Scipione Borghese
Encyclopedia
Scipione Borghese was an Italian
Cardinal
, art collector and patron of the arts. A member of the Borghese
family, he was the patron of the painter Caravaggio
and the artist Bernini. His legacy is the establishment of the art collection at the Villa Borghese
in Rome
.
, the son of Francisco Caffarelli and Ortensia Borghese.
His father ran into financial difficulties, so Scipione's education was paid for by his maternal uncle Camillo Borghese. Upon Camillo's election to the papacy as Pope Paul V
in 1605, he quickly conferred a cardinal
ship on Scipione and gave him the right to use the Borghese name and coat of arms.
In the classic pattern of papal nepotism
, Cardinal Borghese wielded enormous power as the Pope's secretary and effective head of the Vatican government
. On his own and the Pope's behalf he amassed an enormous fortune through papal fees and taxes, and acquired vast land holdings for the Borghese family.
, legate in Avignon
, archpriest of the Lateran
and Vatican
basilicas, prefect of the Signature of Grace, Abbot of Subiaco
and San Gregorio da Sassola
on the Coelian, and librarian of the Roman Catholic Church. He also assumed the offices of Grand penitentiary, secretary of the Apostolic Briefs, Archbishop of Bologna, protector of Germany
, of the Orders of Dominicans, Camaldolese
and Olivetans
, of the Shrine of Loreto and of the Swiss Guard
, and numerous other ecclesiastical positions. In each of these offices the cardinal received stipends. His income in 1609 was about 90,000 scudi
, and by 1612 it had reached 140,000 scudi. With his enormous wealth, he bought the villages of Montefortino
and Olevano Romano
from Pier Francesco Colonna, Duke of Zagarolo
for 280,000 scudi.
As Cardinal Nephew (an official post until it was abolished in 1692), Borghese was placed in charge of both the internal and external political affairs of the Papal States. In addition, Paul V entrusted his nephew with the management of the finances of both the papacy and the Borghese family.
Borghese aroused a great deal of controversy and resentment by utilizing numerous "gifts" from the papal government to fund Borghese family investments. Identifying rental properties as the most efficient means to ensure financial stability, he purchased entire towns and other extensive properties, including approximately one-third of the land south of Rome. Exploiting his authority as Cardinal Nephew, he often compelled owners to sell their holdings to him at substantial discounts. Borghese thus ensured that the fortunes of the family were not permanently dependent on ecclesiastical office.
Cardinal Scipione Borghese died in Rome in 1633 and is buried in the Borghese chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore.
, reflected in his taste for collecting art with strong homoerotic overtones. In 1605, Scipione allegedly angered his uncle the pope by bringing Stefano Pignatelli
to Rome, to whom he was closely attached.
According to the later writer Gaetano Moroni
, Scipione:
Scipione subsequently fell into a long and serious illness, and only recovered when Pignatelli was allowed to return. The pope decided to keep a check on Pignatelli and had him ordained, the beginning of a career which led to him becoming a cardinal in 1621. There is, nevertheless, no hard evidence for an active sexual relationship between the pair.
Another Italian historian Lorenzo Cardella indicates that although Pignatelli was twice accused of having "improper influence" on Cardinal Borghese, in both cases he was cleared of the accusations.
, Santa Maria sopra Minerva
, Santa Maria della Vittoria
, Santa Chiara a Casa Pia, San Gregorio Magno
, as well as building new churches in the nearby towns of Montefortino
and Monte Compatri
. During the Ludovisi
papacy the major focus of Borghese’s ecclesiastical patronage was on commemorative projects. The first was the embellishment of the Caffarelli chapel in Santa Maria sopra Minerva
(1620–23). The second was the massive timber catafalque decorated with life-size plaster figures designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
, erected in Santa Maria Maggiore (1622).
Borghese’s first work after entering the Sacred College where he studied was the building and decoration of the oratory chapels of St. Andrew and St. Sylvia beside San Gregorio Magno al Celio. For Borghese to complete such a project declared his devotion to the city’s Christian heritage, while also marking a gesture of respect for the great Church reformer of the previous generation. The restoration of San Sebastiano fuori le mura
(November 1607-1614), a church built under Constantine
(c. 312) housing the greatest collection of relics known at the time. San Sebastiano was in addition one of the seven churches in Rome and its restoration was a key element in the pilgrimage-driven revival of the circuit. Borghese’s restoration was in effect a complete modernization: rebuilding the main façade, adding a rear entrance, and thoroughly overhauling the interior in a modern decorative idiom.
