Galleria Borghese in Rome - detailed information with photos

Galleria Borghese

Galleria Borghese, built between 1613-1615, is located on the grounds of Villa Borghese. Today it houses the Cardinal’s collection of antiquities and paintings. The museum impresses with its unique collection of sculpture. The “Venus at Rest” or “Venus the Victorious” by Antonio Canova is beautiful. The model for the image of the goddess, according to researchers, was Napoleon’s sister Pauline Borghese. Other masterpieces belong to the master of Baroque art Gian Lorenzo Bernini: a sculpture of a resting young David with a sling, whose face bears a portrait resemblance to the artist, and “Apollo and Daphne”. In the rooms where paintings are collected, visitors crowd in front of Raphael’s “Position in the Coffin.” In Caravaggio’s “Boy with a Basket of Fruit” art historians see an early self-portrait of the artist. Famous is his realistic depiction of St. Jerome behind the letter. Caravaggio also owns “Madonna dei Palafrenieri” (or “Madonna with Child and St. Anne”), created in 1605-1606 as an altarpiece for the church of the same name of the monastic brotherhood.”