Galleria Borghese

one of the best parts about living in Rome (other than, you know, just living in Rome) is that we don't have to try to cram everything in to one week. we can wait for the most opportune time to visit a particular sight. and the most opportune time to visit Rome's museums was the Settimana della Cultura (Culture Week) in March, when the vast majority of both state-owned and privately owned museums were free to the public! Cecilia and i visited the Palazzo Barberini together, and we got the whole family together to visit the Borghese Galleries later that week.

the Galleria Borghese is a meticulously curated collection of sculptures and paintings in the Villa Borghese park, Rome's version of Central Park. this art gallery is relatively small compared to the giant Capitoline or Vatican Museums, and they only sell 360 tickets per two-hour time slot so it's much less of a zoo. even during the free week, you had to book ahead (with a €2 per person reservation fee) and the spaces went fast. in fact, when we arrived about five minutes ahead of our time slot, a very disappointed American girl was trying to ask the non-English-speaking security guard where she could get a ticket. he explained (in Italian) that they were all sold out for the remainder of the week. i translated the unhappy news for her, and felt even more vindicated in my mad dash to secure tickets for ourselves the week before!

when the guard swung open the gate a few minutes later, we poured into the beautiful portico. (360 people is quite a crowd when they're all coming through the door at the same time, but after about ten minutes, people had spread out through the gallery.) the villa was completed in 1613 for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V (born Camillo Borghese).

not too shabby for an entryway

the ceiling

in the first room, we encountered the serene smile of Pauline Borghese, Napoleon's sister who married into the Borghese family. she was criticized for posing topless for the sculptor Canova, to which she famously responded, "the room wasn't cold."

the most impressive part of this sculpture is the "fabric" covering the mattress.
who knew marble could look so much like cloth?

i have no idea who this is supposed to be, but it makes me laugh every time i see it

in the next room, we were struck by Bernini's version of David. Michelangelo's David, in Florence, may be bigger and more famous, but this David is absolutely bursting with life and energy. Greta studied it just as carefully as she had studied Michelangelo's.

more intricate carvings

the next room made me wrinkle my brow and try to remember my Greek mythology. i couldn't remember all the details of this one, so we had to look it up when we got home to explain it to Greta. Bernini has sculpted the legend of Apollo and Daphne. the story goes that Apollo insulted Cupid, so in retaliation, Cupid shot Apollo with a golden arrow so he would fall in love with Daphne, and shot Daphne with a lead arrow so she would be repulsed by Apollo. Daphne fled from Apollo, and when he was on the point of overtaking her, she called out to her father, the river god Ladon, for help. he changed her into a laurel tree. Apollo made a wreath for himself out of her branches, then bestowed upon her his own immortality. thus laurel trees are evergreen.

in the largest room of the main floor, Bernini's Rape of Proserpina commands the eye as soon as you enter. thankfully, Greta didn't ask too many questions about this one. Bernini sculpted this when he was only 24, which really makes me wonder what i've been doing with my life to date.

look at the imprints of his hand on her thigh, and the details of her feet and the dog's fur.
i could have looked at this for hours. 

another one of Bernini's early works stands in the next room. this was his first major commission for Cardinal Borghese: Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius, depicting Aeneas leading his two sons out of Troy. 

the next room houses a wealth of Caravaggio paintings, but by this point, the girls were starting to lose steam. or, perhaps more accurately, build up steam. Nick and i resorted to our tried and true museum trick of sticking them in a corner out of the way, and alternating with one of us watching them and one of us doing a quick lap around the room to study the art without distraction. 

Caravaggio's Self-Portrait as Bacchus

Caravaggio's David with the Head of Goliath

 

over it.

Caravaggio's Youth with a Fruit Basket

Caravaggio's Saint Jerome

Caravaggio's The Madonna and Child with St. Anne -- absolutely stunning

 

Caravaggio's St. John the Baptist

  we headed upstairs to see the rest of the art, again using the divide and conquer method of Surviving a Trip to the Museum with Young Children.

a series of self-portraits by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Lamentation over the Dead Christ, by Peter Paul Rubens

 

Sacred Love and Profane Love, by Titian

Madonna with the Baby Saint John and Angels, by Botticelli

 

Deposition of Christ, by Raphael

 

Portrait of a Young Woman with Unicorn, by Raphael (i imagine this
is the sixteenth-century version of resting bitch face)

and then we were back outside in the fresh March air! the park is a wonderful place to stroll, and it was full of people on bicycles, rollerblades, scooters, skateboards, and surreys. because the girls had been reasonably good, and because we are definitely not above bribing them to behave, we got them some of the worst gelato ever. of course, no gelato can truly be bad, but the stuff you get at the little food carts parked around town tastes like it's been melted and refrozen in the same canister for months. it's just not the same as gelato from a proper gelateria. but the girls love it just the same.

Greta opted for pistachio, which we all think tastes a little bit like peanut butter (ergo, good!)

living her best Roman life. (see the tiny police car in the background?)

then we played at the playground for quite a while, and ran into another American expat family who also moved to Italy in August. they had a ten-year-old son who informed us matter-of-factly that he doesn't like cheese, so Italian food isn't his favorite. i was deep in conversation with his parents when suddenly i realized that Cecilia was no longer playing right next to me. Nick and i, along with the other parents, immediately began searching for her. my heart was in my throat when Nick called out, "found her!" she had trotted off to the little arcade adjacent to the playground, which really should have been the very first place to look. so then we let the kids play for another half hour or so. Greta was so thrilled to have another English-speaking kid to talk to! and she was tearing it up on the little go-kart track.