729/1821). Geometrical drawings by G.B. Marchetti (1730/1800)

Under the vault "Two friezes with pyrrhic dances" in stucco 1776/78 by Vincenzo Pacetti (1746/1820) inspire by the ancient ones in the Pius Clementine Museum part of the Vatican Museums

In the middle of the room:

“Aeneas and Anchises” in 1619 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680)

“The bodies with serpentine shape has fixed Mannerist precedents, which are also to be found in the works of his father, while the precision, the vigor and firmness of execution is clearly a step forward from the first phase” (Rudolf Wittkower)

Marvelous bas relief with “Profile of Alexander the Great” in ancient marbles reworked at the end of the seventeenth century/beginning of the eighteenth century

"Funerary relief with three figures" about 20 BC

"Fragment of slab from sarcophagus with cupids" about 117/138

"Statue of Hecate with three bodies" second century AD

Hecate was a goddess of Indo-European origin, worshiped by the Greeks and Romans. She was the goddess of spells and spectra, she was both male and female, she was depicted with a triple body and she was worshiped at shrines on crossroads

"Statue of Nymph with basin" second century AD

"Statuette of Eros in strains" about 150/200

Relief with "Three Cherubs sleeping" by an anonymous artist of the early XVII century

Canvas “Cupid and Psyche” 1589 by Jacopo Zucchi (about 1542/96)

Canvas "Minerva dressing up" 1613 by the Bolognese paintress Lavinia Fontana (1552/1614)

Canvas "Death of the Virgin Mary" by Giovanni Maria Morandi (1622/1717)

Sketch for a bigger canvas commissioned for the church of S. Maria della Pace

Canvas "Cupid and Psyche" copy by Alessandro Varotari (1588/1648)

“Portrait-statue of young girl” first century AD

"Fragment of a sarcophagus in a basin with three philosophers" about 300

"Sarcophagus cover with the deceased lying down" about 200/220 on "Slab of sarcophagus with marine procession" about 230

"The portrait of the deceased in the slab shows the type of hairstyle typical of Orbiana, wife of Emperor Alexander Severus (222/235) and it is the term of reference for dating the piece" (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Group of Leda and the Swan" second century AD

"Group of the Child with bird" about 100/200

Bas relief "Bacchanal of putti" in touchstone on background of lapis lazuli and "Statues of black hunters" in 1651 by Giovanni Campi (active in the second half of the seventeenth century)

Statue “Truth” 1647 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680)

“The relic of the incomplete original concept is unsatisfactory. However, it is a pure Bernini work of an unusual kind and significantly private and it has been correctly pointed out that in this work, done only for himself, he shows for the first time signs of what was to become his late style” (Howard Hibbard)

Room VII

In the center “River Nile and Goddess Cybele” and at the sides eight paintings with representation of planets: "Moon", "Jupiter", "Uranus as Anubis with dog's head", "Saturn", "Venus", "Mars", "Sun" and "Mercury" 1779/80 by Tommaso Maria Conca (1734/1822) who was a pupil of his uncle, the great Sebastiano Conca

Geometrical drawings by G.B. Marchetti (1730/1800)

Under the ledge of the vault:

Eight paintings inspired by Egypt including "Stories of Antony and Cleopatra" also by Tommaso Maria Conca

“Designed by architect Antonio Asprucci, this decoration makes reference to the famous work by Mengs, of a decade earlier: the Room of Papyri in the Vatican Museums. If it cannot admittedly compete with that work, however, in the Egyptian room, rigor and simplicity of geometrical divisions, the clarity of the spatial organization, prevent profusion to become confusion. The intensity of the color and the skill of the painter (Tommaso Maria Conca) soon made famous this room, which was considered with care a few years later by a young architect of the French Academy, Charles Percier, because he reckoned it was a model” (O. e G. Michel - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

FLOOR

"Panels with mosaics" about third century AD: "Three sea gods", much restored, and a panel taken from a Calendar mosaic with "Rite of purification of the Salii priests". It used to take place in March, when the priests would struck a pigskin in front of the statue of Mars Ultor after their leaping dances

"Salii were ancient Roman priests, divided into two colleges, Salii Palatini and Salii Collini, perhaps originally two different priesthoods, one of the community of the Palatine Hill, the other of the Quirinal Hill. The associations of the Salii were said to have been instituted by Numa to honor and cherish, confused among others 11, a shield which had fallen miraculously from heaven, as a sign of divine future military power of Rome. Salii, elected among the patricians, were consecrated to Mars and Quirinus, whom they celebrated with leaping dances of warlike type. Every March 1, they used to carry in procession through the city the sacred shields (Ancilia), beating the spears on them and singing the old Carmen Saliare" (Enciclopedia Treccani)

In the middle of the room:

“Group of Satyr on Dolphin” about 130 made out of white marble with small crystals and dark veins on "Fragments of a pair of trapezophori" first century AD

It was restored in the early sixteenth century and in 1520 it inspired the Jonah by Lorenzetto in the Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo, and the famous ephebes of the Turtle Fountain by Taddeo Landini

"Sphinx" about 100 in basanite

"Sphinx" of the nineteenth century in green basalt maybe by Luigi Canina (1795/1856)

"Statue of Isis" about 170 in African black marble with white marble pieces added in the seventeenth century when it was transformed into Ceres

"The knot at the breast and the fringe of the mantle make this statue recognizable as the goddess Isis, represented running in the dramatic search for the dismembered body of her husband Osiris" (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Statue of a priestess of Isis" first century AD

"Statue of Paris (or Ganymede)" first century AD

"This work is still tied to the Peloponnesian tradition as shown by the strength of the structure and the insisted way of representing the inguinal groove and the dry relief of the anatomical partitions of abdomen and chest. (...) A cold classicism that freezes any chiaroscuro vibration" (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Head of a Woman" second century AD

"Despite the heavy rework, this Borghese head reveals characteristics of the late fourth century AD in the treatment of the hair" (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Statue of Peplophoros" 50 BC/50 AD in Pentelic marble. Only the body is ancient. Head, arms and feet are modern

"Statue of Athena of the Cherchell type" about 140 AD in Parian marble

"Statue of Aphrodite variant of the Landolina type" first century AD

"It is a variant of the Landolina Aphodite of Syracuse, for some scholars to be identified with the Callipige Aphrodite, mentioned by literary sources in that city. The type is passed on in several examples, in which the movement of the body and the hand gesture are derived from the Pudic Aphrodite" (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Statuette of Attis" second century AD in Phrygian marble

"Four jars" and "Two vessels" in oriental alabaster, respectively, of the eighteenth and seventeenth century

"Cup in ancient red" about 1781/82 by Lorenzo Cardelli

"Two oval cups" in black and pink granite of the seventeenth century

Room VIII

In the center oil painting “Sacrifice to Silenus” and at the sides two monochrome paintings "Drunken Silenus" and "Silenus returns Bacchus to King Midas" 1775/78 Tommaso Maria Conca (1734/1822)

The subject of the vault was inspired by the statue that was originally in the middle of the room, the "Silenus with Bacchus child" purchased in 1807 by Napoleon and transferred to the Louvre, where it is now

Geometrical drawings by G.B. Marchetti (1730/1800)

“On the 27th of March 1775, Conca received an initial advance sum of money for the Sacrifice to Silenus (...). It is the beginning of a collaboration foor the decorations ordered by Marcantonio Borghese. The commission places the Conca among the best artists of his time. The painting (...) received the approval of Mengs; however, today our admiration goes rather to the Dance of the Satyrs in the same vault, over the ledge, where Conca shows his anatomical knowledge and the sureness of his brushwork, and at the same time, thanks to his compositional freedom, it gives a sense of vitality and cheerful paganism” (O. e G. Michel - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

In the middle of the room:

“Statue of Dancing Satyr” about 220, found in 1824 in Monte Calvo in the province of Rieti and restored by the Danish artist Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770/1844)

"The restoration by Thorvaldsen gave the hands castanets, while originally the demon would have taken a double flute to his mouth with a different rhythmic movement. From his feet touching the ground with just the toes springs a spiral movement that constantly changes the outlook of the body. One has to turn around the statue to understand the restless spatiality of this sculpture" (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Statue of Satyr Resting (Anapauòmenos)” about 120/130 from the original of about 340 BC by Praxiteles (about 395/326 BC)

"It is identified with the Satyr at Rest by Praxiteles that Pliny called 'periboetos', very famous. (...) There are more than one hundred copies known, of which twenty in fragments. (...) The finer replica, the one that would almost give the feeling of the original, remains the fragment from the Palatine Hill now in the Louvre" (Paolo Moreno and Alexia Latini - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

“Portrait of Aesop” first century AD

Canvas “Judith and Holofernes” 1608 by Giovanni Baglione (1566/1643)

Canvas "The capture of Christ" by the Dutch Dirck van Baburen (about 1595/1624)

