Post 1: The Magnificent Borghese Gallery & The World of Bernini
The Iconic Pines of the Villa Borghese
Thoughts on Rome, Bernini and Baroque
During my recent visit to Rome I found myself absolutely smitten by the work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini. More commonly just referred to as Bernini.
My Backstory
Before I dive into this post about the Borghese gallery, Bernini, and Roman Baroque, let me set the stage for my very first visit to Europe and Rome seemingly a lifetime ago.....
It is admittedly self-indulgent, so I take no insult dear readers if you'd prefer to skip ahead to the actual travel post itself. But for the rest of you, here goes....
Like most boomer kids (think the Summer of Love), summer vacations were spent camping with my family. For us it was usually at one of Northern California's beautiful lakes. The exception was one amazing summer when we packed up our huge red plymouth station wagon and drove it all the way up the Pacific coast to see Seattle's awesome Century 21 World's Fair.
A couple of winters we traveled to Colorado to see relatives for Christmas. One of those trips was made by rail aboard the City of San Francisco and began by crossing the majestic snow filled Sierra Nevada Mountains. Our trip home was through the Southwest aboard Santa Fe's Southwest Chief. The train ended in Los Angeles at its Magnificent Union Station. On both directions the trains were full of young soldiers and hippies. Everyone was strumming guitars and chain smoking. In the morning there was fresh snow between train cars.
Those were amazing trips.
In the years that followed my parents began to take longer road trips throughout the US and Canada in a series of RV's. I only went on a few of those trips with them.
So beginning in high school I engineered my first international trip. It was a student tour to Europe departing just after graduation.
It was 1974. I was 18. I needed to get a passport.
I
financed the trip by working on
parking lots in downtown Oakland and in Jack London Square. In "The Square"
I worked the "bar" shift (Friday and Saturday nights till 2:30 am well after the bars closed and the last drunks found their cars).
Those early morning shifts brought cash and a regular dose of abuse from nasty inebriates. One drunk turned out to be a very intoxicated Truman Capote (who managed to sideswipe a parked car on his way to my ticket booth). He may have been a literary genius, but when drunk, he was one vile POS.
Our month long tour included stops in England, France, the Netherlands ("Holland" in those days), Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland. The trip emphasized Italy with stops in Rome, Milan, Venice, Bologna, and Florence.
My tour companions were a chaotic assemblage of kids from across the economic
universe. I was firmly part of a blue collar group coming from a
public high school in Oakland. But, the rest of the kids came
from (very) privileged families. One group came from a very elite private boys
prep school in Orinda. They were all that.
Our clothes had labels from J.C. Penney. Their clothes had designer labels. Our wallets carried very carefully monitored cash and American Express travelers checks, their wallets contained credit cards from dad. Although they were all underage, they drank and smoked heavily.
We ate the included meals and a little
street food. They ate whatever they wanted and, upon arrival in Paris, announced they had dinner reservations at La Tour d'Argent (the most expensive restaurant in France.)
The initial part of the trip included London and Canterbury leading to a ferry from Dover to Calais.
Tour accommodations were (mostly) clean and basic. In London we were in a huge old hotel near Victoria station. It had wooden elevators that required an operator who pulled a rope to operate them. When he lifted his arms the smell from his old coat could kill.
When we arose all jet lagged on day two we went downstairs, enjoyed our first wonderful English breakfast, and ogled where the IRA had sprayed bullets overnight in the lobby. We went on various tours including the Tower of London.
Three days later the Elephant Armour Room in the Tower was bombed by the IRA. The Tower was closed for many months.
Arriving in Paris we checked into a throughly disgusting hotel. The Orinda boys amused themselves by holding cockroach races in the hall.
By comparison in Florence we had a wonderful family run hotel with crisp white starched sheets. In Venice we were booked into a convent. None of the hotels had air conditioning.
We toured everywhere on a bus driven by Gus. Gus heroically maneuvered his huge bus through seemingly impossibly tight streets in ancient cities. A few times he stopped the bus yelling for all the boys to get out and "move" some car that was blocking our way.
Like so many discoveries I made on that trip, I came to realize that six high school boys could pretty easily easily pick up and carry a Fiat.