The most striking feature of the restoration is the incidence of Borghese’s name and symbols. Atop the portico's parapet stand eagle and dragon (the Borghese symbols) statuettes; underneath is the façade dedication: Scipione Borghese, Grand Penitentiary, Cardinal and Priest of the Holy Roman Church, 1626. His coat of arms in the major panels of the ceiling's long axis is mounted not as normal in excucheons, but directly in the frame, the keystone of the proscenium arch at the end of the nave; underneath an inscription at the base of the baldachin
dome there is another inscription.
As Cardinal, Borghese took seriously his responsibility to contribute to the care and decoration of the churches under his supervision. Particularly after the death of his uncle, he seems to have utilized the embellishment of church buildings to demonstrate concern for the well-being of the faithful. The reconstruction of San Crisogono
, Rome (1618–28) was probably the most costly project of redecoration undertaken in any church in the city during the early seventeenth century. Gold covers the ceiling and many other surfaces.
Such public undertakings helped Borghese rehabilitate his reputation, though he never regained his political influence.
The Cardinal was a great collector of modern and ancient art: he built the Villa Borghese
and improved the Villa Mondragone
to house his collection.
The Borghese Collection began around a collection of paintings by Caravaggio, Raphael, and Titian, and of ancient Roman art. Scipione also bought widely from leading painters and sculptors of his day, and his commissions include two portrait busts by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
.
His collection was poetically described as early as 1613 by Scipione Francucci. In 1607, the Pope gave the Cardinal 107 paintings which had been confiscated from the studio of the painter Cavalier D'Arpino. In the following year, Raphael's Deposition was secretly removed from the Baglioni Chapel in the church of San Francesco in Perugia and transported to Rome to be given to Scipione through a papal motu proprio. The Borgheses were forced to provide Perugia with two excellent copies of the painting to avoid conflict with the angered city becoming violent, but the original remains in the Borghese collection.
.
The Satyr and Dolphin (Roman marble copy of lost Greek bronze, 4th century BCE) typifies the elegant and sensual depictions of young male figures that were prominently featured in Borghese's collection. One of his most prized works was the Hermaphrodite (now in the Louvre, Paris, Roman copy after Greek original of 2nd century BCE). From the young sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini
, Scipione commissioned in 1620 a realistically rendered mattress on which to lay this sensuous nude figure. Borghese is reported to have kept this statue in a specially made wooden cupboard, which he would open with a theatrical flourish to the amusement of his close friends. However, this sculpture was given in the early 19th century to Napoleon upon Camillo Borghese's marriage to Napoleon's sister, and what is in the Borghese collection today is another 2nd-century copy that was found. The original Borghese Hermaphrodite is in the Louvre.
Pope Paul V
willingly assisted his nephew's efforts to obtain the art works that aroused his interest. For instance, through the influence of his uncle, Borghese secured the cooperation of the parish priest in arranging to have Raphael's famous Deposition stolen from the Baglioni family chapel in San Francesco, Perugia, for which it had been commissioned a century before.
Borghese also greatly admired Caravaggio's naturalistic and psychologically complex later religious paintings, such as the brooding (but still sensual) youthful Saint John the Baptist (1605/6), which the collector acquired from the artist's estate shortly after his death, and the intense David with the Head of Goliath (1609/10), which represents the Biblical hero extending outwards a decapitated head with the features of the artist
Borghese appropriated Caravaggio's Madonna and Child with St. Anne, a large altarpiece commissioned in 1605 for a chapel in the Basilica of Saint Peter's, but rejected by the College of Cardinals because of its earthly realism and unconventional iconography. Recent archival research has established that Borghese intended from the early stages of the commission that the altarpiece would end up in his own collection.