“Original name Theodor Baburen, Dutch painter who was a leading member of the Utrecht school, which was influenced by the dramatic chiaroscuro style of the Italian painter Caravaggio.(…) After studying painting with a portraitist and history painter in Utrecht, Baburen traveled to Rome about 1612. (…) A certain coarseness in conception, irregular compositional rhythms, and less atmospheric quality distinguish Baburen’s art from that of his greater contemporaries, but his manner of painting can be said to be broad and forceful” (Encyclopaedia Britannica – www.britannica.com)

Canvas "The Judgment of Solomon" by the so called Master of the Judgement of Solomon who worked in Rome between 1620 and 1630

Canvas “Joseph and Potiphar's Wife” 1610 by Ludovico Cardi aka Cigoli (1559/1613)

"One of the slippers, overturned in the foreground at the foot of the bed in a nice detail of still life, is a sign of attention of the artist for costumes and furniture, for which he meticulously chose precious materials, like silk, damask, and velvet, able to reflect the light in different ways. Also gestures participate to the theatrical moment represented on the scene. Architect as well as painter, Ludovico Cardi began following the Mannerist style of Alessandro Allori, he later followed the style of Federico Barocci, and was eventually influenced by Venetian painting" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Canvas "Diana and Actaeon" about 1600/10 by Bernardino Cesari (1571/1622) brother of Giuseppe Cesari aka Cavalier d'Arpino

Oil on copper "Capture of Christ" 1596/97 and canvas "Rape of Europa" about 1603/06 by Giuseppe Cesari aka Cavalier d'Arpino (1568/1640)

"As in the painting by his brother with Diana and Actaeon, in the myth of the Rape of Europe doesn’t appear the dramatic side of the abduction, and Europe, with her robes billowing, takes off nicely as her companions wave goodbye. Even in this work the landscape elements, in the left foreground and in the background to the right, show stylistic tangents with Paul Brill" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Statue of emperor sitting as Jupiter restored as Mercury" first century AD on "Fragment of sarcophagus slab festooned with Nereids carrying Achilles’ weapons" 140/150

"Nude male statue restored as Commodus" second century AD

"Portrait of Faustina Major" about 138/141

"Portrait of Domitia Lucilla" second century AD, mother of Marcus Aurelius

"Portrait of Tiberius (14/37)" about 13 A.D.

Six masterpieces by the giant of art Michelangelo Merisi aka Caravaggio (1571/1610):

“Boy with a Basket of Fruit” about 1593/94 representing his young (16 years) pupil and maybe lover Mario Minniti

“The mirror adopted as optical chamber, already reveals a new way of painting; for he sensed evidence of a stronger definition that is acquired by an object painted and not as seen directly, but through the mirror on which it reflects. The artist thus obtained a true representation of all the natural reality and of the human figure” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

“Hibbard, referring to the archetype, narrated by Pliny the Elder, of the painting of Zeuxis depicting a young man wearing bunches of grapes so realistic as to deceive the birds trying to catch them, underlined the concept of the illusive quality of art, imitating natural reality. The diversity of drafting of the figure, more nuanced and inaccurate in the definition, has perhaps its mythographic and thematic source in Zeuxis’s disappointment for not being able to paint just like the reality in the depiction of the human figure, because the bird was not scared. The contrast between the figure and the fruit basket shows the intentional challenge to represent with different camouflage capacity the contrasting nature of living reality, with a soul, and dead reality of inanimate objects” (Anna Coliva)

“St. John the Baptist” about 1610

“The model was so immature that the previous identification of Caravaggio with adolescent introspection of his models is replaced by a delicate sensitivity to the vulnerability of children (...). It was wonderful what Caravaggio could create with a red cloth. It was a leitmotif in his work, ever more intensely present in these paintings of 1610, and it intensified feelings very different from each other, from the carnal to the tragic to the desolate, as if it were itself a blaze of human feeling, that would burn or shine against the invading darkness” (Peter Robb)

“St. Jerome Writing” about 1606, painted for Cardinal Scipione Borghese who used to own twelve paintings by Caravaggio in total

“The structure, powerfully sucked into the foreground to invade almost all the available space, is strongly articulated thanks to the books protruding sideways out of of the picture plane, towards the viewer, thanks to the intersecting groups of parallel planes, identified by large painted drafts, and thanks to the lighting typical of Caravaggio, projected on individual elements from multiple sources” (Mia Cinotti)

“The fact that a painter would show as much interest for the realities of old age as for youth and beauty was something absolutely new. Even Leonardo had shown old age as caricature. Caravaggio showed instead a deep sensitivity to its fragility” (Peter Robb)

“Our Lady of the Grooms” 1605, originally painted for the Chapel of S. Anna in the Basilica of St. Peter and later acquired by Cardinal Scipione Borghese

“It was the late twentieth century that would understand and demonstrate that Merisi da Caravaggio, this irascible and violent character, frequenter of bad company, was an authentically religious spirit, bearer of the ideas and feelings of the most advanced modern Christian aesthetics. Catholic spirituality of Counter Reformation invited artists to adhere to the letter and meaning of Scripture and, at the same time to update the message, so as to make it understandable to everyone and effective for all. In all his paintings of religious subjects the morality of visible Truth revealed by light becomes a modern epiphany of the Sacred, essential catechesis stripped of any rhetoric” (Antonio Paolucci)

“David with the Head of Goliath” about 1606

David has quite possibly the appearance of Cecco Boneri, later painter known as Cecco da Caravaggio, a disciple of the master whom he had perhaps followed in his flight from Rome after he had killed Ranuccio Tomassoni in 1606

Goliath has the appearance of Caravaggio himself

“Noting the humble, anti-heroic, Christological interpretation and the self-portrait in Goliath, a symbol of evil, it is clear that the motto engraved in the shell of the sword, the final instrument of Justice, would be on H(umilit)AS O(ccidit) S(uperbiam), humbleness kills haughtiness. In a way one can recall the rebus-paintings with music of the Roman period, but, in this case, are apparent the confession, the auto da fe of the haughty and fugitive murderer, and his humble and desperate request for grace through a biblical symbol of divine justice” (Maurizio Marini)

“It is the most dramatic and exciting representation of the story of David ever painted until then ... The intense and heavy look of David is full of desolate piety, of endless and deep melancholy, the same that veiled in an earlier period the look of Boy with Basket of Fruit. It is a kind of expressiveness of unique strength that encompasses the entire poetic art of Caravaggio whereby contemplative consciousness, painful and full of infinite pity, pities guilty humanity, impossible to save” (Anna Coliva)

“Sick Bacchus” 1593/94 self-portrait of Caravaggio

The painting belonged to the painter Cavalier d'Arpino, but Cardinal Scipione Borghese had him imprisoned for owning illegal firearms and took it away from him as well as the “Boy with a Basket of Fruit” as a ransom for his freedom

“It is significant that, at the end of 1500s, the starting point towards realism is the still life painting of objects. The same will happen with the new realist revival in the last decades of 1800s. The result is a revolutionary thesis, the dismantling of hierarchies of topics, the choice of a painting without a subject and without apparent action, better able to approach the truth, to get rid of myths, ideologies and false decorum. Only in this way it would have been possible to get to a just, modern idea of action, with a new living implementation of paintings of History. And the histories will be painted, by the hand of Caravaggio, and we know how violently he would eventually propose them” (Renato Guttuso)

Entrance Room to the Paintings’ Gallery

“Ceres and Cupid” 1788 by Vincenzo Berrettini (active 1774/1818)

In this small room there are works visually connected to the Borghese family

Canvas "The Fall of Lucifer" by Jacopo Negretti aka Palma the Younger (1544/1628)

Four images made out of inlaid stones "Sacrifice of Isaac", "The Promised Land", "The Penitent Magdalene" and "The Virgin Mary as a laundress" by Tuscan workers of the seventeenth century

"The anonymous artist has cleverly exploited the variety of colors of the stones, fitting the geometric profiles in a set that reveals its modernity in stylized landscapes. Little space in fact is given to the figures, within a context modeled on classicists canons, derived from painting" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Oil on alabaster "Vision of St. Augustine" and "Temptation of St. Anthony" by an unknown Roman artist of the second half of the sixteenth century

"In the Vision of St. Augustine, the Eternal Father supports the Son in a pose clearly derived by Michelangelo. (...) Various paint losses prevent from understanding what was the original appearance of these works" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Oil on board "Orpheus" by an unknown artist of the first half of the seventeenth century inspired by Jan Bruegel the Elder

Two oils on copper "Vase with Flowers" 1595 maybe by Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568/1625), son of Pieter Brueghel the Elder

"Flowers and Butterflies" about 1670 by the Dutchman Willem van Aelst aka Guglielmo Fiamengo (about 1626/83)

Mosaics by Marcello Provenzale (1575/1639): "Madonna and Child", "Orpheus" and "Portrait of Paul V Borghese"

"Playing on the alternation of lighter and darker tiles, the artist has represented with technical mastery the three-dimensionality of the mass of clouds that surrounds the Virgin Mary and her mantle folded in thick folds, even managing to show the brightness of the halo surrounding the head. (...) A pupil of Paolo Rossetti in Rome, he worked as a mosaic artist in the Gregorian Chapel in St. Peter. (...) Countryman of Guercino, to whom he was very close, he long worked for the Borghese family and they even gave him accomodation in their Campo Marzio palace " (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Portrait of Paul V Borghese" of the early XVII century by Ludovico Leoni aka Padovanino (1542/1612)

