Galleria Borghese from a Jewish perspective

A private Borghese Gallery tour from a Jewish perspective: Bernini, Caravaggio and Titian, read through the Hebrew Bible stories they were painting and carving.

It is the best small collection in Rome and the one people most often miss, because tickets are gone online long before most visitors think to book.

Reading the collection through the Torah

A surprising amount of what hangs and stands in these rooms comes straight out of the Tanakh, and the guides work through it that way.

Bernini’s David is a boy from the Book of Samuel, caught in the half-second before the sling releases — and the face is Bernini’s own. Caravaggio’s David with the Head of Goliath takes the same episode and turns it into a confession, with the painter’s face on the severed head. His St Jerome shows the man who spent decades in Bethlehem learning Hebrew in order to translate the Bible from the original rather than the Greek.

Bernini’s reach went further than this building. The twisted bronze columns he raised over the altar of St Peter’s are modelled on the Solomonic columns, and the figures above the Baldacchino echo the Keruvim of the Holy Ark.

The collection and the man who assembled it

Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V, built the collection in the early seventeenth century with the leverage that came with the surname — including seizing outright works he wanted. He was Bernini’s first great patron and the single most important collector of Caravaggio in his own lifetime. What you see is essentially one man’s taste, preserved intact.

Practical information

• Reservation is strongly recommended. Tickets are usually gone online weeks ahead in high season, though a walk-up spot is occasionally available if you try in person
• Visits run in timed two-hour slots with a capped number of people inside. It is why the gallery stays pleasant, and why it needs booking early
• Bags and coats must be left in the cloakroom before entry
• The gallery sits in the Villa Borghese park, a short walk from Piazza di Spagna

The longer version is in the guide to the Borghese Gallery from a Jewish perspective. The same approach on a larger scale is the Vatican Museums tour, and Caravaggio’s Roman churches are covered in On the traces of Caravaggio.