A superb container for a superlative collection, Galleria Borghese is the 17th-century pleasure house where Cardinal Scipione Borghese stashed his Bernini statues and Caravaggio paintings. Two Bernini works alone – Daphne turning into a bay tree as she flees lustful Apollo, and Pluto seizing the grain goddess Proserpine – make the (obligatory) process of pre-booking a visit worthwhile.
The building’s imposing façade was originally adorned with sculptures and ancient reliefs, which, along with many of the gallery’s priceless gems, were sold to Napoleon in 1807 and are now conserved in the Louvre. The interior decoration – which was carried out in 1775-90 by Antonio Asprucci and Christopher Unterberger for Marcantonio IV Borghese – was fully restored during the 1990s.