"Marble bust of an unknown man" by an anonymous artist of the sixteenth century

"View of Villa Borghese" mid-seventeenth century by the Dutchman Abraham van Cuylenborch (about 1610/58)

"In contrast with the view by Baur, the artist did not pay any attention to the façade, using it almost as a scenic backdrop: in this way the paths that open up in the woods on either side of the main path seem to have the function of theater wings capable to give access to the extras of a show" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Façade of Villa Borghese" 1636 by the Alsatian Johann Wilhelm Baur (1610/40)

"View of a seaport" about 1611/12 by Paul Brill (1554/1626)

"The Flemish artist was busy at that time with the cycle of frescoes for the Borghese residence of Montecavallo. (...) The flags flying on the flagpole of the sailing ship are variously related to the Borghese family and the city of Rome" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Room IX

“Stories of Aeneas and Dido”: in the center “Dido’s Suicide” and at the sides "Aeneas escaping from Troy", "Aeneas and Achates before Dido", "The Banquet of Dido with Aeneas and Achates" and "Mercury urges Aeneas to leave Carthage" 1783/85 by Anton von Maron (1733/1808)

Geometrical drawings by G.B. Marchetti (1730/1800)

Spectacular fireplace with marble bas-relief in ancient red marble "Theseus looking at Fea he had just killed" 1783 by Vincenzo Pacetti (1746/1820)

"Holy Family" beginning of 1500s by the Spaniard Pedro Machuca (d. 1550)

"He was in close contact with the generation of the first mannerist painters, and his Hispanic origin favored those forces in the direction of a markedly anti-classical painting. The compositional structure as an X of the painting breaks in fact the Raphael-like equilibrium to which the work is inspired, the so-called Madonna of the Chair of Pitti Palace in Florence" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"St. Sebastian" and "Crucifixion with Sts. Jerome and Christopher" by Pietro Vannucci aka Pietro Perugino (about 1450/1523)

"Madonna with Child" maybe by Pietro Perugino

Round painting "Adoration of the Child" by Piero di Cosimo (1462/1521)

Round painting "Adoration of the Child" maybe by Jacopo del Tedesco (active late fifteenth/early sixteenth century)

"The works by Jacopo del Tedesco have been identified and catalogued just because of this painting that, previously, had made scholars coin the conventional name 'Maestro del Tondo Borghese', Master of the Borghese Round Painting" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist" about 1488/90 by Lorenzo di Credi (1459/1537)

"Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist" about 1530 by Raffaellino del Colle (about 1490/1566)

Round painting "Adoration of the Child" 1495/1500 by Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino aka Fra' Bartolomeo (1472/1517)

"The key figure in Florentine painting of the beginning of the late Renaissance, Fra' Bartolomeo, was a deeply religious spirit. In this way the decisive step towards the new artistic ideal is accomplished without completely breaking with tradition. As the economy of his pictorial compositions is part of the new era, in fact, it is the focus point of the works by Raphael, Fra' Bartolomeo, rejecting the drama and merely placing peacefully side by side the figures of the Holy conversation, remains the perfecter of the ancient ecclesiastical style, comparable in many ways directly to Perugino" (Hermann Voss)

Round painting "Madonna with Child, St. John and Angels" 1488/90 by Sandro Filipepi aka Botticelli (1445/1510)

"The small proportions of the saint, compared to the other figures, indicate that this round painting is a collaboration with the artist's workshop. (...) However, there remain characteristic features of other works of the master: the position of the head of the Virgin Mary, reclining on her Son’s head, the angels with slender hands and faces framed by curls and floral garlands" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Psyche transported to Olympus" maybe by the Flemish Lambert van Noort (active 1520/1570-71)

"Portrait of Young Man" by Ridolfo Bigordi aka Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio (1483/1561)

"Pieta and Four Saints" about 1509 by Andrea d'Agnolo aka Andrea Del Sarto (1486/1531)

"It exemplifies the effort of synthesis made on models by Raphael in his Florentine period and on Leonardo's sfumato on which a whole generation of modern painters of Mannerism was formed" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Rond painting "Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist" by Lorenzo di Credi (1459/1537)

"Crucifixion and Sts. Jerome and Christopher" about 1473 by Bernardino di Betto aka Pinturicchio (1454/1513)

"Virgin Mary and Child with St. John the Baptist as a child" about 1522 by Giulio Pippi aka Giulio Romano (1499/1546)

"Portrait of a Man" 1505 maybe by Hans Leonard Schäufelein (about 1483/about 1538-40)

Three paintings: "Madonna and Child", "The Holy Family with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist" and "Holy Family" about 1530 by Pietro Bonaccorsi aka Perin del Vaga (1501/47)

"The layout of the Holy Family with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist, leaving aside St. Anne and St. Joseph in the background, emphasizes the central figures of the Mother, the Child and St. John, accentuated by light. Coming from the right, light shows, through a shimmering effect, the left sleeve of Our Lady's dress and the neckline of her dress, to which the child is clinging, according to a pattern typical of Raphael" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Three paintings: "Portrait of a Man" about 1505, "Portrait of a Young Woman with Unicorn" 1505/06 and "Pala Baglioni (Baglioni Altarpiece): Deposition of Christ" 1507 by Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael) (1483/1520)

The "Portrait of a Young Woman," probably at the end of 1600s, had been repainted and turned into a portrait of St. Catherine. The great art historian Roberto Longhi had the intuition that it was a painting by Raphael representing a woman with a unicorn and during the restoration of 1935 the original work of the great master from Urbino was rediscovered

The "Pala Baglioni" was stolen at the order of Cardinal Scipione Borghese himself from the Baglioni Chapel in the church of S. Francesco in Perugia. The people in Perugia complained and his uncle, Pope Paul V, sent a copy of the painting executed by Giovanni Lanfranco

"Sanzio articulates the individual figures and groups according to strained dynamic cadences similar to the dissonant rhythms of Michelangelo, while the enhanced expression of the faces reveals, together with the influence of Leonardo, the knowledge of the classic depictions of pathos, perhaps of the Laocoon itself which was found on January 14, 1506 and it is echoed in the face of the third bearer from the left" (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

"Although the picture is the sum of two distinct inventions, a Deposition, with the dead Christ derived from the Pietà by Michelangelo, and one of the Virgin Mary fainting, derived from the Tondo Doni, the fact is that the artist proposes it as a unit, by connecting the two parties with the large carrier on the right, who is, in fact, the dominant figure, and at the same time, the less expressive of a particular affection. It is indeed an obviously ideal figure: archangel or incarnate genius, as suggested by his hair hit by a wind that does not touch the other figures. It is this ideal figure at the center (with whom tradition identifies Grifonetto, son of the client of this painting, Atalanta Baglioni, murdered in the year 1500 during the fratricide war of the Baglioni family in Perugia - editor's note), which dominates the pained expressions of the others and establishes between the two episodes a unity of time and place that may in fact reflect compliance with the principles of Aristotle's Poetics" (Giulio Carlo Argan)

Two copies of paintings by Raphael: "Portrait of Pope Julius II", the original of which is in the National Gallery in London and "La Fornarina" the original of which is in the National Gallery of Ancient Art in Palazzo Barberini

Room X

"Stories of Hercules": in the center "Apotheosis of Hercules" and at the sides "Hercules receives the Horn of Achelous", "Nessus and Deianira", "Hercules and Lica" and "Death of Hercules" 1784/86 by the Tyrolean artist Christopher Unterberger ( 1732/98)

Geometrical drawings by G.B. Marchetti (1730/1800)

"Unterberger moved to Rome in 1759 and he was accepted among the academics of St. Luke in 1772 thanks to Anton Raphael Mengs. When he was called to work for Prince Marcantonio Borghese in this room known as Room of Hercules or Room of Repose, Unterberger was an established artist at the height of his career. He was later appointed to re-arrange the gardens of the villa on Pincium Hill in a quaint English style, with sculptures and architecture, such as the Fountain of the Sea Horses (1790/91) or the Temple of Faustina (1792). In this vault he showed an unsuspected Michelangelo-derived style" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

This room in the seventeenth century was known as the Room of Repose for the presence of a four-poster bed and the statue "Sleep" in black marble by Alessandro Algardi, now in Room XIV

White marble and porphyry fireplace 1783 by Vincenzo Pacetti (1746/1820) with "Masks and Garlands" in gilded bronze by Antonio De Rossi

In the middle of the room:

"Statue of Young Gypsy Woman" polymateric, in bronze, white marble and gray marble, of the beginning of 1600s by Nicolas Cordier (1567/1612)

"Danae" 1531 by Antonio Allegri aka Correggio (1489/1534) for Federico II Gonzaga who wanted to donate this painting and the others of the series Loves of Jupiter (Io, Ganymede and Leda) to Charles V for his coronation in 1530 in Bologna

