Borghese Gallery Work by Work, in a Group of Fifteen

A semi-private group capped at fifteen, walking the twenty rooms of the villa with the dates and the commissions attached to each piece rather than a general sweep. What the Borghese holds is an unusual concentration: a large share of Bernini's secular sculpture is in this one building, from the early Amalthea group made when he was still a teenager to the Rape of Proserpina and Apollo and Daphne, the works that decided what Baroque sculpture would look like for the next century. The route also covers Canova's Pauline Bonaparte, the two portrait busts Bernini cut of Cardinal Scipione, and Truth Unveiled by Time, which he made for himself and never finished as planned. The paintings are here too: Caravaggio's Young Sick Bacchus and the Boy with a Basket of Fruit among them, and Raphael. Skip-the-line entry, so the slot starts when it should. Arrive at least fifteen minutes before the departure time.