In 1974 Italy was still a nation recovering economically and physically from World War II. The tangible scars of war were plainly visible, the liré was weak, and infrastructure was fragile. In many places tap water still wasn't safe to drink. My colon can attest to that.
It was in Rome that I came face-to-face with Italy's incredible history and outsized impact on western civilization. Before arriving in Italy I had no idea what terms like Rococo or Baroque even meant. It was all just gee gaw.
Happily, I've had a generous lifetime to sort all that out.
On to the post....
Returning to Villa Borghese
In the years since that student tour I have returned to Italy many times. But it was a family visit to Rome over New Years in 2003 that I first visited the Villa Borghese and was immersed in its amazing Gallery.
The Borghese gardens in winter were stark, "crispy" cold, and wonderful. And when I visited the Borghese Gallery its collection of Bernini, Caravaggio, Raphael, and Canova I was gobsmacked. I've wanted to return ever since.
So this trip to Rome I arrived with two essential goals:
1. Return to the Vatican Museums, and the refreshed Sistine Chapel
2. Return to the Borghese Gallery.
Happily, I accomplished both. I think of the Borghese Gallery as the perfect antidote to the sensory overload that is the Vatican Museums.
The Borghese's
The genesis of the Villa Borghese began with Scipione Borghese in 1613. Scipione was the favorite nephew of Camillo Borghese (Pope Paul V). Under Pope Paul V Scipione became a Cardinal and directed the operations of the Vatican.
Just two years after assuming his papacy, Pope Paul V sowed the seeds for Cardinal Borghese's future gallery by presenting him with 107 paintings he confiscated from the studio of the painter Cavalier D'Arpino. He followed that up with Raphael's "Deposition" which he had removed (by force) from the Baglioni Chapel in the church of San Francesco Perugia. It was also presented to Cardinal Borghese through a papal motu proprio.
By 1613 the immense power and money that came with Scipione's position enabled him to plan and construct a magnificent villa just outside the boundary of Rome. The immense villa include extensive gardens, a summer home, zoo, and his magnificent gallery specifically designed to house his growing art collection.
Cardinal Borghese's sumptuous personal Villa was his personal kingdom and his family continued to use it as a private a refuge for 300 years.
In addition to art looted for his new gallery, Scipione commissioned works by Bernini, Raphael, and Caravaggio. Many of the masterpieces possess themes consistent with the Cardinal's suspected homosexuality.
Statuary in the Borghese Consistently Celebrates the Male Body
St. Jerome
Caravaggio
Although mostly intact, the Borghese Gallery we see today is not quite whole. In 1808, almost 200 years after Scipione began the gallery, another "Camillo Borghese" (this time a prince) was "encouraged" by his brother-in-law Napolean Bonaparte to sell two of the galleries finest masterpieces (the Gladiator and the Hermaphroditus).
They now constitute the Borghese Collection in The Louvre. Parhaps as a consolation prize Canova's sculpture of Paolina Bonaparte was added to the gallery.
Paolina Bonaparte (Venus Victrix)
Canova 1808
Canova portrayed Paolina as a bare breasted Venus reclining on a couch just gazing at viewers. Canova's sculpture looks like it could come to life at any time.
For the People
In 1903, the Italian government acquired the villa and gallery and opened it to the public. The villa has become Rome's Central Park.
And its Gallery remains is a jewel box designed to showcase Scipione's meticulously curated art collection.
Baroque
When Martin Luther challenged the corruption of the Catholic church, he triggered the reformation. The impacts of his demands were seismic and the resulting conflict ultimately resulted in the death of one third of the population of Germany. Yet, while protestants now sought simplicity in design and art, the European Monarchy's and the Catholic Church instead doubled down in their creation of "in your face" physical reminders of their immense power. Hence, the lavish Baroque style was born.
The magnificence of the Baroque was intentional. It was meant to be a thumb in the eye of the austerity espoused by the Protestant Reformation.
