Villa Borghese Group Tour

The fabulous palace and the peerless collection of painting and sculpture contained within was the brainchild of cardinal Scipione Borghese, one of 17th century Rome’s most irrepressible and famous characters. Learn how this man of the cloth was more interested in luxury than piety, as your guide recreates a personality whose ruthlessly predatory nature combined with an unerring eye for artistic virtuosity allowed him to amass a private collection of art that has possibly never been matched before or since. Scipione’s rapacious desire for artistic masterpieces was so great that he was known to have had artists imprisoned to allow him to confiscate their works, and he even had Raphael’s famous Deposition forcibly removed from its altar in Perugia in order that it might grace his villa. As you gaze at the portly face and penetrating stare immortalised by the Baroque genius Gianlorenzo Bernini in a pair of uncanny sculptural portraits, on this Rome private tour we will together unravel the complex and many layered web of power, piety, ambition and intrigue that defined the art world of Baroque Rome.

Despite his controversial methods and flagrant disrespect for authority, Caravaggio was feted by the most powerful men in Rome during the first decade of the 17th century. Collectors like Scipione Borghese recognised the revolutionary potential of his art, and spared no expense in securing his works. The paintings that we will discover here on our Borghese gallery tour chart the artist’s dramatic rise and fall in fortunes, from early successes like the disarmingly guileless Boy with a Basket of Fruit to mature masterpieces such as his brilliantly moody portrait of St. Jerome.

Caravaggio’s sudden fall from grace and subsequent humiliating exile is expressed with startling power in the gruesome David with the head of Goliath, where the blank, staring features of the stricken giant are revealed as those of the artist himself, literally cut off from the life of fame and fortune that tragically eluded him. The intense drama and disturbing realism of paintings such as this would change the face of art forever. To learn more about Caravaggio, we recommend our private tour of Rome dedicated entirely to him: Caravaggio Tour.