History Borghese Gallery

"… that Gallery, which resembles the Theatre of the Universe, the Collection of Wonders, and the Lodging of the Human Gaze." Thus Scipione Francucci, man of letters, in his short poem of 1613 described for the first time the collection of paintings and antique sculptures that belonged to Cardinal Scipione, nephew of Pope V (1605 - 1621). A year later, the collection was to be trasferred to the recently built Villa Borghese lying just outside the Porta Pinciana and the future symbol of the "Golden Age" of the Borghese family. The Villa's uniqueness remains unchanged remains unchanged today thanks to its outstanding location, serenly blending architecture and nature, compared by L. Lepureo (1628) to the Garden of the Hesperides or Parnassus, and also thanks to the richness of its collection - the original core, still intact today, is the result of the choises made by itd creator and owner. Built in accordance with the suburban architectural model of the Classical Age - with the pars urbana and pars rustica - the villa was conceived, right from its 17th-century beginnings, as a kind of ante litteram museum, a microcosm of every form of art. Situated in the depth of the countryside beyond the Aurelian Walls, the Palazzina did not reflect the mores of the inhabited Urbe, unlike the other Borghese residence in Rome during the second decade of the 17th century (the Palazzi Borgo, Campus Martius and Monte Cavallo).
The villa was built in response to the family's need for a private residence and diplomatic seat, and to accomodate the Scipione's passion for collecting. Rather than exalting the nobility of his family , it was to celebrate the seduction of antique art recreating it by means of various architectural, sculptural and figurative formal solutions, and above all, by means of its very appearance. Described by J. Evelyn (1644) as a "citadel surrounded by walls and towers", it represented a perfect location rivalling Classical villas like the villa of Lucullus on the Pincian Hill, or Renaissance villas leke the Villa Medici (1544), or the villa of Scipione's rival Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini in Frascati (1598 - 1604), and the Cardinal would in fact dedicate the greater part of it to his archeological collection. The exterior was intended to provide a foretaste of the antique climate within; numerous sculptures were placed in the gardens, while façade was embellished with elegantly distributed statues, documented in the watercolour painting by Johann Wilhelm Baur (1636). Set into the south front was a Roman equestrian statue, restored by Pietro Bernini for the occasional and depicing Marcus Curtius Flinging himself into the Chasm. During the 18th century it was transferred into the entrance hall and set high up on the wall. The day after the election of Pope Paul V (May 1605), the "old vineyard by the Muro Torto" was bequeted to Scipione together with the entire art collection. It was when that work on the building was begun under the supervision of the architect Flaminio Ponzo, succeded at his death (1613) by the Dutch architect Jan van Santen known as Vasanzio. As early as 1613, a number of statue were transferred into the Casino, and by August 1615, Gian Lorenzo Bernini's the Goat Amalthea had been installed. These were followed by four marble groups directly commissioned by Scipione, conceived as "antiques statues" and intended to rival the masterpieces of classical antiquity. By this date (1615) the Palazzina was already functioning: the two hundred pieces forming the archaeological collection (installed on the ground floor) and part of the furnishings had already been transferred there, although the installation of the paintings, previously housed in the town villa of Borgo, would not take place until a later date.
In 1997, the double travertine staircase set "in front of the palazzo" recalling Michelangelo's staircase at the Capitol, and later eliminated by L. Canino, was reconstructed in accordance with the original plan. Descriptions made by Manilli and Montelatici during the second half of the 17th century say that the original interior decoration (no longer extant, with the exception of the wall paintings in the chapel) was rather simple and consisted of "dressed leather" applied to the walls and printed with blue and gold, the two colors of the Borghese family arms - the eagle and the dragon -, and "red velvet from Imola". Costly tapestries, some of which designed by Veronese, formed the main oranamentation while the furnishings consisted of numerous tables made of polished or painted wood or set with polychrome marble inlays, fine cabinet work, mirrors, and curios concealing surprises like the "seat of revenge" and the stool containing a "device of the horribly shrieking monster".
Although the possibility of lodging in the palazzo with family members and servants existed, these stays never lasted more than one day and one night. The 17th-century structure of Ponzio and Vasanzio's villa recalled the classical-type models of the Cinquecento, represented by Baldassarre Perruzzi's Farnesina (1509) or by Annibale Lippi's Villa Medici (1544).