Bernini: Poster Boy of Roman Baroque
Prodigy / Sculptor / Master Architect / Adulterer / Zealot / Slasher
During this visit I was overwhelmed by the sculptures of Bernini. They made me realize how little I really knew about this icon of Baroque. And, in the history of Rome, few artists / architects (such as Michelangelo) match Bernini's rockstar notoriety.
While it is tempting to want to go on a deep dive into the complex lives of all of the Borghese's masters, for me this trip provoked my curiosity about Bernini.
Realistically listing his lifetime accomplishments throughout Rome and in St. Peters (his design for its piazza and collonade) would fill volumes, so I have focused on his works of the Borghese.
When Gian Lorenzo was in his 20's, Scipione commissioned Bernini to create increasingly important sculptural masterworks for gallery spaces he was creating specifically for them. And, almost miraculously, 400 years later it is where they still exist today. Bernini's Borghese sculptures helped establish and define Baroque Sculpture. They were remarkable in thier depiction of texture and motion.
The first sculpture commissioned by Scipione was Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius. In this sculpture, completed in 1619, when Bernini was 21, Aeneas (the son of Aphrodite) carrys his father Anchises away from burning Troy. They are followed by his young son Ascanius. The power of the sculpture is in its detail. The determination on the face of Aeneas. The difference in the texture of the skin of the younger and older men is fully evident. The gallery this sculpture is now located in originally showcased the Gladiator.
Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius
Bernini's second major sculpture for the Borghese was the Rape of Proserpina. It was created in 1621-22 by Bernini who was now 23. This sculpture portrays the abduction of the daughter of Jupitor and Ceres by the god Pluto. The terror of Proserpina is visceral. We can even see Pluto's fingers pressing deeply into her thigh. At its base Pluto's terrifying three-headed dog Cerberus howls and guards the underworld.
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Unlike earlier Italian sculptures, meant to be viewed from just one side, Bernini's sculptures were created to be viewed from all sides and Gallery spaces needed to be designed to enable viewing from all sides.
Rape of Proserpina
The Gates to Hell Guarded by Cerberus
Bernini's Superb Use of Texture
The Rape of Proserpina was completed and delivered, just after the death of Scipione's benefactor Pope Paul V in 1621, which prompted Scipione to make it a gift to Ludovico Ludovisi to ingratiate himself to the favored nephew of the new pope Pope Gregory XV.
Meanwhile, Bernini found great favor from Pope Gregory XV who commissioned numerous projects from him. In 1921 the sculpture was purchased by the Italian government and reinstalled in the Borghese Gallery.
The third Bernini Sculpture was to be Apollo and Daphne, but Bernini paused his work on it and created his David first. After that he returned to complete the Apollo and Daphne.
Apollo and Daphne
Daphne Transitioning to a Laurel Tree
Nearly every major artist for nearly three hundred years used the story of David and Goliath as inspiration for their art. Bernini's David, completed in 1624, is a complete departure from the way David had been portrayed by earlier sculptors.
The most famous David is Michelangelo's sculpture created about 120 years earlier. Michelangelo's colossal David stands tall in a static pose looking to his side. His sling is casually draped over his left shoulder. Michelangelo's David was intended to grace the roof of the Florence
Cathedral where it would have been viewed from a great distance below.
This explains why it has seemingly odd proportions with its large head and hands. Michelangelo's David was created prior to the reformation when nakedness was acceptable. Later copies of Michelangelo's David were frequently covered in fig leaves. The copy presented to Queen Victoria came with a removable fig leaf to be attached whenever the queen would view the sculpture.
Bernini's David is life size and is sculpted with David in full motion preparing for battle. He is carefully draped, leaning back, muscles taut and ready to launch his stone. Bernini's David is intended to be viewed from all sides and conveys David's explosive energy. David bites his lip in deep concentration. The face of David is actually a self portrait of young Bernini.
'Biting His Lip in Concentration
Bernini's work throughout Rome proliferated wildly under the patronage of a series of popes until the death of Pope Urban in 1644. Under the new pope (Innocent X), Bernini fell out of favor. His descent was swift and devastating. For a period a of roughly 10 years, in the late 1630's, his personal and professional life became a soap opera.
He regained his stature with the successful commission to design the magnificent Four Rivers fountain in Piazza Navona.
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