Borghese Gallery

The Borghese Gallery is Rome's most concentrated treasure house of sculpture and painting, set in an elegant 17th-century villa surrounded by the greenery of the Villa Borghese park. The collection was assembled by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, an obsessive and ruthless patron who was the first great champion of the young Gian Lorenzo Bernini and an early collector of Caravaggio. The ground-floor rooms are devoted to sculpture, and they hold the gallery's most celebrated works: Bernini's 'Apollo and Daphne', capturing the nymph mid-transformation into a laurel tree, his dynamic 'David' caught in the act of hurling the stone, and the 'Rape of Proserpina' whose marble fingers appear to press into yielding flesh. In the same rooms stands Antonio Canova's coolly sensual portrait of Pauline Bonaparte reclining as Venus. Upstairs, the picture gallery gathers paintings by Caravaggio, including the 'Boy with a Basket of Fruit' and 'David with the Head of Goliath', alongside masterpieces by Raphael, Titian, Correggio and Rubens. Crucially, entry is strictly timed: visitors are admitted in two-hour slots, after which the rooms are cleared, which keeps the galleries pleasantly uncrowded but means tickets must be reserved well in advance and frequently sell out. The compact size makes two hours ample, and many visitors pair the gallery with a stroll or bike ride through the Villa Borghese gardens, which are free and open to all. The villa sits away from the metro, so a bus, taxi or a walk up from the Spanish Steps area is the usual approach, and parking is limited. The best photographs are of the Bernini sculptures in the naturally lit ground-floor salons, though a cloakroom bag-check is mandatory. For lovers of Baroque art in Italy, this intimate, world-class collection in a garden setting is one of Rome's finest experiences.