The culminating work in this series that Bernini created for Borghese, Apollo and Daphne (1623–25), represents an incident popular in Italian poetry of the early seventeenth century, and ultimately derived from the Metamorphoses by the ancient Roman poet Ovid. Bernini depicts Apollo reaching out toward the river nymph Daphne just as she is transformed into a laurel tree by her father in order to prevent her from being burned by the touch of the god of the sun. Understood within its original intellectual context, this group represents frustrated desire and enduring despair and pain, provoked by love.
These meanings may have had special resonance for Borghese, who, at the time, was widely ridiculed for his attraction to other men. The specific moment depicted by Bernini also was thought in the early seventeenth century to signify the fusion of genders, more explicitly depicted in the Hermaphrodite also in the Cardinal's collection.
In 1632 Bernini executed two marble portrait busts of Borghese
(both in Rome's Galleria Borghese
). These works capture the exuberance that the Cardinal's friends admired and which his critics decried as frivolity inappropriate to his office.
, he also eagerly collected works of many artists of quite different styles.
Borghese's collection includes works as diverse as Early Renaissance altarpieces such as Fra Angelico
's Last Judgment (ca 1450); examples of northern art such as two paintings of Venus (early 16th century) by Lucas Cranach
; sixteenth-century Venetian paintings such as Titian
's Sacred and Profane Love (1514); and classicizing pictures such as Domenichino's Diana (1616/7). The Cardinal even owned a very uncharacteristic work by Michelangelo
, a depiction of Cupid now called "The Manhattan Marble".
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
Cardinal
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...
, art collector and patron of the arts. A member of the Borghese
Borghese
Borghese is the surname of a family of Italian noble and papal background, originating as the Borghese or Borghesi in Siena, where they came to prominence in the 13th century holding offices under the commune. The head of the family, Marcantonio, moved to Rome in the 16th century and there,...
family, he was the patron of the painter Caravaggio
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...
and the artist Bernini. His legacy is the establishment of the art collection at the Villa Borghese
Villa Borghese
Villa Borghese may refer to:*The Villa Borghese Pinciana , the villa built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio , developing sketches by Scipione Borghese, who used it as a villa suburbana, a party villa, at the edge of Rome, and to house his art collection.**The Galleria...
in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
.
Birth and elevation
Originally named Scipione Caffarelli, he was born in ArtenaArtena
Artena is a village and comune in the province of Rome, Italy. It is situated in the northwest of Monti Lepini, in the upper valley of the Sacco River...
, the son of Francisco Caffarelli and Ortensia Borghese.
His father ran into financial difficulties, so Scipione's education was paid for by his maternal uncle Camillo Borghese. Upon Camillo's election to the papacy as Pope Paul V
Pope Paul V
-Theology:Paul met with Galileo Galilei in 1616 after Cardinal Bellarmine had, on his orders, warned Galileo not to hold or defend the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus. Whether there was also an order not to teach those ideas in any way has been a matter for controversy...
in 1605, he quickly conferred a cardinal
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...
ship on Scipione and gave him the right to use the Borghese name and coat of arms.
In the classic pattern of papal nepotism
Nepotism
Nepotism is favoritism granted to relatives regardless of merit. The word nepotism is from the Latin word nepos, nepotis , from which modern Romanian nepot and Italian nipote, "nephew" or "grandchild" are also descended....
, Cardinal Borghese wielded enormous power as the Pope's secretary and effective head of the Vatican government
Roman Curia
The Roman Curia is the administrative apparatus of the Holy See and the central governing body of the entire Catholic Church, together with the Pope...
. On his own and the Pope's behalf he amassed an enormous fortune through papal fees and taxes, and acquired vast land holdings for the Borghese family.
Cardinal
Scipione received many honours from his uncle. He became superintendent general of the Papal StatesCardinal-nephew
A cardinal-nephew is a cardinal elevated by a Pope who is that cardinal's uncle, or, more generally, his relative. The practice of creating cardinal-nephews originated in the Middle Ages, and reached its apex during the 16th and 17th centuries. The word nepotism originally referred specifically to...
, legate in Avignon
Avignon
Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...
