Rising early in the morning, we departed for the Villa Borghese (pronounced bor-gay-zay), what was once a large mansion, supposedly belonging to a Cardinal, but is now a nice museum. Taking the metro from Pyramide, we switch from the blue line to the orange line at Termini, and make our way to Spagna.
The museum contains a huge collection of paintings and sculptures. The weather is very warm, and we thankfully enter the darker cool of the interior.
The majority of the paintings in the Villa Borghese concern scenes from the Bible, stories about Catholic Saints, and Greek or Roman myths. I can't tell you anything about the Saints, but common Biblical scenes included the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. My favorites were of course the classical scenes - Leda and the Swan, Venus and Adonis, and sadly a myriad of other fantastic ones that I cannot remember.
The sculptures are particularly amazing - the collection includes a few Bernini originals, by far the most impressive sculptures we have so far seen on our trip (I write this on June 28th). The most impressive by far was entitled "The Rape of Proserpina". Propserpina, also known as Kore or Persephone, was once kidnapped (archaic: rape) by Hades and brought to the underworld. I hope we have a picture to show you, this one is a real treat. This statue is famous for Bernini's rendering of Hades' hands grasping Persephone's flesh. You won't believe this thing is made of marble:
Hades carrying Persephone away as he tries to kidnap her. Notice the flowing hair and Cerberus.
Hades's hands grabbing Persephone's thigh. I think she has a rather exquisite rear.