Recent restoration work, completed in 1997, renewed the original white marble-like colour of the façade. The U-shaped plan has two projecting side wings, a central portico surmounted by a terrace, a façade decorated with antique sculptures reflecting the Mannerist style that had already been tried out in the casino created by Pirro Ligorio for Pius IV or in the above mentioned Villa Medici on the Pincian Hill. Lying between the two towers "for the family" set at the corners of the back wall was an open loggia (closed in the 18th century) containing a fresco by Lanfranco called the Council of the Gods (1624-25). It looked onto the "Garden of the Perpectives" or "Garden of Narcissus" named after the original bronze statue later replaced by a marble Venus on a basin made of African marble. Streching out from the sides of the Palazzina like wings were two secrets gardens that extended the spatiality of the interior to the outside. The park was devided into three areas enclosed by walls later knocked down, and its open spaces were regularly crossed by avenues.
The collection's character was influenced by the capricious nature of its owner who had little love of affairs of state and was more inclined to indulge his personal whims and, above all, his passion for art. The original core is characterised by Scipione's interest in every form of antique and Classical art - to be exclusion of medieval works - and his openness to the most innovative artistic movements of his times. Its richness was the result of unscrupulous appropriation and tyrannical extortion by the "cardinal nepote" leading the inclusion of the collection of the Cavalier D'Arpino with paintings by Caravaggio, of Domenichino's Diana (1613), of the paintings from the Ferrara School including works by Garofalo and Dosso Dossi, and Raphael's Deposition (1507). These were joined by gifts and acquisitions such as the antique sculptures of Tiberio Ceuli (1607), the collections of the sculptor Giovanni Battista della Porta (1608), of the Patriarch of the Aquileia (1609), of Cesare d'Este with paintings by Dosso (acquired with the help of Cardinal E. Bentivoglio, and of Cardinal Sfondrato 1608, with Ventian works by Titian and G. Reni).
Thanks to the variety of the Cardinal's choices the most significant movements and the most brilliant Italian and foreigh aritists of the Cinquecento and Seicento - Titian, Caravaggio, Bernini and Rubens - are documented in the gallery. Towards the end of the 17th century the collection reached its height with the entry of numerous works from Olimpia Aldobrandini's inheritance (1682). A second significant artistic contribution took place towards the end of 18th century (1770) when Marcantonio IV Borghese (1730 - 1800) launched the radical restructuring of the entire villa (1770 - 1800), causing the interior decoration and the landscaping of the gardens to reflect the more elegant style of Neoclassicism.
He entrusted the supervision of the work to the architect Antonio Asprucci who called upon a famous group of Italian and foreign arists and painters to renew the various rooms ( G. Hamilton, T. M. Conca, B. Gagneraux, L. Pecheux, etc.)
The interior of the villa was decorated throughout: the walls were covered with polychrome marble Roman stucco and the 17th-century peperino fireplaces were replaced by others embellished by precious materials. Canvas paintings echoing the original iconography of the sculpture in the various rooms ( The Rooms of Apollo and Daphne, of Silenus, of the Hermaphrodite) were applied to the applied to the ceilings which were devuded into panels by elegant architectural mouldings. The floors were also renewed with precious Roman marble inlays. The inspiration for the splendid Egyptian Room (Room VII) on the ground floor (described and completed in 1782) lay in the culture of exoticism and contemporary travel books.
The changes made to the exterior by A. Asprucci were over-invasive: the reliefs, no longer in harmony with the style of the period, were stripped from the façade, and the 17th-century staircase in the forecourt was eliminated for the same motive. The most serious loss was sustained in 1807 when Camillo Borghese, the husband of Pauline Bonaparte, sold a large part of the archaeological collection to Napoleon for thirteen million francs (these works now form the Louvre's Borghese Collection). Camillo Borghese would later try to compensate for this loss. It was, in fact, during this period (1805-1808) that A. Canova was commissioned to portray Pauline as Venus Victix, while the acquisition of Correggio's Danae (1530-31) dates 1827.
In 1833 a new fideicommissum (a legal act that forbade the dispersal of any of the listed items) was drawn up in order to protect the collection which was purchased together with the Palazzina and the park, by the Italian State in 1902.

Paola Mangia