, archpriest of the Lateran
Lateran
Lateran and Laterano are the shared names of several architectural projects throughout Rome. The properties were once owned by the Lateranus family of the former Roman Empire...
and Vatican
St. Peter's Basilica
The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter , officially known in Italian as ' and commonly known as Saint Peter's Basilica, is a Late Renaissance church located within the Vatican City. Saint Peter's Basilica has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world...
basilicas, prefect of the Signature of Grace, Abbot of Subiaco
Subiaco, Italy
Subiaco is a town and comune in the Province of Rome, in Lazio, Italy, from Tivoli alongside the river Aniene. It is mainly renowned as a tourist and religious resort for its sacred grotto , in the St. Benedict's Abbey, and the other Abbey of St. Scholastica...
and San Gregorio da Sassola
San Gregorio da Sassola
San Gregorio da Sassola is a comune in the Province of Rome in the Italian region Latium, located about 30 km east of Rome....
on the Coelian, and librarian of the Roman Catholic Church. He also assumed the offices of Grand penitentiary, secretary of the Apostolic Briefs, Archbishop of Bologna, protector of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, of the Orders of Dominicans, Camaldolese
Camaldolese
The Camaldolese monks and nuns are part of the Benedictine family of monastic communities which follow the way of life outlined in the Rule of St. Benedict, written in the 6th century...
and Olivetans
Olivetans
The Olivetans, or the Order of Our Lady of Mount Olivet, are a monastic order formally recognised in 1344. They have formed the Olivetan Congregation within the Benedictine Confederation since 1960.-History:...
, of the Shrine of Loreto and of the Swiss Guard
Swiss Guard
Swiss Guards or Schweizergarde is the name given to the Swiss soldiers who have served as bodyguards, ceremonial guards, and palace guards at foreign European courts since the late 15th century. They have had a high reputation for discipline, as well as loyalty to their employers...
, and numerous other ecclesiastical positions. In each of these offices the cardinal received stipends. His income in 1609 was about 90,000 scudi
Italian scudo
The scudo was the name for a number of coins used in Italy until the 19th century. The name, like that of the French écu and the Spanish and Portuguese escudo, was derived from the Latin scutum . From the 16th century, the name was used in Italy for large silver coins...
, and by 1612 it had reached 140,000 scudi. With his enormous wealth, he bought the villages of Montefortino
Montefortino
Montefortino is a comune in the Province of Fermo in the Italian region Marche, located about 80 km south of Ancona, about 35 km northwest of Ascoli Piceno and about 45 km west of Fermo...
and Olevano Romano
Olevano Romano
Olevano Romano is a comune in the Province of Rome in the Italian region Latium, located about 45 km east of Rome.It is the probable birthplace of the composer Giovanni Gentile....
from Pier Francesco Colonna, Duke of Zagarolo
Zagarolo
Zagarolo is a town and comune in the province of Rome, in the region of Lazio of central Italy. It has 14,620 inhabitants, a total area of 28 km2....
for 280,000 scudi.
As Cardinal Nephew (an official post until it was abolished in 1692), Borghese was placed in charge of both the internal and external political affairs of the Papal States. In addition, Paul V entrusted his nephew with the management of the finances of both the papacy and the Borghese family.
Cardinal Scipione Borghese died in Rome in 1633 and is buried in the Borghese chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore.
Private life
Contemporaries commented on the near-public scandals that resulted on occasions from Scipione's possible homosexualityHomosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, reflected in his taste for collecting art with strong homoerotic overtones. In 1605, Scipione allegedly angered his uncle the pope by bringing Stefano Pignatelli
Stefano Pignatelli
Stefano Pignatelli was an Italian cardinal.Despite the name, he was not a member of the well-known Neapolitan noble family. His father was a potter...
to Rome, to whom he was closely attached.
According to the later writer Gaetano Moroni
Gaetano Moroni
Gaetano Moroni was an Italian writer, the author of the well-known Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica.- Biography :Moroni was born in Rome....
, Scipione:
Scipione subsequently fell into a long and serious illness, and only recovered when Pignatelli was allowed to return. The pope decided to keep a check on Pignatelli and had him ordained, the beginning of a career which led to him becoming a cardinal in 1621. There is, nevertheless, no hard evidence for an active sexual relationship between the pair.
