Beautiful Borghese Gardens

Villa Borghese is a large landscape garden in the naturalistic English manner in Rome, containing a number of buildings, museums and attractions. It is the second largest public park in Rome (80 hectares ) after that of the Villa Doria Pamphili. The gardens were developed for the Villa Borghese Pinciana ("Borghese villa on the Pincian Hill"), built by the architect  Ponzio, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese, who used it as a villa suburbana, a party villa, at the edge of Rome, and to house his art collection. The gardens as they are now were remade in the early nineteenth century.

• Today the Galleria Borghese is housed in the Villa Borghese itself. The garden Casino Borghese, built on a rise above the Villa by the architect Giovanni Vasanzio, was set up by Camillo Borghese to contain sculptures by Bernini from the Borghese collection, including his David and his Daphne, and by Antonio Canova, with paintings by Titian, Raphael and Caravaggio.

• The Villa Giulia adjoining the Villa Borghese gardens was built in 1551 - 1555 as a summer residence for Pope Julius III; now it contains the Etruscan Museum.

• The Villa Medici houses the French Academy in Rome. In the 1650s, Diego Velázquez painted several depictions of this Villa's garden casino festively illuminated at night. Before electricity, such torchlit illuminations carried an excitement hard to conceive today.

• Other villas scattered through the Villa Borghese gardens are remains of a world exposition in Rome in 1911.
  • The Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna located in its grounds has a collection of 19th and 20th century paintings emphasizing Italian artists.
  • Architecturally the most notable of the 1911 exposition pavilions is the English pavilion designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens now housing the British School at Rome.