Masterpieces from the Borghese Gallery, from Raphael to Rubens, will be temporarily transferred to Palazzo Barberini

From March 29 to June 30, 2024, the National Galleries of Ancient Art and the Galleria Borghese in Rome will collaborate to allow the public to continue to admire the heritage preserved on the second floor of the Galleria Borghese even during the renovation and protection project made possible thanks to PNRR funds. Fifty works will in fact be transferred to theSouth Wing of the main floor of Palazzo Barberini.

This is an initiative that intends to bring into dialogue two collections that share a similar history, linked to two fundamental figures of seventeenth-century Roman political and cultural life, Maffeo Barberini and Scipione Borghese. In this way, masterpieces such as Antonello da Messina’s Portrait of a Man, Giovanni Bellini’s Madonna and Child, St. John and Angels by Sandro Botticelli, Raphael’s Lady with Unicorn, Peter Paul Rubens’ Susanna and the Old Men, Titian’sSacred Love and Profane Love, and Paolo Veronese’s Preaching of the Baptist, to name but a few, will continue to be on public view.

“An event of the highest institutional value testifying to the proximity, not only geographical but also professional, that binds the two museums,” said Thomas Clement Salomon, director of the National Galleries of Ancient Art. “In the wake traced by Scipione Borghese and Maffeo Barberini,” the director continued, “who would have rejoiced at this initiative today, we hope that the public will be able to admire Borghese masterpieces at Palazzo Barberini and celebrate this exhibition that is difficult to repeat in the coming decades.”

“While carrying out major PNRR interventions that will change the appearance of the Pinacoteca on the second floor of the palace, the Borghese Gallery, with an exceptional effort of all its staff, will never close and during the works will remain visitable. The exhibition at Palazzo Barberini will make it possible to make the Gallery’s heritage always visible and to establish relationships and resonances with another exceptional Baroque collection and another great museum institution,” said Francesca Cappelletti, director of the Borghese Gallery.

At the Borghese Gallery, after the restoration of the facades, PNRR’s work will involve replacing upholstery and modernizing fixtures with a view to energy efficiency, expanding cultural accessibility, updating storage facilities and restoring some large canvases. The project, in its complexity, will be illustrated as a prologue to the exhibition in Palazzo Barberini.

At Palazzo Barberini, the temporary disassembly of the rooms of the South Wing will be an opportunity for an in-depth photographic and preventive conservation campaign of the works normally displayed in these rooms: from the Neapolitan seventeenth century to the eighteenth century collection, from Mattia Preti to the painters of the Grand Tour.

Ticket concessions will be provided throughout the exhibition period. The Borghese Gallery ticket is reduced and costs 11 euros (except for compulsory reservation fees, gratuities and legal reductions). Those who have purchased such a ticket are entitled to visit the National Galleries of Ancient Art at a reduced cost (5 euros), while enjoying the entire heritage and ongoing initiatives.

Photo by Alberto Novelli

Masterpieces from the Borghese Gallery, from Raphael to Rubens, will be temporarily transferred to Palazzo Barberini

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