Another Italian historian Lorenzo Cardella indicates that although Pignatelli was twice accused of having "improper influence" on Cardinal Borghese, in both cases he was cleared of the accusations.
Development of Gardens
Borghese took special interest in the development of the extensive gardens undertaken by various artists at his Roman residences, the Palazzo Borghese on the Quirinal (primarily 1610-16) and the Villa Borghese (initiated in 1613 and elaborated for the rest of the Cardinal's life). Both these influential gardens featured innovative elements such as waterfalls, and they incorporated dense groves of trees, which provided rural seclusion within the city.Restoration of Churches
In the first half of his career, Scipione’s church building was associated with his commendatrial or titular duties; in the latter half his public patronage was more wide-ranging, intervening at San CrisogonoSan Crisogono
San Crisogono is a church in Rome dedicated to the martyr Saint Chrysogonus.-History:The church was one of the tituli, the first parish churches of Rome...
, Santa Maria sopra Minerva
Santa Maria sopra Minerva
The Basilica of Saint Mary Above Minerva is a titular minor basilica and one of the most important churches of the Roman Catholic Dominican order in Rome, Italy. The church, located in the Piazza della Minerva in the Campus Martius region, is considered the only Gothic church in Rome. It houses...
, Santa Maria della Vittoria
Santa Maria della Vittoria
Santa Maria della Vittoria is a roman catholic titular church and minor basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary located in Rome, Italy. The church is known for the masterpiece of Gian Lorenzo Bernini in the Cornaro Chapel, the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa....
, Santa Chiara a Casa Pia, San Gregorio Magno
San Gregorio Magno
San Gregorio Magno al Celio, also known as San Gregorio al Celio or simply San Gregorio, is a church in Rome, Italy, which is part of a monastery...
, as well as building new churches in the nearby towns of Montefortino
Montefortino
Montefortino is a comune in the Province of Fermo in the Italian region Marche, located about 80 km south of Ancona, about 35 km northwest of Ascoli Piceno and about 45 km west of Fermo...
and Monte Compatri
Monte Compatri
Monte Compatri is a comune in the Province of Rome in the Italian region Latium, located about 20 km southeast of Rome on the Alban Hills. It is one of the Castelli Romani.-History:...
. During the Ludovisi
Ludovisi
Ludovisi can refer to:*Ludovisi , a noble Italian family*Ludovisi, Lazio, a rione in the City of Rome* Alberico Boncompagni Ludovisi, prince of Venosa and proprietor of Latium wine estate Fiorano...
papacy the major focus of Borghese’s ecclesiastical patronage was on commemorative projects. The first was the embellishment of the Caffarelli chapel in Santa Maria sopra Minerva
Santa Maria sopra Minerva
The Basilica of Saint Mary Above Minerva is a titular minor basilica and one of the most important churches of the Roman Catholic Dominican order in Rome, Italy. The church, located in the Piazza della Minerva in the Campus Martius region, is considered the only Gothic church in Rome. It houses...
(1620–23). The second was the massive timber catafalque decorated with life-size plaster figures designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian artist who worked principally in Rome. He was the leading sculptor of his age and also a prominent architect...
, erected in Santa Maria Maggiore (1622).
Borghese’s first work after entering the Sacred College where he studied was the building and decoration of the oratory chapels of St. Andrew and St. Sylvia beside San Gregorio Magno al Celio. For Borghese to complete such a project declared his devotion to the city’s Christian heritage, while also marking a gesture of respect for the great Church reformer of the previous generation. The restoration of San Sebastiano fuori le mura
San Sebastiano fuori le mura
San Sebastiano fuori le mura , or San Sebastiano ad Catacumbas , is a basilica in Rome, central Italy...
(November 1607-1614), a church built under Constantine
Constantine I
Constantine the Great , also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all...
(c. 312) housing the greatest collection of relics known at the time. San Sebastiano was in addition one of the seven churches in Rome and its restoration was a key element in the pilgrimage-driven revival of the circuit. Borghese’s restoration was in effect a complete modernization: rebuilding the main façade, adding a rear entrance, and thoroughly overhauling the interior in a modern decorative idiom.