The two cupids in the lower right corner check with a touchstone that love has not been corrupted after having been touched by gold dropped as rain on the beautiful Danae

"The mastery of chiaroscuro effects, the exquisite coolness and light transparency of shadows, parted to Correggio new ways of beauty, even for painting figures. And not only he was the very first, but he was among the finest who studied the play of light on epidermis. Without endless study it would have been impossible the miracle of Danae, where it seems possible to perceive the flickering of feelings on the skin, such as wrinkling of breeze on motionless water. (...) Among his contemporaries no one else expressed feminine charm in such a beautiful way; even his closest follower, Parmigianino, soon lost it among too much elegance" (Bernard Berenson)

"Tobias and the Angel" about 1545 and "Judgment of Solomon" by the Florentine Pier Francesco Foschi (1502/67)

"After his debut in the workshop of Andrea del Sarto, the artist was influenced by Fra' Bartolomeo, Sogliani and Pontormo, producing works embodying a religiosity that anticipated the dictates of the Counter Reformation" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Venus and Cupid at Sea" about 1565 and "Love at rest" about 1565 by Luca Cambiaso (1527/85)

"Portrait of Young Woman as St. Catherine" first decade of the sixteenth century and "Venus between two Cupids" about 1520/25 by Andrea Piccinelli aka Andrea Brescianino (active in the early sixteenth century)

"After an initial knowledge of Raphael during his Florentine period, Andrea del Brescianino approached the style of Fra' Bartolomeo. Only after the twenties of the sixteenth century, the artist seems to be influenced by Andrea del Sarto, and it is during this period that this Venus was painted" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Venus and Cupid bearing the Honeycomb" by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472/1553)

"The episode of Love receiving the comfort of Venus, after being stung by bees, having naively stealing a honeycomb, it is of Hellenistic tradition, and, not surprisingly, the subject is commented on by the verses of Theocritus (Idilli, XIX) displayed in the upper right of the painting" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Leda" and "Lucretia" about 1565 by Michele di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio (1503/77)

"St. John the Baptist" about 1555 by Agnolo di Cosimo Tori aka Bronzino (1503/72)

"The attention to the different texture of matter, typical of Bronzino, is found in the treatment of the beardless face of the saint, which has almost the smoothness of a sculptural surface " (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist" about 1518 by Andrea d'Agnolo aka Andrea Del Sarto (1486/1531)

“David with head of Goliath and a Page” first half of the sixteenth century by an unknown pupil of Dosso Dossi

“Portrait of Woman” by Innocenzo Francucci aka Innocenzo da Imola (about 1488/about 1545)

"Portrait of a Man" about 1526 by Francesco Mazzola aka Parmigianino (1503/40)

"For Rome Parmigianino became important for having given new elegance and grace to the scheme of the tapestries of Raphael; to this should be added the expressive pattern of his profiles, which fascinated as a musical tune never heard before. However, a characteristic of his style, the strong elongation of the figures, could not find echo on Roman soil, although abroad, not least in France and in the countries of the North, has influenced the ideal body" (Hermann Voss)

"Portrait of a Youth" about 1530 by an unknown pupil of Parmigianino, maybe Pietro Negroni

"Sts. Cecilia and Valerian" about 1555 by Lelio Orsi (1511/87)

Lelio Orsi dressed up the two saints as two nobles of his time and placed them in an environment that could have also been of his time as well, in an interesting task of updating and alluding elegantly to the martyrdom of St. Cecilia and St. Valerian

"Landscape with Magical Procession" 1527 and "Portrait of a Man with Gloves in Hand" by Girolamo da Carpi (1501/56)

"Landscape with figures of Knights and Ladies" about 1550/52 and "Portrait of a Woman" about 1547/51 by Niccolò dell'Abate (about 1510/71)

"With consistency the artist is able to filter out artistic ideas from the Veneto region and Ferrara, which came from the paintings by Dosso Dossi, and those of the Northern Schools. In the background the thin buildings help to create the fable universe typical of his landscape paintings" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Room XI

Three scenes of the "Myth of Ganymede”: in the center “Ganymede presented to Jupiter” and, at the sides, “Ganymede and Jupiter” and “Ganymede on the Eagle” 1790 by Vincenzo Berrettini (active 1774/1818)

Decorations on a light background by Felice Giani (1758/1823)

In this room there are many paintings of the School of Ferrara. Ferrara became part of the Papal States in 1598 and the Cardinal Scipione Borghese was thus able to more easily enrich his collection with works by artists of that city

Five paintings by Ippolito Scarsella aka Scarsellino (1551/1620):

"Dinner in the House of Simon the Pharisee" 1590/95

"The Bath of Venus" about 1585

"Salmaci and Hermaphrodite" about 1590

"The Massacre of the Innocents" about 1600/10

"The red robes of some female figures stand out in the golden brown and almost uniform color in the painting, which reveals the restless pre-Baroque style of the maturity of this artist" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Madonna with Child, St. John and St. Joseph" about 1592/93

"The work of Scarsellino lies at the turning point of the sixteenth-century tradition of Ferrara, whose intense chromaticism, gained during a fruitful Venetian stay, anticipates the painting style of the new century, thanks to a direct relationship with the art of the Carraccis" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Nine paintings by Benvenuto Tisi aka Garofalo (about 1481/1559):

"Holy Family" about 1516

"Madonna and Child" about 1517

"Flagellation of Christ" 1527

"The classicism of the face of Christ emphasizes the suspended moment only reminiscent of the real representation and contrasts with some features of the faces of the torturers who, like their clothing and like the headgear of one of the elders on the left, show references to Nordic prints that the artist could have known in the Veneto region or in the city of Ferrara" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Crying on the Deposition of Christ" about 1530/32

"Conversion of St. Paul" 1545

"Adoration of the Shepherds" about 1510/16

"Jesus calling St. Peter" about 1520/22

"Madonna and Child with Sts. Peter and Paul" about 1518

"Madonna with Child, St. Michael and Saints" about 1508

"The Madonna with Child, St. Michael and Saints summarizes various artistic experience gained by Garofalo, from Dosso, Raphael or Giulio Romano. The Archangel Michael with the armor that reflects the flashes of light reveals the assimilation of the lesson of Giorgione, probably occurred during his stay in Venice, to be dated 1508" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Four paintings by Ludovico Mazzoli aka Ludovico Mazzolino (about 1479/about 1529):

"Adoration of the Magi" about 1522

"Christ and the adulteress" about 1527

"Nativity" 1506/07

"Incredulity of St. Thomas" about 1521

"Trained at the Este court, Ludovico Mazzolino grafted, on the branch of Ferrara’s tradition - of Ercole de' Roberti or Lorenzo Costa -, his knowledge of Nordic prints, sometimes reaching outcomes almost grotesque in the definition of the figures" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Deposition from the Cross" about 1518 by Giovanni Battista Benvenuti aka Ortolano (1487/after 1524)

"Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well" mid-sixteenth century by an unknown follower of Garofalo

Room XII

In the center "Women Followers of Bacchus" 1790 by Felice Giani (1758/1823)

"Pieta" about 1518 and "The Holy Family" by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi aka Sodoma (1477/1549)

Oil on paper "Head of a Youth" by Domenico Beccafumi (1486/1551)

"Very special artist, full of fantastic inventions, perfectly able to compete on an equal footing with Sodoma. However, his strength lies not in the delicacy and harmony of the north-Italian pictorial creation, in that feeling typical in Lombardy for grace and subtlety of physiognomic expression, as is the case for Sodoma. An authenticTuscan artist, Beccafumi tends rather to force and tension in the drawing of the figures and movements, to compositions full of contrasts, to interesting interpretation and to animation of the subject, a style that characterizes him for a strong inclination to bizarre and eccentric" (Hermann Voss)

"Blessing Christ" about 1500 by Marco D'Oggiono (1470/1549)

"The artist could have known the map of Enrico Martello (about 1490) or that of an unknown Lombard of 1502, but he was certainly also aware of the evidence given by Leonardo on the sphericity of the Earth" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Christ Carrying the Cross" about 1511 by Andrea Solario aka Solari (about 1473/1520)

"Our Lady of Sorrows" and "Ecce Homo" 1543 by Simon Mailly aka Simon de Châlons (mid-sixteenth century)

"Portrait of a Gentleman" about 1535 by Lorenzo Lotto (about 1480/1556)

"The small skull surrounded by rose petals and jasmine is a memento mori of high symbolic value that is linked to the gesture of the hand pressed on the spleen (believed to be the seat melancholic mood), expressing a sense of melancholy and suffering" (Bernard Berenson)

Drawing in silverpoint on paper "Female Head" by the Master of the Sforza Altarpiece (active in Lombardy 1490/1520)

"The chiaroscuro made with a silver pen is able to emphasize the three-dimensional face, similar to Leonardo’s style. (...) Attributed to Leonardo in the inventory of 1790, it was long thought that it was a preparatory study for the Virgin of the Rocks in the Louvre. Instead, it is to be referred to the Master of the Sforza Altarpiece, named by the work painted in 1494 by Ludovico il Moro now in the Pinacoteca di Brera" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Virgin Mary with Child" about 1451 by Bartolomeo Vivarini (about 1432/after 1491)

