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Updated: May 22, 2025
"In the gardens of the Villa Borghese on those spring days she had hours of singular well-being a sort of sweet oppression, a relaxation which made her happy: they were days whose temperature was like a tepid bath, with warm whiffs of acacia and orange blossoms; a dusty sky; a sun which was only an orange glow; a smothering of the sound of the distant bells; a song of disconnected notes, as if the birds were tired; an atmosphere where a line which might be taken for the flight of an insect proved to be a drop of rain, which fell every five minutes without wetting you."
Picture, then, the pride with which, one early day of her new bridehood, she drove to the Palace of St Cloud in the gorgeous Borghese State carriage, behind six horses, and with an escort of torch-bearers, to pay a formal call on her sister-in-law, Josephine, Empress-to-be. She had decked herself in a wonderful creation of green velvet; she was ablaze from head to foot with the Borghese diamonds.
The Prince Borghese certainly demeans himself like a kind and liberal gentleman, in throwing open this invaluable collection to the public to see, and for artists to carry away with them, and diffuse all over the world, so far as their own power and skill will permit.
Agnes' and the 'Rosario' in the Bologna gallery, of the 'Diana' in the Borghese Palace at Rome, as pictures equable and skillful in the treatment of their subjects, neither devoid of beauty of form nor of color, but which make neither the pulse quiver nor the eye wet; and then such a sweeping judgment is arrested by a work like the 'St.
These instructions were carried out, and Paris was for the time being satisfied; but to clinch matters, as it were, the Emperor went still further, and married Eugene de Beauharnais to the daughter of the King of Bavaria, conferred a few choice principalities upon his sister Eliza, and, sending for Prince Borghese, one of the most aristocratic gentlemen of Italy, gave him in marriage to his sister Pauline.
He approached the Empress, who had already risen to join him, and got out with her, not without some difficulty, on account of the crowd which rushed towards the doors; the Queens of Holland, Naples, Westphalia, the Princess Borghese, etc., following their Majesties, while the Vice-queen of Italy, who was pregnant, remained in the hall, on the platform containing the Imperial boxes.
Next came Madame Murat, whom three hours before I had seen in the Bois de Boulogne in all the disgusting display of fashionable nakedness, now clothed and covered to her chin. She was followed by the pious Madame Le Clerc, now Princesse Borghese, who was sighing deeply and loudly.
His aspect is not particularly impressive; there is a lack of chin, though not so much as in the older statues and busts. Within the edifice there is a large hall, not so brilliant, perhaps, with frescos and gilding as those at the Villa Borghese, but lined with the most beautiful variety of marbles.
The fresco of "Alexander" in the Palazzo Borghese is by an imitator. The "Madonna di San Sisto" was painted for a banner to be borne in processions. It is a subtle observation of Rio that the banner, an invention of the Umbrian school, corresponds in painting to the hymn in poetry. See Vol. II., Revival of Learning, p. 316, for Raphael's letter on this subject to Leo X.
But I prefer none of them to the Borghese, which is free to all the world at all times and yet never crowded; for when the whirl of carriages is great in the middle regions you may find a hundred untrodden spots and silent corners, tenanted at the worst by a group of those long-skirted young Propagandists who stalk about with solemn angularity, each with a book under his arm, like silhouettes from a medieval missal, and "compose" so extremely well with the still more processional cypresses and with stretches of golden-russet wall overtopped by ultramarine.
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