Baldachin
A baldachin, or baldaquin , is a canopy of state over an altar or throne. It had its beginnings as a cloth canopy, but in other cases it is a sturdy, permanent architectural feature, particularly over high altars in cathedrals, where such a structure is more correctly called a ciborium when it is...
dome there is another inscription.
As Cardinal, Borghese took seriously his responsibility to contribute to the care and decoration of the churches under his supervision. Particularly after the death of his uncle, he seems to have utilized the embellishment of church buildings to demonstrate concern for the well-being of the faithful. The reconstruction of San Crisogono
San Crisogono
San Crisogono is a church in Rome dedicated to the martyr Saint Chrysogonus.-History:The church was one of the tituli, the first parish churches of Rome...
, Rome (1618–28) was probably the most costly project of redecoration undertaken in any church in the city during the early seventeenth century. Gold covers the ceiling and many other surfaces.
Such public undertakings helped Borghese rehabilitate his reputation, though he never regained his political influence.
Art collector
Villa Borghese
Villa Borghese may refer to:*The Villa Borghese Pinciana , the villa built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio , developing sketches by Scipione Borghese, who used it as a villa suburbana, a party villa, at the edge of Rome, and to house his art collection.**The Galleria...
and improved the Villa Mondragone
Villa Mondragone
Villa Mondragone is a patrician villa originally in the territory of the Italian commune of Frascati , now in the territory of Monte Porzio Catone...
to house his collection.
The Borghese Collection began around a collection of paintings by Caravaggio, Raphael, and Titian, and of ancient Roman art. Scipione also bought widely from leading painters and sculptors of his day, and his commissions include two portrait busts by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Two Busts of Scipione Borghese (Bernini)
The Two Busts of Scipione Borghese are marble portraits executed by the Italian artist Gianlorenzo Bernini, in 1632. Cardinal Scipione Borghese was the nephew of Pope Paul V, and had commissioned other works from Bernini in the 1620s...
.
His collection was poetically described as early as 1613 by Scipione Francucci. In 1607, the Pope gave the Cardinal 107 paintings which had been confiscated from the studio of the painter Cavalier D'Arpino. In the following year, Raphael's Deposition was secretly removed from the Baglioni Chapel in the church of San Francesco in Perugia and transported to Rome to be given to Scipione through a papal motu proprio. The Borgheses were forced to provide Perugia with two excellent copies of the painting to avoid conflict with the angered city becoming violent, but the original remains in the Borghese collection.
Art collector
Borghese used the immense wealth that he acquired as Cardinal Nephew to assemble one of the largest and most impressive art collections in Europe. Even though later generations dispersed some of his acquisitions through sales and diplomatic gifts, the works that he assembled form the core of the holdings of the Galleria Borghese (Rome), a museum housed in the villa commissioned by Scipione (1613–15) from the architect Giovanni VasanzioGiovanni Vasanzio
Giovanni Vasanzio or Jan van Santen was a Dutch-born architect, garden designer and engraver who spent his mature career in Rome, where he arrived in the 1580s...
.
The Satyr and Dolphin (Roman marble copy of lost Greek bronze, 4th century BCE) typifies the elegant and sensual depictions of young male figures that were prominently featured in Borghese's collection. One of his most prized works was the Hermaphrodite (now in the Louvre, Paris, Roman copy after Greek original of 2nd century BCE). From the young sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian artist who worked principally in Rome. He was the leading sculptor of his age and also a prominent architect...
, Scipione commissioned in 1620 a realistically rendered mattress on which to lay this sensuous nude figure. Borghese is reported to have kept this statue in a specially made wooden cupboard, which he would open with a theatrical flourish to the amusement of his close friends. However, this sculpture was given in the early 19th century to Napoleon upon Camillo Borghese's marriage to Napoleon's sister, and what is in the Borghese collection today is another 2nd-century copy that was found. The original Borghese Hermaphrodite is in the Louvre.
Pope Paul V
Pope Paul V
-Theology:Paul met with Galileo Galilei in 1616 after Cardinal Bellarmine had, on his orders, warned Galileo not to hold or defend the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus. Whether there was also an order not to teach those ideas in any way has been a matter for controversy...
willingly assisted his nephew's efforts to obtain the art works that aroused his interest. For instance, through the influence of his uncle, Borghese secured the cooperation of the parish priest in arranging to have Raphael's famous Deposition stolen from the Baglioni family chapel in San Francesco, Perugia, for which it had been commissioned a century before.