"Virgin Mary breast feeding her Child" about 1520 by Giovanni Pedrini aka Giampietrino (active about 1515/40)

"The idea of the iconography of the Virgin Mary which gives the breast to the Child - the 'Madonna del Latte' - is attributed to Leonardo. (...) Here Giampietrino prove himself attentive to the compositional motifs of another artist influenced, like him, by Leonardo: Marco d'Oggiono” (Chiara Stefani – Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Portrait of a Woman" about 1515 maybe by Bernardino Licinio (about 1485/after 1549)

"Portrait of a Woman" about 1500/10 by Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio (1466-67/1516)

"Growing up in the orbit of the Lombard Vincenzo Foppa, Boltraffio was early influenced by the novelty of Leonardo's painting. He devoted himself particularly to the portrait, exploring the potential of psychological insight, as already revealed the look of this woman" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Portrait of Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba" second half of the sixteenth century by an unknown Venetian master

"Portrait of Ludwig X of Bavaria" about 1530 by an unknown artist from the workshop of Barthel Beham

"St. Jerome" early sixteenth century by an unknown Lombard master

"Portrait of a Man" early sixteenth century maybe by Giovanni Mansueti (1465-70/1526-27)

"Leda and the Swan" copy from Leonardo da Vinci (1452/1519) maybe by Sodoma (1477/1549)

"As the Battle of Anghiari foreshadows the Baroque megalomaniac convulsion, so the Leda imposes the serpentine line that would be appreciated and imitated by generations of mannerist. It is remarkable that in the same period (between 1504 and 1506), Michelangelo was working on the Tondo Doni, where the central figure of the Virgin Mary shows a posture not too dissimilar from the kneeling Leda by Leonardo. Hard to say if the virtuosity of Buonarroti in trying the strangest twists owes something to the research of Leonardo or vice versa. What is certain is that the two rivals artists found here a point of contact" (Massimiliano Capati)

Room XIII

Paintings representing the "Fame of the Borghese family" 1790 by Felice Giani (1758/1823)

"Stories of Joseph Hebrew" about 1530 by Antonio di Donnino del Mazziere (late fourteenth century/1547)

"Stories of Joseph Hebrew" by Ubertino Verdi aka Bachiacca (1494/1557)

"In the Stories of Joseph Hebrew, when the shortage in form and weak compositional talents don’t disturb excessively, Bachiacca is surprising for his pleasant qualities of narrator and all sorts of bizarre inventions" (Hermann Voss)

"Madonna and Child with St. Anthony Abbot and St. Catherine" by Jacopo de' Boateri (active in Bologna about 1540)

"Madonna with Child, St. Joseph and St. John the Baptist" about 1513 maybe by Giovanni di Lorenzo Larciani formerly known as Master of the Kress Landscapes (1484/1527)

"Holy Family" about 1510, "Virgin Mary and Child with Two Angels" and "Mary Magdalene" about 1510 by Domenico Puligo (1492/1527)

"Portrait of Petrarch" by an anonymous artist of the end of 1400s from a prototype by Francesco Bonsignori (about 1455/1519)

"Communion of St. Catherine of Siena" about 1490/1500 by Bernardino Fungai (about 1460/1516)

"Based on a comparison with a painting in a private collection, the board is attributed to Bernardino Fungai, Sienese artist, tied to the school of Giovanni di Paolo and Sassetta, who keeps in his works - of mainly devotional subject - a style still archaic" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Christ at the Column" about 1470/80 by Lorenzo Costa from Ferrara (about 1460/1535)

"Madonna with Child, St. John and St. Elizabeth" about 1512 by the Spaniard Alonso Berruguete (about 1488/1561)

"It was Roberto Longhi to recognize here the hand of Alonso Berruguete, active in Florence and Rome between 1508-10 and 1514. An important, if not among the best, artists of the Manneristic period, he reveals his eccentric and anti-classical style in the smile of St. John and in the pointed profile of St. Anna" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Holy Family with St. John" 1511 by Mariotto Albertinelli (1474/1515) and Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino aka Fra' Bartolomeo (1472/1517)

"Christ Blessing" by Bartolomeo di Paolo del Fattorino aka Fra' Bartolomeo

Three paintings by Francesco Raibolini aka Francia (1450/1517):

"S. Francis" about 1475

"This hairless face of St. Francis, with its mild expression of resignation to the divine will, foretells in its purism influences of paintings by Perugino, increasingly evident in the works of Francia around the end of the century" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Madonna and Child in a Rose Garden" about 1470/80

"St. Stephen" about 1475

"Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist" about 1518 Francesco di Cristoforo aka Franciabigio (1482-83/1525)

Room XIV

Amazing fresco "The council of the Gods" 1624/25 by Giovanni Lanfranco (1582/1647) maybe from an iconographic program of Ferrante Carlo, Secretary of Cardinal Scipione Borghese

This room was a lodge until the end of the eighteenth century, when the openings on the garden were closed

"In January of 1624 from the marriage of Marcantonio Borghese and Camilla Orsini was born Paolo the new heir to the Borghese family: the event was perhaps greeted with the decoration of this very Loggia - in emulation of the Casino Ludovisi - which portrays the gods of pagan mythology as celebration of a return to the Golden age. While portraying an allegorical design not yet fully understood, it is clear the reference in the figure of Jupiter to Pope Urban VIII, and in that of Apollo to Cardinal Scipione Borghese. (...) Unlike the precedents of 'illusionary frames' in Rome (Raffaello in the Farnesina, Annibale Carracci in the Palazzo Farnese) Lanfranco conceived a unitary representation, playing with the fake architectural structures on either side of the vault" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Five lunettes on the wall with windows "The Winds" and various monochrome paintings 1779 by Domenico Corvi (1721/1803)

Four landscapes: "Landscape with Scene under a Tent", "Landscape with Waterfall", "Landscape with Fishermen" and "Landscape with Sermon of St. John the Baptist" by the artist from Bologna Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi (1606/about 1680)

"The identity of the size and material leads to believe that the four oils were part of a single decorative project. As was common at the time for the genre of landscape painting, these paintings could have been used above doors’ lintels. (...) They are part of the rare landscape paintings on easel by Grimaldi, who had a predominant activity as painter of frescos in Rome" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Two rounds of copper oil paintings "Calling of St. Peter" and "Christ and the Samaritan Woman" first half of 1600s, by an unknown artist follower of Domenichino

Four round panels with "Stories of Venus and Diana": "The Hair of Venus”, "Venus in the Forge of Vulcan", "Venus and Adonis" and "The Triumph of Diana" about 1618 by Francesco Albani (1578/1660)

"A little self creatively, he strengthened the classic trend in the academic sense, especially evident in the works of great format. He participated in the decorative works of colleagues in Bologna, he worked for Guido Reni and constantly shared positions Domenichino" (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

Five sculptures by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598/1680):

"Bust of Paul V Borghese (1605/21)" about 1617/18

"An essential difference between this bust and the works of the same period is in the rendering of the eyes, the only case, together with putti of the ' Amalthea Goat', where eyes sculpted by Bernini have smooth globes, without the notches of the pupil. The vagueness of the look enhances the expressiveness of the other features of the face, such as the mouth. (...) The imperiousness of the nose is much more evident. All these characteristics give a 'psychological truth' to the portrait of the Borghese pope, which the other portrait of 1921 (known only from a reproduction and from a bronze version executed by Sebastiano Sebastiani now in Copenhagen) does not achieve" (Anna Coliva - Bernini Scultore)

"Two busts of Cardinal Scipione Caffarelli Borghese" 1632, of which one with a crack on the forehead

When Bernini saw that a crack had opened in the marble bust that he was completing, he rushed immediately to carve a new identical bust which he finished in a few days

So he presented to the cardinal the bust with the crack as if nothing had happened and, to his embarrassment but composed reaction, he revealed the second bust causing this time the uncontrolled jubilation of his protector

"Its style is dynamic; the head is presented in a momentary movement, the lively eye seems to stare at the viewer and his mouth, half open as if talking, would almost invite the viewer to have a conversation with him. Also dynamic is the arrangement of the drapery, on which light shines and almost sparkle, and therefore seems in constant motion" (Rudolf Wittkower)

"Amalthea Goat" about 1615, his first work as a youth

"Bernini worked the group confronting the art of painting, as evidenced by the various surfaces mimetically represented: the fleece of the goat and the metal bell, the baby's skin and his garland of vine shoots. The sculptor thus enters into competition with the painter in evoking the color scheme of the individual materials and in dosing differently the light that they absorb or reflect" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Bozzetto in terracotta for the equestrian statue of King Louis XIV of France" about 1670

Three paintings by Gian Lorenzo Bernini:

"Portrait of a Boy" about 1623/30

"According to Bernini’s biographer Filippo Baldinucci, the artist was interested in all of the special features of the individual characters that he was representing, not bothering to make them comply with the fixity of a pose, but preferring to observe their movements. (...) Within the genre of childhood portraiture, this canvas is innovative precisely because of the representation of the child himself, avoiding any reference to the census or the education of the boy" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Self-Portrait as a Mature Adult" about 1630/35

