The Villa and Its Park, Privately, as One Design

The gallery and the gardens were commissioned together and were meant to be experienced together. Scipione Borghese built a villa suburbana with grounds laid out around it, and a guest arriving in the 17th century crossed the park before reaching the door. Splitting the two, as most visits now do, takes the building out of the setting it was designed for. This private tour puts them back in order. Inside: Bernini, Caravaggio, Raphael and Canova, in the rooms of the 17th-century villa. Outside: the grounds that became Rome's central park, with the Temple of Aesculapius on its lake, the Piazza di Siena, the fountains and the statues. A private guide means the pace is yours, which in a museum with a fixed two-hour slot is worth more than it sounds: you can spend fifteen minutes on one sculpture without losing the rest. The walk finishes at the far corner of the park, on the terrace above Piazza del Popolo, with the city laid out below. Your guide waits in front of the gallery entrance with a board showing your name.