It’s a homecoming of sorts for the Eternal City as three antiquities exhibitions open to the public for the first time in several decades.
After nearly 230 years in Paris, 65 remarkable sculptures have returned to the Galleria Borghese and are on display in the new exhibition “The Borghese Family and Antiquity.” These works, along with hundreds of others, were sold to Napoleon in 1807 when the Borghese family faced financial turmoil, and since were housed in the Louvre. Treasures like the “Sleeping Hermaphrodite,” which was restored by a young Bernini, the colossal “Borghese Vase” and “Cupid Riding a Centaur,” a Baroque-style sculpture that had previously never left the Paris museum, are highlights of the show.
Art takes a more contemporary turn just a short walk away at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Roma Capitale. The museum reopened last November after undergoing a ten-year-long total overhaul. The museum is home to paintings, drawings and sculptures by 19th and 20th-century Italian artists like Antonio Donghi, Nino Costa and Giorgio de Chirico. The current exhibition is a bit of a smorgasbord of styles including new classicism, futurism and realism.
And finally, the Scipio tombs just off the Appian Way have just reopened after two decades of renovation. Originally constructed in the 3rd century by Roman consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbato,to commemorate his ancestral heroes who fought in the Punic Wars, they were used until the first century A.D when they were abandoned and ultimately forgotten. Though the majority of the sarcophagi are copies, including the tomb of Lucius Cornelius himself, with the originals being held at the Vatican museums, the sepulcher remains and still shows the slots for the tombs, tunnels and bits of surviving frescoes.
Reservations are recommended for all exhibitions. “The Borghese Family and Antiquity” is open until April 9 while “Luoghi, Figure, Nature Morte” at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna show is on display through April 15. The tombs are open to visitors only on saturday mornings with guided visits in Italian.
Image: Sleeping Hermaphroditus at the Borghese Gallery (Roman copy of Hellenistic original, restored in 1619 by David Larique; mattress by Gianlorenzo Bernini in 1619)