Caravaggio
On July 31, 1607, Paul V ordered 105 pictures confiscated from the artist Cavaliere d'Arpino (1568–1640), who had been unable to pay his full tax bill, and he had them delivered to his nephew. Among the pictures that Borghese acquired through this seizure were two important early works by Caravaggio (both 1593, still in Galleria Borghese): a probable self-portrait, usually called Sick Bacchus, and A Boy with a Basket of Fruit, an overtly homoerotic image of a youth extending a large basket of fruit seductively toward the viewer.Borghese also greatly admired Caravaggio's naturalistic and psychologically complex later religious paintings, such as the brooding (but still sensual) youthful Saint John the Baptist (1605/6), which the collector acquired from the artist's estate shortly after his death, and the intense David with the Head of Goliath (1609/10), which represents the Biblical hero extending outwards a decapitated head with the features of the artist
Borghese appropriated Caravaggio's Madonna and Child with St. Anne, a large altarpiece commissioned in 1605 for a chapel in the Basilica of Saint Peter's, but rejected by the College of Cardinals because of its earthly realism and unconventional iconography. Recent archival research has established that Borghese intended from the early stages of the commission that the altarpiece would end up in his own collection.
Patronage of Bernini
Borghese's early patronage of Bernini helped to establish him as the leading Italian sculptor and architect of the seventeenth century. Between 1618 and 1624, Bernini worked primarily for the Cardinal, creating for him innovative pieces that served to define Baroque principles in sculpture. For the decoration of the Villa Borghese, Bernini produced a life-sized figure of David (1623), originally displayed to create the impression that he was hurling a stone directly at the spectator, and three sculptural groups with mythological themes.The culminating work in this series that Bernini created for Borghese, Apollo and Daphne (1623–25), represents an incident popular in Italian poetry of the early seventeenth century, and ultimately derived from the Metamorphoses by the ancient Roman poet Ovid. Bernini depicts Apollo reaching out toward the river nymph Daphne just as she is transformed into a laurel tree by her father in order to prevent her from being burned by the touch of the god of the sun. Understood within its original intellectual context, this group represents frustrated desire and enduring despair and pain, provoked by love.
These meanings may have had special resonance for Borghese, who, at the time, was widely ridiculed for his attraction to other men. The specific moment depicted by Bernini also was thought in the early seventeenth century to signify the fusion of genders, more explicitly depicted in the Hermaphrodite also in the Cardinal's collection.
In 1632 Bernini executed two marble portrait busts of Borghese
Two Busts of Scipione Borghese (Bernini)
The Two Busts of Scipione Borghese are marble portraits executed by the Italian artist Gianlorenzo Bernini, in 1632. Cardinal Scipione Borghese was the nephew of Pope Paul V, and had commissioned other works from Bernini in the 1620s...
(both in Rome's Galleria Borghese
Galleria Borghese
The Borghese Gallery is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. It is a building that was from the first integral with its gardens, nowadays considered quite separately by tourists as the Villa Borghese gardens...
). These works capture the exuberance that the Cardinal's friends admired and which his critics decried as frivolity inappropriate to his office.
Collection
Although he is most associated with the development of the BaroqueBaroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
, he also eagerly collected works of many artists of quite different styles.
Borghese's collection includes works as diverse as Early Renaissance altarpieces such as Fra Angelico
Fra Angelico
Fra Angelico , born Guido di Pietro, was an Early Italian Renaissance painter described by Vasari in his Lives of the Artists as having "a rare and perfect talent"...
's Last Judgment (ca 1450); examples of northern art such as two paintings of Venus (early 16th century) by Lucas Cranach
Lucas Cranach the Elder
Lucas Cranach the Elder , was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving...
; sixteenth-century Venetian paintings such as Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
's Sacred and Profane Love (1514); and classicizing pictures such as Domenichino's Diana (1616/7). The Cardinal even owned a very uncharacteristic work by Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
, a depiction of Cupid now called "The Manhattan Marble".