If It Ain't Baroque

Day 47

Today I went to the Villa Borghese Gallery.  I've been to the gardens on the Borghese estate several times already, but this was my first excursion into the gallery.  I have been looking forward to this for nearly a month: about that long ago I had some silly idea that I would organize this trip to the Borghese gallery for myself and any of my friends who were free on Tuesday morning.  You are supposed to reserve tickets in advance, and while this should be a simple process of picking up my phone, or clicking a few buttons online, I kept forgetting to do so.  So what should have taken place three weeks ago, instead took place to day.

Totally worth the wait.  When can I go back.

I will always be a Classicist first and foremost, but damn, Bernini can bring tears to my eyes.  Now there is a lot of Bernini's sculpture and architecture all around Rome that you can see any time free of charge, but somehow these works, as spectacular as they are, are barely even a warm up for Pluto and Proserpina, David, and Apollo and Daphne.  And that is just the short list of the sculpture in the Gallery, not to even mention the paintings they've got there.  The movement! The expression!  Why anyone even continued to sculpt after they saw the things Bernini and his contemporaries were popping out is a mystery to me.  After all, if it ain't Baroque don't fix it.

I must have walked abound each sculpture a few dozen times and could have done a few dozen more rounds on each.  Alas, they know there are crazies like me out in the world and so they kick you out two hours after your entrance slot.  They can't stop me from going back again though.

Ciao,
J