It is half of a double portrait originally with Costanza Bonarelli, the wife of an employee of Bernini and his mistress. He had her scarred by thugs after learning that she was also the lover of his brother, in turn punished with a clubbing

"Self-Portrait as a Youth" about 1623

According to his biographers Bernini painted about 150/200 paintings, but the ones extant are only a dozen

"His self-portraits are all made with short strokes, vigorous modeling forms and reveal the hand of the natural born sculptor. This characteristic impetuosity is combined with a neglect of detail, in a way improvised and sketched to deal with accessories like clothes, and spontaneity of expression. Most of his portraits, carved, painted and drawn show a similar movement of the head, bright eyes and half open mouth as if the character was about to speak" (Rudolf Wittkower)

"Concerto" about 1610/20 by Lionello Spada (1576/1622)

"Deposition of Christ" by Marcantonio Bassetti (1586/1630) from Verona

"Judith Praying" by the Frenchman Jacques Stella (1596/1657)

"Holy Family and Angels" about 1605 by Cristoforo Roncalli aka Pomarancio (1552/1626)

"The painting was meant to be looked at from below, as evidenced by the foreshortening of the stool on which the Virgin Mary leans (...). A certain academicism in the face of the Virgin Mary and of the angels is muffled by the subtle conversation between father and son. The angel on the left may have been inspired by St. Peter's Escape from Prison and the Child from the Madonna di Foligno, both works by Raphael" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"St. Jerome Praying" by an unknown Roman artist of the late 1600s

"Landscape" about 1613 by G.B. Viola (1576/1622) from Bologna

"Raising of Lazarus" about 1610/20 by Pasquale Ottino (1580/1630) from Verona

"Concerto" about 1623 by the Dutchman Gerrit Van Honthorst aka Gherardo Delle Notti (1590/1656)

"The insertion of the piece of still life on the table, made evident by the light beam shining from the left, seems almost a quote from the famous Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan. Here the artist added a special care in the tangible perception of the clothes, managing to give the illusion of softness of feathered headdresses or gloss of satin robes" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Killing of St. Peter Martyr" and "Landscape with Christ's Baptism and Preaching of John the Baptist" about 1600/10 by Paul Brill (1554/1626)

"Moses with the Tablets of the Law" 1625 by Guido Reni (1575/1642)

"Lot and his Daughters" 1617 by Giovan Francesco Guerrieri (1589/1656)

Originally painted as over-door for the Palazzo Borghese in Campo Marzio where Guerrieri used to work a lot

Oil on board "Dead Christ between Mary Magdalene and Angels" and "Resurrection of Lazarus" by Alessandro Turchi aka Orbetto (1578/1649)

"The gray color of the blackboard was used by the artist for a night scene, as he had done in other cases, and as was customary for the Veronese painters of his time" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Battle of Tullus Hostilius against the army of Veii" about 1597 by Giuseppe Cesari aka Cavalier d'Arpino (1568/1640) model for the large fresco in the Hall of the Conservatives in the palace of the Capitoline Hill

"St. Peter Freed from Prison" maybe by Pier Francesco Mola (1612/66)

"The Prodigal Son" about 1628 by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri aka Guercino (1591/1666)

Statue in black marble "Sleep" by Alessandro Algardi (1598/1654)

Ancient statue "Group of Amazon with Greek and Barbarian" about 160 found in the Villa of Nero at Anzio in the seventeenth century

Ancient statue “Deer” of the second century AD

Room XV

In the middle of the vault "Aurora”, “Dawn” and “Vesper" 1782 by Domenico Corvi (1721/1803) from Viterbo

Decorations of the vault by G.B. Marchetti (1730/1800)

Three paintings: "The Last Supper" 1547, "Adoration of the Shepherds" 1554 and "Sheep and Lamb" about 1560 by Jacopo Da Ponte aka Jacopo Bassano (about 1510/92)

"He transfigured a series of themes taken from the Old and New Testament into real-life rural scenes, destined to be very successful in the 1600s when different and various genres of painting became popular" (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

"In the Last Supper, the realism of the still life on the surface of the table, almost overturned toward the viewer, already announces the painting style of the seventeenth century" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"The painting of sheep and lamb is a rare example of a work, for the time, having an animal as a single subject, something that would become common only during the seventeenth century" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Adoration of the Magi" about 1576/80 maybe by Jacopo Da Ponte aka Jacopo Bassano and his son Leandro Da Ponte aka Leandro Bassano (1557/1622)

Five paintings: "Sts. Cosmas and Damian" about 1534/42, "Gyges and Candaules" about 1508/10, "Madonna with Child" about 1517, "Adoration of the Child" about 1519 and "Diana and Callisto" or, maybe, the nymph Syrinx who was transformed into cane or, also maybe, Gyges and Candaules by Giovanni Luteri aka Dosso Dossi (about 1486/1542)

"As a romantic illustrator he had few rivals. He painted with the same ease, wealth of tones, charm and strangeness with which his friend Ariosto used to write poetry. In his paintings there is so little structural material situation, as in the poetry of Ariosto there is little human nature, but in both the set is so beautiful and fascinating, that it is pointless to complain and quibble. His landscapes evoke morning hours of youth, almost under mystical rapture. His figures live with passion and mystery. We must not contemplate for too long or too often these paintings; but for a moment, looking at them, one can breathe the air of fairyland" (Bernard Berenson)

"Holy Family with St. John" about 1535/40 by Battista Luteri aka Battista Dossi (1490-95/1548)

"Nativity" about 1520/30 by Evangelista Dossi aka Dossazzo (?/1586) son of Battista Dossi

Two paintings: "Young Man" about 1525 and "Tobias and the Angel" by Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo (about 1480-85/after 1548)

"While opposing frontally Tobias and the Angel, the artist has used the same colors for their clothes (...). As much as the adherence to the style of Titian influenced the career of this artist from Brescia, the scholars do not agree on the date of this work - Paola Della Pergola dated it to 1540 - in which the cold tones palette seems rather defer to Romanino or the young Moretto, and the landscape anticipates of almost a century certain scenes by Adam Elsheimer" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Christ with the Disciples on the Road to Emmaus" about 1590 and "Diana and Actaeon" about 1584 by Ippolito Scarsella aka Scarsellino (about 1550/1620) from Ferrara

"The tight connection between figures and landscape places chronologically the canvas with Christ on the road to Emmaus close to other mythological paintings of this artist, of which there are many examples in the Galleria Borghese (rooms III and XI). To the early Mannerist culture of Ferrara, the artist joined the knowledge of Venetian art, after his period in Venice during which he had contacts with Veronese" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Tobias and the Angel" about 1570/80 Raffaellino Motta aka Raffaellino da Reggio (1550/78)

"Portrait of the family of his brother" about 1532 by Bernardino Licinio (about 1485/about 1550)

Marble statue "Removal of a Thorn" by an anonymous sculptor of the late sixteenth century

Room XVI

In the center of the vault “Flora” 1785 by Domenico De Angelis (1735/1804)

Decorations of the vault by G.B. Marchetti (1730/1800)

Fireplace by Luigi Valadier (1726/85) with his son Giuseppe Valadier (1762/1839) and the collaboration of Antonio De Rossi

"Portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici" by Alessandro Allori aka Bronzino (1533/1607) pupil of Agnolo di Cosimo aka Bronzino

"The minute observation of the sumptuous dress is typical of Bronzino: in fact the work is but one of several replicas of the original - painted by the Florentine artist in 1560 - executed by Alessandro Allori, who was his friend and pupil" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Portrait of Vittoria Farnese" and "Cleopatra” by Jacopino del Conte (about 1515/98)

"Lucrezia" about 1560 maybe by Jacopino del Conte

"Portrait of Cardinal Marcello Cervini Spannocchi" maybe by Jacopino del Conte

Cardinal Cervini was elected pope in 1555 under the name of Marcello II but he died only 22 days after the election

"An Apostle (maybe St. Peter)" maybe by Marco Pino aka Marco da Siena (about 1525/87)

"An Apostle (maybe St. Paul)" about 1555 maybe by Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta (1521/80)

"The view from below of the two figures leads us to believe that the paintings were models for mosaics or organ doors. There is no iconographic detail to possibly distinguish one apostle from the other " (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Resurrection of Christ" about 1570 by Marco Pino aka Marco da Siena

"It is clear, in the body of Christ, the influence of serpentine figures inspired by Michelangelo" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Flagellation" copy from the original by Sebastiano Luciani aka Sebastiano del Piombo (1485/1547) in the Borgherini Chapel in S. Pietro in Montorio

"Fishing Coral" about 1580 and "Allegory of Creation" by Jacopo Zucchi (about 1542/96)

According to what Giovanni Baglione wrote, the female nudes in the Fishing Coral painting have the faces of well known Roman noblewomen of the time

"The figure of Adam in the Allegory of the Creation is taken from an engraving by Giulio Bonasone. The armillary sphere he holds indicates the effort of knowledge through which man can approach God" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Nativity" by Giorgio Vasari (1511/74)

