Rome, the eternal city, affords a glimpse of ancient art on every street corner. The city has lived a thousand lives, and its art reflects every single one of them.
Galleria Borghese is at the heart of Rome’s art history. Once the private residence of Scipione Borghese (the patron of painter Caravaggio and art collector), inside you’ll find a treasure chest of art through time.
The gallery now shepherds this once private wealth of the world’s most celebrated paintings and statues to a growing, global, public audience. An expansive and ornate ground (Villa Borghese) enshrouds the palazzo-turned-gallery, where wooden boats row on a lake and picnics pepper the lawn every summer. Now, these grounds are becoming more of a focus within the exhibitions, as are contemporary artists: the gallery hosted its first exhibition dedicated to a female contemporary artist – Louise Bourgeois – in its history earlier this year and has just opened another spotlighting Wangechi Mutu.
At the heart of this renewal is the enchanting Francesca Capelletti, director of Rome’s Galleria Borghese since 2020. We sat down with Francesca to speak about everything to see at Galleria Borghese if you only have an hour or two, the most exciting artists working in the city at the moment, and how Rome is a living artwork in of itself.
Facciata Galleria Borghese, ph. Luciano Romano ©Galleria Borghese
Tell us a bit about your background and how your relationship with art began
I grew up in Rome, so just taking a walk through the city immersed me in art from a very young age; living in Rome is an informal relationship with art in of itself, especially the art of the past. My parents would bring me and my sisters to visit the city’s many museums and archeological sites, and narrate historical and mythological stories to us in a way that would feel like listening to fairy tales. Later, when I went to high school, I fell in love with Caravaggio’s 1599 to 1602 paintings in the Contarelli Chapel. This was really one of the best introductions to art and to the idea of studying great painters of the past.
Where do you go in Rome now, to re-live this magic or feel inspired?
There are lots of beautiful places in Rome, so it’s very hard to choose! I love to go to the churches, especially Chiesa di Santa Maria del Popolo in Piazza del Popolo to see the artworks (including by Caravaggio). It’s right in the city centre so you can tie in a visit between lunch and shopping. Via Giulia is another of my favourite spots in Rome because it is always so quiet, even though it’s right in the heart of the city. The same goes for Basilica Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. Trastevere can be very busy, but Santa Cecilia is surrounded by small restaurants and feels like arriving in the countryside, in the heart of Rome, as does Fontana delle Tartarughe (the Renaissance-built Fountain of the Turtles). This is another part of the magic of Rome: you can really escape from the bustling, touristy places and find the smaller spots where you can do life like Romans do. Discovering new places by chance within the well-known centre is one of the most beautiful experiences you can have in Rome.
Would you say a career in the arts was a natural progression from your love for Rome’s art?
I still felt undecided at university between the ancient world of literature and the ancient world of images and art. While I love to read and am always deep in my books and novels, I ultimately was captured by the images – I think the immediate impact of striking visuals are always very effective, and then there is always something else you can learn from it too. At university, I listened, and listened, and listened. I was fortunate that my professors were all very passionate about historic art, and therefore very stimulating to learn from. After university, I moved to London to study at the Warburg Institute to develop my interest in the Renaissance and Baroque culture. I consider being in London a turning point in my life, as I was struck with the idea of becoming an art scholar. I really loved being in libraries, archives, museums, and this felt like my world. However, I also loved the idea of doing something more part of real life so I applied for a role in a magazine based in London, as well as a scholarship for a PhD at the Border Institute. I ended up going ahead with the latter, and so started my career very academically.
Tell us about the art and artists you specialise in: what is it about these periods that really interests you? Is there a specific artist that changed everything for you?
I was really interested in the history of collecting art, even before starting at Galleria Borghese, because this is at the roots of all the art in our museums – they were all collected by someone in history. The history of collecting art gives you an idea of the different tastes for art, the relationships between historical artists and their patrons, and how artists were able to study ancient art within private collections via who they knew.
Rome is a great place to study art dating from the beginning of the 17th century. I started by studying Caravaggio – and still am, thirty years later! – but I also love traditional landscape painting. We are so interested now in nature and climate change, and how this impacts resources we get from earth. I believe we can learn and understand lots from different perspectives via Baroque landscape art.
Galleria Borghese, Roma
And now Galleria Borghese! How did this begin and why?
After 20 years working in the university in Italy, I moved over to Galleria Borghese where I am the director. It’s very different from teaching and studying, though I love it. It is very important for me for a museum to not just be a store for beautiful artefacts but a very lively place, one that is enjoyed. Plus, now, working at Galleria Borghese, I am surrounded by my art heroes every day.
There’s so much to see at Galleria Borghese, but if we only had one or two hours to spend here, what should we make sure to see?
