La Galleria Borghese

La Galleria Borghese

The Borghese Gallery is one of the best art museums in Rome.  It began originally as the art collection of Cardinal Cardinal Scipione, who was the son of Hortensia Borghese and the nephew of Pope Paul V.  As the Borghese Gallery website explains:

Cardinal Scipion was drawn to any works of ancient, Renaissance and contemporary art which might re-evoke a new golden age. He was not particularly interested in medieval art, but passionately sought to acquire antique sculpture. But Cardinal Scipione was so ambitious that he promoted the creation of new sculptures and especially marble groups to rival antique works. Cardinal Scipione's collection of paintings was remarkable and was poetically described as early as 1613 by Scipione Francucci.

The museum houses one of the best collections of statutes by the famed sculptor Bernini.  It also houses several paintings by Caravaggio.  The Gallery is situated in the beautiful Borghese park on a hill at the northern end of Rome.  You can go through the museum in under 2 hours.  If you ever go, I strongly recommend going with a written guide or buying an audio guide.  The works of art are not well marked or described.

Here are some pictures of some of the art that can be found in La Galleria Borghese:

Washington, DC

After the Board Meeting, I went to Washington, DC, in part to assist at our Vocations Weekend in Washington. My sister came up to visit and we made a trip to the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Most of the pictures are from there. Most people don't realize that the National Gallery does permit you to take pictures, but you are not allowed to use a tripod (without advance written permission). The last few photos are from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial just north of the Art Museum.

Bl. Pope John Paul II Statue

Continuing on the art theme...

A few years ago, an artist did a statue of Pope John Paul II.  It was placed right near the Termini train station, just a bit south of the Piazza Republica.  Here is the picture I took of it last year:

From Rome - General

The Italians--and just about everyone else--hated it.  Well, with the outcry the artist decided to make some changes.  I think they were finished a few months ago.  Since I was walking nearby again today, I thought I'd snap some more pictures, here are two of them:

Huge change?  I suppose it's an improvement.  I'm not sure why they removed the grass.

Here's a close-up of the faces:

Igor Mitoraj

When I was in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, I saw a sculpture.  From what I gather this was supposed to be a statue of the head of St. John the Baptist:

From Santa Maria degli Angeli

When I saw this, I thought it looked very familiar.  I couldn't get out of my head--pun intended--that I had seen this somewhere before, only much bigger.  I thought it was in Chicago at first.  So, I finally went through my old pictures, and found this:

This one is from the market square in Krakow, Poland.  It's probably about 5 or 6 feet high, much bigger than the one in the Basilica.

But they are rather similar, no?

Well, it turns out they are from the same artist, a modern Polish artist named Igor Mitoraj.  Images of pieces of bodies is a common motif for Mr. Mitoraj, as especially is this sideways head.

Despite their similarity, they are meant to be depictions of two different figures.  The top one, as I mentioned, is of St. John the Baptism.  The bottom one usually goes by the title, Eros Bendato, or Eros Bound.  It's curious that the scuplture would cast these so similarly, Eros being the symbol of passionate love, and St. John the Baptist being the great martyr to marital fidelity.