"Adoration of the Child" 1549 by Pellegrino Tibaldi (1527/96)

"The open book and the scroll in the foreground are two still lifes of effective virtuoso prospective. (...) The twisting of the figures and the downward motion of the angel show clear influence from the frescoes of the vault and of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. To his initial influence from Michelangelo Tibaldi added up the working partnership with Daniele da Volterra, during the decoration of the Della Rovere Chapel in the church of S. Trinita dei Monti (Briganti)" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Deposition of Christ with the Virgin Mary and two Angels" about 1555 by Marcello Venusti (about 1512/79) maybe from an engraving by Giulio Bonasone who had reproduced a drawing by Michelangelo

"The subtle poem of loneliness, the flavor of the very private intimacy, an isolation even excruciating" (Federico Zeri)

Room XVII

"The recognition of Gualtieri Count of Antwerp" by Giuseppe Cades (1750/99) surrounded by oval and monochrome figures by Tadeusz Kuntze aka Taddeo il Polacco (the Polish) (1732/93)

"Basilica of Maxentius" about 1740/50 and "Colosseum" about 1740/50 by Giovanni Antonio Canal aka Canaletto (1697/1768)

"A dance" by Nicolas Lancret (1690/1743)

"Probably the work is just a 'romance' or 'poetry', or a painting representing more a state of mind than a genre scene, like several other known examples in the paintings of the early sixteenth century, including Giorgione and Titian" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Self Portrait" 1806 and "Portrait of Antonio Canova (1757/1822)" 1806 by Gaspare Landi (1756/1830)

"Gaspare Landi from Piacenza, a former pupil of Batoni, worked in Rome for a long time and for many decorative firms – Palazzo Venezia, Palazzo Torlonia, Palazzo Taverna etc. - often alongside Camuccini, Giani and others. His style is soft, his colors delicate and deep, inspired by Giorgione" (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

"Annunciation" by Corrado Giaquinto (1703/66)

"In the definition of the space the artist has combined elements of domestic furniture - the chair, the four-poster bed, the window with stained glass - with stage tricks. The two steps to access the floor of the room in which the Annunciation takes place seem in fact borrowed from the theatrical tradition, as other painters did, starting from the mid-sixteenth century onwards" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Virgin Mary and Child with St. John of Nepomuk" 1729 by Sebastiano Conca (1680/1764)

"The particular speed of execution and his very versatile style allowed Conca to meet various commissions: from the official ones, in which his art is more conventional and close to the compositional forms typical of Maratta, to those painted for private clients with smaller works, where the painter, with vivid expression, through the use of a sketchy technique, 'created extraordinary and wonderful visions in which the religious character of the subject and the dramatic tone of the story are diluted in pure lyricism' (Scavizzi)" (Anna Maria De Strobel)

"Madonna with Child" about 1770 by Pompeo Batoni (1708/87)

"Madonna with Child" about 1650 by G.B. Salvi aka Sassoferrato (1609/85) inspired by the Madonna della Torre or Mackintosh Madonna by Raphael now at the National Gallery in London

"Madonna with Child" by the Florentine artist Carlo Dolci (1616/86)

"The languid devotion expressed by the half-figures of the Virgin Marys and Maddalenes by Carlo Dolci, Florentine counterpart of Sassoferrato in Rome, should be considered the most complete realization of one side of the mentality of the late Baroque style. These small canvas, painted with the greatest care in a skilled technique of miniature, enjoyed a great reputation in his day, and his contemporaries admired what a modern viewer consider as false and even repugnant mercy" (Rudolf Wittkower)

"Interior with flutist" about 1660 by the Dutchman Pieter de Hooch (1629/84)

"Drinkers" about 1650 by the Belgian David Teniers the Younger (1610/90)

"The Old Antique Shop" by Frans Francken the Younger (1581/1642)

"Man with lamp" about 1645 "Two men in a study" by Wolfgang Heimbach (about 1615/about 1678)

"Interior of a tavern" by the Flemish Gillis van Tilborg (about 1625/about 1678)

"Guards" by the Dutchman Pieter Codde (1599/1678)

Two "Bambocciate" about 1640 by Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602/60)

"The name usually given to these genre paintings, with episodes from the everyday life of soldiers, peasants and beggars, is 'bambocciate'. It comes from the nickname of the Dutch artist Pieter van Laer, called Bamboccio for his deformed looks and because, from the standpoint of classical aesthetics, the themes he treated had narrative and anti-rhetorical features, in contrast with the official art of Roman Baroque style. Pieter van Laer was active from 1625 to 1638 in Rome, where in 1623 was established a veritable colony of Dutch artists" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"The Bath of Diana" 1646 by the Dutchman Abraham van Cuylenborch (before 1610/1658)

Room XVIII

In the center of the vault “Giove e Antiope” 1787 by the French Benigne Gagneraux (1756/95)

"Portrait of Marcello Sacchetti" 1629 by Pietro Berrettini aka Pietro da Cortona (1597/1669)

The Sacchetti family was originally from Florence, and it was mentioned by Dante in his Paradise. It moved to Rome in the seventies of the sixteenth century. Marcello Sacchetti was a banker and was the patron of Pietro da Cortona

Two paintings: "Susanna and the Elders" about 1601/02 and "Lamentation over the Body of Christ" about 1601/02 by Peter Paul Rubens (1577/1640)

"In addition to leaving a decisive mark in the Roman figurative culture of the first decade of the seventeenth century, Rubens in Italy was able to know the ancient sculpture and the paintings by Titian, as various details of the canvas with the Lamentation over the Dead Christ reveal, including the sky in the background" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Portrait of Monsignor Clemente Merlini" about 1632 by Andrea Sacchi (1599/1661)

"The Visitation" 1638 by the Flemish artist Marten Mandekens (active from 1630/1649-50)

"Jesus crucified" by an anonymous artist inspired by Anthony van Dyck

"The type of the crucified Jesus seems to be derived from a model of Rubens dating to 1614, which Anthony van Dyck popularized during his Italian stay (1621/27), executing several replicas" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"St. John the Baptist" by Simone Cantarini aka Pesarese (1612/48)

"The type of the nude - that for the slight twisting of the body is vaguely reminiscent of the old Belvedere Ajax -, refers in his classicism, to Guido Reni, of whom Cantarini was a pupil (1635/38). To the lessons of the early stage of his master, Cantarini joined the influence of the school of the Carracci’s and Cavedone" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"The Burial of Christ" by Sisto Badalocchio (1585/1645)

"He definitively left Rome and went to Parma in 1617, opening his mature period, almost with no documentation left, but rich in works. Unlike Albani, and the largest group of classicist painters of the Carracci’s school, Badalocchio moved a bit like Lanfranco towards the Emilian tradition of sweetness, with shadows and dramatic movement. He drew at times from Correggio and Schedoni, and he was more inspired by Ludovico Carracci than Agostino Carracci" (Creighton Gilbert - Enciclopedia Treccani)

Room XIX

Five paintings in the vault with "Tales of Paris":

"Death of Paris" at the center, "Love gives music lessons to Paris" and "The Judgment of Paris" at the sides 1783 by the Scottish artist Gavin Hamilton (1723/98)

"Hecuba delivery Paris child to the shepherd Archelaus" copy by Vincenzo Camuccini (1771/1844) from the original by Gavin Hamilton

"Paris and the shepherdess Oinone" copy by Giovanni Piancastelli (1845/1926) from the original by Gavin Hamilton

Originally Gavin Hamilton had painted all five paintings but eventually two were replaced by copies

Four reliefs in the panels over the doors "Jupiter", "Venus", "Mars" and "Apollo" about 1784 by Vincenzo Pacetti (1746/1820)

They were the four gods who took part in the Trojan War which is the theme of the room

Fireplace 1782 by Vincenzo Pacetti with festoon in gilded bronze by Antonio De Rossi

Two paintings "Sybil" about 1617 and "The Hunt of Diana" about 1617 by Domenico Zampieri aka Domenichino (1581/1641)

In order to acquire the Hunt of Diana, Cardinal Scipione Borghese imprisoned the painter and asked it to him as a ransom for his freedom

"It gives a whole literary version of classicism: on canvas the colors are brighter, but not less measured than those of a fresco, the landscape is a clear derivation from theater, complete with proscenium and wings on the sides, figures have the movements of a well-calculated ballet, of course danced with a slow tempo, an adage, far from being an unbridled ditirambo" (Giulio Carlo Argan)

"If for the grace of the figures is inevitable to think of Correggio as a model, Domenichino also operated a synthesis between the color of the Venetian tradition and the drawing style of the Roman school and ended up with a stylistically unparalleled outcome" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

 "Joseph and Potiphar's Wife" 1615 and "Norandino and Lucina surprised by the Ogre" 1624 by Giovanni Lanfranco (1582/1647)

Norandino and Lucina are two characters of the poem Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto. Lucina had been imprisoned for four months in the cave of a blind ogre despite attempts of her husband to free her, including trying to camouflage her as a sheep