Definitely visit the Caravaggio room because it is the only place in the world where you can surround yourself by six of the artist’s works. These are part of Cardinal Scipione Borghese’s collection and have been since 1611– there are a lot of ancient stories to be told about how these paintings reached the collection, including the complexities of bringing religious paintings inside a palace. This is an incredible room full of world-famous paintings, definitely not to be missed.
I also think the Egyptian room is fascinating – featuring an ancient marble collection curated by Cardinal Scipione Borghese – for giving you access to a different era in time within the gallery. You’ll also find Antonio Canova’s statue of Paolina Borghese as Venus Victorious here, which is another iconic work in our collection, dating back to the 19th century. We also have many of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s statues, so at least stop by the marble statues of Apollo and Daphne.
Overall, the gallery is a time machine, taking you through time, and the different constructs of beauty and art through time.
Louise Bourgeois. L’inconscio della memoria, Installation View, Galleria Borghese. All images are © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by SIAE 2024 and VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY Ph.by A.Osio
Since becoming director, you have focussed on enhancing the relationship between the indoor and outdoor spaces of Galleria Borghese. Can you tell me more?
Part of understanding why Galleria Borghese is so famous and understanding its charm is recognising the relationship between the art and the beautiful landscape it’s presented within, which is a once privately-owned villa within beautiful private grounds. It gives you an insight into how life was in the 17th century, in a way that is still meaningful for visitors today.
To emphasise this, I always try to use the garden within exhibitions, which has always been a great success. For example, we recently hosted a Giuseppe Penone show, who himself focuses on the transformative power of art imitating nature within his art. We exhibited his work made from organic materials inside the gallery, while the pieces made from bronze and durable materials were placed in the garden to create a tension between what is temporary in nature and what is meant to stay forever.
For our recent Louise Bourgeois exhibition we put her famous Spider in the garden and placed some of her other work in smaller buildings in the gallery, so visitors had to move between the main building, the gallery’s Secret Gardens, and smaller rooms to continue the show. The public really loved it.
Galleria Borghese Wangechi Mutu. Poemi della terra nera 1 Installation view with Nyoka © Galleria Borghese foto Agostino Osio
What can we look forward to at Galleria Borghese?
Early this year, we hosted an exhibition around Giovan Battista Marino who was a poet, though not incredibly well known. The aim of the exhibition was to restore our knowledge of how poetry and painting are connected. We were apprehensive about how the public would respond to and understand this “denser” theme, however the reception was fantastic and many visitors left with a stronger interest in poetry. From this, we have learnt to be brave and to propose exhibitions that are not mainstream subjects. We have just opened Kenyan-American artist Wangechi Mutu: Black Soil Poems, the first solo show at Galleria Borghese by a living female artist and continues the gallery’s interest in poetry and multi-disciplinary exhibitions. In 2026, we are going to work on Ovid’s Metamorphoses which will be unmissable. We have learnt it may seem difficult in the beginning but if you choose works of art that are powerful at storytelling themselves, the concept will become clear.
Galleria Borghese. Wangechi Mutu. Poemi della terra nera – 2 Installation view with Older Sisters © Galleria Borghese, foto Agostino Osio
Who are the exciting female contemporary artists working in Rome at the moment, that we should all know about?
There are many very interesting female artists in Rome who I am fascinated by, even if I am not a specialist in contemporary artists. At Galleria Borghese we have just opened an exhibition showing the incredible sculptural work of Kenyan-American artist Wangechi Mutu.
Around Rome, Marinella Senatore was commissioned to create an installation in Rome’s famous square, Piazza Venezia and the Venezia Station, which is now one of the largest open-air spaces for contemporary art. The installation is about sustaining one another, as well as participating and collaborating through art, and making art with people outside of the industry. The message in her work is a very positive one. Another great artist is Beatrice Burati who has a completely different style. She is a photographer and frequently works with nature, posing flowers against white backdrops to give you the idea of floating into a garden or into nature.
I think that the Roman scene is very active, especially in the last few years and definitely is going to become more interesting and dynamic in the future.
Rome’s art scene is undoubtably very exciting. Is there anything that you’d like to see more of in the future?
I think our current climate means that it is difficult to make interpretations or predictions about the future, however, I can see that more and more people – especially young people – are interested in the art. Alongside this, there is a growing interest in contemporary artists and art in Rome. Though, while creative, I imagine Rome is a difficult place for modern artists to express themselves freely and invent their own space and style without always being compared to ancient art. A few contemporary artists have spoken about moving abroad to find circles and cities that are more inclined to welcoming contemporary work. That being said, Rome is definitely changing; there are lots of galleries from abroad that have recently opened spaces in Rome, who are working with a lot of contemporary artists. This feels like the perfect connection, the perfect way to bridge the two.
That sounds really positive. And one final question, if you had to summarise Rome’s art scene and the feeling of art in Rome, in one or just a few words, what would they be?
Growing, full with a lot of ideas and hope.
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