Making a Prince's Museum
de Carole Paul
"In 1775 Prince Marcantonio Borghese IV (1730–1800) and the architect Antonio Asprucci (1723–1808) embarked upon the decorative renovation of the Villa Borghese that still largely determines the appearance of this justly celebrated showplace on Rome's Monte Pincio. Initially their attention focused on the Casino. The principal building at the villa, the Casino functioned from the first as a semipublic museum, and by 1625 it housed much of the Borghese's outstanding collection of ancient and modern sculpture. Integrating this statuary with vast ceiling paintings and richly ornamented surfaces, Asprucci created across the rooms of the renovated Casino a dazzling and unified homage to the Borghese family, from its legendary ancestors to its newly born heir. In Making a Prince's Museum, the author reads this inventive decorative program as a set of exemplary scenes for the education of the ideal Borghese prince. Her wide-ranging essay also situates the Villa Borghese among the sumptuous palaces and suburban villas of Rome's collectors of antiquities and outlines the renovated Casino's pivotal role in the historic transition from the semiprivate princely collection to the modern public museum. Rounding out this volume are a catalog of the Getty Research Institute's fifty-nine drawings for the refurbishing of the Villa Borghese and a discussion of sketches for the short-lived Museo di Gabii, the villa's other antiquities museum."-- "The architect Antonio Asprucci integrated richly ornamented surfaces, ancient sculpture, and elaborate ceiling paintings across the rooms of the Villa Borghese's Casino to create a unified celebration of the Borghese family, from its legendary ancestors to the newly born heir. Making a Prince's Museum documents the Getty Research Institute's group of drawings for this inventive decorative program and explains the renovated Casino's pivotal role in the historic transition from the semiprivate princely collection to the modern public museum."--Jacket.
