galleriaborghese

In this second report on my return from three weeks in Italy, I consider some evidence suggesting Rome is as postmodern as it is modern.

We return to the Galleria Borghese to consider the remaining two of Bernini’s four masterpieces, his Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanias, and his David. Both statues may represent the virtue of piety, one based on a Roman story and the other based on the Old Testament, though Bernini’s David looks well equipped to defeat Goliath even if he should fail to receive God’s support.

We visit the Galleria Borghese and focus on two sensual statues sculpted by Gianlorenzo Bernini, both based on stories told by the old Latin poet Ovid. Both were commissioned by the Borghese family which then also held the papacy and was helping to build the new St. Peter’s Basilica. How do Ovid and these two statues fit into the Catholic worldview that was then being expressed in the new basilica? Or don’t they?

Our subject is the Villa Borghese, a sprawling park on the north side of Rome and home to Rome’s most wonderful museum, the Galleria Borghese. Unscrupulously assembled by Scipione Borghese, nephew to Pope Paul V, the art collection in the Galleria includes several of Bernini’s finest statues, as well as works by Caravaggio, Canova, and the greatest Renaissance artists. In moving from St. Peter’s to the Borghese, we again move from halos to nudes and so have another chance to see the dramatic changes initiated in the Renaissance.

The art in Rome’s churches and museums includes many characters with halos and many without clothes, but these two groups rarely overlap. This pod first encourages visitors to Rome to observe when and where we see halos on the one hand and nudes on the other. It then draws on examples from the Galleria Borghese and Sistine Chapel to suggest that in the Renaissance, we see many fewer halos and many more nudes. This raises a difficult and interesting question: “Why?”

To find, we must seek, but what should we be looking for in Rome? I here propose that you keep your eyes peeled for evidence of various kinds of strife as you walk the charming streets of the Eternal City. I offer a preliminary list to get you started.