The ogre chained Lucina naked to a rock until Mandricarco and King Gradasso managed to free her and reunite her with the desperate husband

"The battle of Furio Camillo" about 1610/12 by Gaspare Celio (1571/1640)

"Judith with the Head of Holofernes" 1601 by the Milanese female painter Fede Galizia (about 1578/about 1630)

"The theme of Judith is a constant feature in the works of Galizia, not for the ideological implications of the subject as it has been suggested (Caroli - Spadaro), as much as for the possible combinations of the different clothes of the heroin. In the four Judiths, refered or connected with her name, Galizia developed the teachings of her father who was a costume designer and also showed an overactive imagination for creative clothes or fabrics as well as jewels: the symptomatic serial setting accentuates the differences in clothes, in jewelry and in hairstyle; each image 'tests' a different model of tailoring. The Judith of the Galleria Borghese in Rome dates back to 1601, the second and last version of this theme definitely attributed to Galizia; signature and date, affixed to the basin, emerged from a cleaning of the late nineteenth century" (Maria Elena Massimi - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

"Portrait of Youth" 1606 by Lavinia Fontana (1552/1614)

"Head of a Youth Laughing" by Annibale Carracci (1560/1609)

Two paintings "Aeneas Escaping from Troy" 1598 and "St. Jerome" 1590/1600 by Federico Fiori aka Barocci (1535/1612)

"The chromatic concert by Barocci - the artist himself liked to compare the color effects to music - has polyphonic and harmonized instrumental qualities hitherto unimagined. However it does not have the forceful orchestral sound typical of the Venetian painters or of Correggio, but it captivates for the beauty and softness of the modeling, the delicacy and elegance of execution, features that only the artists of the rococo style would be able to appreciate and perfect. Barocci special skills are his iridescent or pearly tones that gently fade in bright and clear colors" (Hermann Voss)

"Ecstasy of St. Catherine" by Agostino Carracci (1557/1602) older brother of Annibale Carracci

"Jupiter and Juno" about 1602 by Antonio Carracci (1589/1618) son of Annibale Carracci

"Head of satyr crowned with vine leaves" by Pietro Paolo Bonzi aka Gobbo dei Carracci (about 1576/1636)

"Sybil" by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (1610/62) from Viterbo, a pupil of Pietro da Cortona

"Holy Family with St. John the Baptist" by Simone Cantarini aka Pesarese (1612/48)

"Pair of amphoras with handles and knotted snakes" about 1638 by Silvio Calci da Velletri (active in Rome in the first half the seventeenth century) from an original by Alessandro Algardi

"Marble bust of Cardinal Domenico Ginnasi" about 1630 by Giuliano Finelli (1602/53)

"Bust of Felice Zacchia Rondanini" maybe by Domenico Guidi (1625/1701)

"Statue black and white of young girl with child and dog" maybe by Nicolas Cordier (1567/1612)

Room XX

In the center "Psyche received om Mount Olympus" and four round panels with "Stories of Psyche" 1781 by Pietro Antonio Novelli (1729/1804)

Geometrical decorations of the vault by G.B. Marchetti (1730/1800)

Fireplace 1782 by Agostino Penna with bronze reliefs by Antonio De Rossi

In this room there are paintings of artists from the Veneto region, operating between late 1500s and mid-1600s

"Adam" and "Eve" about 1507 maybe by the Venetian Marco Basaiti (about 1470-75/after 1530)

"Christ as a youth" 1495 by Bartolomeo Montagna (about 1450/1523)

"The look absorbed and lost in the void gives to the face an air of adolescent melancholy, perhaps influenced by Giovanni Bellini, the teachings of whom probably Bartolomeo Montagna followed while he was in Venice" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Four paintings: "St. Dominic" 1565, "Christ Scourged" about 1570, "Venus Blindfolding Love" about 1565 and "Sacred Love and Profane Love" about 1514 by Tiziano Vecellio (Titian) (about 1490/1576)

Sacred Love and Profane Love was painted for Niccolò Aurelio a Venetian patrician and secretary of the Council of Ten on the occasion of his marriage to the Paduan lady Laura Bagarotto

"Among the many interpretations for Sacred and Profane Love the most famously interesting one is that of Erwin Panofsky: it would be a manifesto of the neo-Platonic conception of love. The two women would be two kind of Venus representing two different degrees of love about which Marsilio Ficino and Pietro Bembo (friend of Niccolò Aurelio) wrote on the basis of the Platonic dialogues (especially the Symposium): the dressed up Venus would be the earthly Venus (or vulgar Venus) generative force of nature, the naked one is the celestial Venus, or the metaphysical principle of universal and eternal beauty. Both are in the foreground but the celestial Venus seems more important in pointing the way: her nakedness is not a symbol of lewdness but of philosophical truth. The third degree of love, according to the Neo-Platonic thought is the purely passionate one, the negative one, represented in the relief of the sarcophagus" (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

"Erwin Panofsky thought that Venus Blindfolding Love was a painting for a wedding, characterized by the opposition – to the presence of Venus Verticordia - between Eros, or the blindfold Cupid, and Anteros, the one with eyes open: the two nymphs, in this context, would be an allegory of marital affection and chastity. If the woman between the two cupids would instead be intended as Pulchritudo, it would then be accompanied by her sisters, Voluptas and Castitas. Edgar Wind subsequently identified goddess Diana in the figure with a bow, believing that the painting would represent a moment of initiation of love, personified by Venus and represented in the two aspects of chaste love and of passion in fact blind, as indicated by the blindfolded cupid " (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

Two paintings: "The Preaching of St. John the Baptist" about 1562 and "The Sermon of St. Anthony of Padua" by Paolo Caliari aka Veronese (1528/88)

 "Female Portrait" about 1494 maybe by Vittore Carpaccio (1460-65/1525-26)

"Passionate Singer" and "Singer with Flute" maybe by Giorgio Zorzi or Giorgio da Castelfranco aka Giorgione (1477-78 / 1510)

"Various scholars place the two paintings - two of the most controversial in the history of art - in the stylistic current known as ‘neogiorgionism’ of the early seventeenth century. For its realism this figure of singer, slightly larger than real, already seems to herald certain creations by Caravaggio and Velasquez" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Madonna and Child" 1510 by Giovanni Bellini (about 1432/1516)

"The subject and the pose are present in other two paintings by Bellini, one of which proposes also the tent as separation between the mundane and the sacred space of the intimate dialogue between mother and son. This painting, however, is marked by greater lyricism, which is also revealed in the open landscape to the right, already updated, now at the end of a long career, with his knowledge of the latest painting by Giorgione" (Chiara Stefani - Galleria Borghese T.C.I.)

"Portrait of a Youth" about 1500/10 by Jacopo Negretti aka Palma the Elder (about 1480/1528)

"Lucretia" about 1510/14 and "Sacred Conversation with Sts. Barbara and Justina and two devotees" maybe by Jacopo Negretti aka Palma the Elder

"Madonna and Child with Sts. Ignatius of Antioch and Onuphrius" 1508 by Lorenzo Lotto (about 1480/1556)

"The art of Lotto from the outset neglects the new tone of Venetian painting in order to reconnect to the figurative tradition, also Venetian, which dates back to Alvise Vivarini, Giovanni Bellini and Antonello da Messina: this tradition offers him linguistic ideas antithetical to the painting style with no drawing of Giorgione, and useful to express the characteristic point of view of the painter toward a penetrating investigation of reality" (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

"Judith" about 1516/20 maybe by Giovanni Antonio de Sacchis aka Pordenone (c. 1484/1539)

Extraordinary "Portrait of a Man" about 1475 by Antonello da Messina (about 1430/79) the only painting in Rome by this great artist

"It was one of the greatest portraitists of our 1400s: a meticulous photographer of facial features and of the character of his subjects. The matrix of these portraits is Nordic, but Antonello avoided that too a superficial realism would preclude interior analysis or expression of the whole, as sometimes happens in the works of Flemish painters" (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

Ancient bronze statue "Child" about 196 maybe Caracalla according to comparisons with coins and with a portrait kept in Berlin

Secondary Gallery on the Second Floor

"Venus" by Baldassare Peruzzi (1481/1536)

"Christ Carrying the Cross" by Sebastiano Luciani aka Sebastiano del Piombo (1485/1547)

"Holy Family" by Scipione Pulzone (about 1550/98) a work which inspired the fundamental book by Federico Zeri, L’Arte senza tempo (The Timeless Art)

"A point of arrival for the definition of a new devoted and anti-manneristic painting style, which began with Giuseppe Valeriano, is represented by the works of Scipione Pulzone. In the Holy Family are found, in an archaic and simplified key, the models of classicism. The realism of the image is accentuated and results in a visual representation without emotional involvement, functional to meditation, detached from history and time (Federico Zeri called it "The Timeless Art"), impervious to changes in taste and fashion” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

"St. Francis" by Annibale Carracci (1560/1609)

"The Beggar" by Jusepe de Ribera aka Spagnoletto (1591/1652)

"Susanna and the Elders" by Gerrit Van Honthorst aka Gherardo Delle Notti (1590/1656)

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