Caravaggio and Raphael
Judith and Holofernes and La Fornarina in adjacent rooms โ no crowd, no booking.
Sailko โ CC BY 3.0 ยท Mallowtek โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท Nicola Severino Fotografo โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Nicola Severino Fotografo โ CC BY-SA 4.0
The Borghese is stronger on sculpture (Bernini) and requires a compulsory advance booking; Barberini is stronger on painting and far easier โ you can walk in the same day. First visit: Borghese. If you hate booking and crowds: Barberini.
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A Baroque palace built for the family of Pope Urban VIII by three of the seventeenth century's greatest architects โ Maderno, then Bernini, then Borromini โ and now home to the National Gallery of Ancient Art: one of Italy's most important painting collections and among its least crowded. Its most famous canvas is Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes, with his familiar bloody realism, alongside Raphael's La Fornarina and works by Titian, Holbein, Bronzino and others. But the building is half the pleasure: Bernini's grand square staircase and, facing it, Borromini's oval spiral โ two opposing lessons in Baroque architecture inside one house. And the great hall's ceiling, Pietro da Cortona's Triumph of Divine Providence, is among the finest painted ceilings in Rome and a hundred times less crowded than the Sistine. The ticket usually covers Palazzo Corsini across the Tiber for several days โ check when you buy.
Judith and Holofernes and La Fornarina in adjacent rooms โ no crowd, no booking.
A grand square stair and an oval spiral in the same building โ a direct comparison of two rival geniuses.
The Triumph of Divine Providence spans the great hall โ one of Rome's finest ceilings and its calmest to see.
Via delle Quattro Fontane 13, Rome
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