Guido Reni, the sacred and the nature presented at Borghese Gallery

A journey through the dialogue between the Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculptures and the Guido Reni's paintings in the historic Villa Borghese in Rome, the cradle of the collection of the princely and papal family originally from Siena.

Photo made by Carlotta Ceccarini

A few days ago I had the honor of meeting Francesca Cappelletti, the Borghese Gallery's director, who told in detail and with passion the history of this splendid and rich museum in the heart of Rome and the premise that gave birth to the idea of the exhibition, which has just ended, by Guido Reni, the sacred and the nature.

The passage from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century lays the foundations of the history of Borghese Villa and Gallery, created by Cardinal Scipione, nephew of Pope Paul V, who was entrusted with the management of the Vatican's art work collection, which will become the basis of the his personal collection of artistic masterpieces which is still housed in the Borghese Gallery today. A collection of works that since its inception ranges from ancient art to Renaissance and contemporary art. Works not always acquired by the cardinal with legitimate means: emblematic are the paintings confiscated from the painter Cavalier d'Arpino, the Raphaelesque Deposition of Christ stolen from the Church of San Francesco in Perugia and the arrest of Domenichino to take possession of his famous Diana Hunt.

PHOTO 1: Raffaello Sanzio, Borghese Deposition, 1507, Oil on canvas, Galleria Borghese, Rome

PHOTO 2: Domenichino, Diana's hunt, 1616-17, Oil on canvas, Galleria Borghese, Rome

The villa with its gardens and gallery opened its doors in about 1620, at the end of construction by the architects Flaminio Ponzio and Giovanni Vasanzio, who were inspired by the sixteenth-century Roman villas. The villa today has lost its initial pomposity due to the restorations and changes that have taken place over the years.

The original project included a villa surrounded by gardens with groves, ponds and caves, enriched by mostly rare and exotic plants and above all by statues, busts and bas-reliefs contained in the niches on the facade, an entrance with a double staircase, two towers, five arcades, a terrace also decorated with statues and a loggia painted by Lanfranco.

We reach the year 1700 and Marcantonio IV Borghese instructs the architect Asprucci for the first restoration of Villa Borghese, with the aim of enhancing the works of art from the cardinal's collection. Precisely in this period the Borghese family opens its gardens to the public, usable only for six days a week so that the seventh day was used by the family and its guests for pleasant rides among the greenery of the villa's gardens.

In 1803 Camillo Borghese and Paolina Bonaparte got married, a marriage that will determine the decline of the Borghese family, in fact the bride will sell more than 650 pieces of the Borghese art collection to her brother Napoleon Bonaparte who transferred them to France, where it is still possible today. admire them in French museums, galleries and collections.

The period of pomp and notoriety was therefore destined to end, to the point that in the 1900s the Borghese family sold the villa due to debts. The imposing building was bought by the Italian state for the sum of 3 million and 600 thousand lire, a rather ridiculous price considering that the paintings and sculptures that have now become an integral part of the villa itself were also included in the sale.

Today the museum, formerly Casino Nobile, is spread over two floors: the lower level for the sculptures and the upper level for the art gallery. Both floors until May 22th, 2022 hosted the temporary exhibition Guido Reni, the sacred and the nature.

The exhibition stems from the need to enhance and give a context to the Country Dance, dated around 1605, by the Italian painter and engraver, one of the greatest exponents of seventeenth-century classicism, Guido Reni. The work was purchased by Borghese Gallery for about € 800,000 at the end of 2020, which was already part of the collection of the Borghese family at the time during which Guido Reni lived in Rome, as evidenced by various inventories belonging to the Borghese. Furthermore, it is not by chance that Guido Reni was the painter of Pope Paul V and consequently he was in close contact with Cardinal Scipione.

Guido Reni, Country Dance, oil on canvas, 1601-02

Country dance is not only a landscape painting, but it represents, under the pretext of the natural context, a dance party, in which the figure from behind with the skirt of the typical red of Guido Reni stands out in the foreground and in the background on the right the elderly woman who makes a child cross the river, perhaps her grandson, a recurring theme in Reni's painting. In addition, the psychological investigation of the protagonists of the painting stands out, making the work not limited solely to landscaping in art.

The exhibition wants to emphasize not only this work that has just returned to the Borghese collection, but also wants to contextualize it in Roman and Flemish landscape painting, two landscape currents that enclose the two aspects of landscape painting of the time in which Guido Reni lived. and the relationship of artists with nature.

Certainly the most interesting fact of this exhibition is how the landscape paintings and the works of Guido Reni in the temporary exhibition interact with the many works permanently housed in the rooms of the Borghese Gallery. In particular, the dialogue with Bernini's all-round sculptures, the museum's flagship, is fascinating. Painting and sculpture blend perfectly, after all the Baroque centered part of its strength on the union of all the arts. Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Guido Reni, two pillars of Baroque and Classicism, the currents of the century represented by the temporary exhibition.

Photos made by Carlotta Ceccarini