Galleria Borghese

What makes it special

Bernini's Apollo and Daphne is drawn from a passage in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Walk round it slowly and look at her fingers turning to laurel leaves. The marble looks like flesh, and this is the most photographed piece in the gallery.

Cardinal Scipione Borghese was Bernini's early patron, and the sculptures he commissioned became the heart of the collection. Look too for the marble base Bernini turned into a mattress for a reclining figure. Walk round that figure as well, because its form is ambiguous and may read as female or male.

Canova's Pauline Borghese as Venus Victrix reclines at the centre of the room named after her. Look past the figure to the bedding: the creases in the sheet, the plump pillows and the dent her weight makes in the mattress.

Room 8 holds Caravaggio's Boy with a Basket of Fruit and David with the Head of Goliath. The severed head is Caravaggio's own self-portrait, and he gave the painting to the cardinal in thanks for a pardon.

In the Venetian room, look for Titian's Sacred and Profane Love, hung beside works by Giorgione. Room hangs can change during temporary exhibitions.

Visiting

Ticketed entry gives you two hours inside, and no tickets are sold at the door, so book your slot before you travel. Arrive a quarter to half an hour early with ID and your reservation. Staff admit each slot on the minute, and a booking more than 30 minutes late may be voided.

Check bags, umbrellas and pushchairs at the free cloakroom before you go in. The gallery has eight rooms on the ground floor and twelve upstairs in the Pinacoteca, the painting gallery.

Give each floor about an hour. Do the ground floor first, then go up to the paintings.

Guided or on your own

A guide meets you outside the entrance, handles the check-in and walks you through the key works, with background an audio guide does not give.

Audio guides cannot be added to an online booking. Rent one in the basement, in English, Italian, French, German or Spanish.

Tips

Leave suitcases and trolleys at your hotel, because the cloakroom will not take them. Anything larger than 40 by 30 centimetres has to be checked.

See the Venetian room last so it does not eat into your time upstairs. When a tour group fills one of the smaller rooms, wait for it to move on before you go in.