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The Borghese Gallery and the Capuchin Crypt: the Borghese and Barberini Families
The art-collector Cardinal Scipio Borghese considered himself the luckiest man alive: thanks to his uncle-Pope, he possessed unlimited funds in an era in which talent abounded. He collected his contemporaries' masterpieces (six Caravaggio paintings and four remarkable Bernini sculptures) as well as stunning works from the past (such as Raphael's "Entombment"), not always ethically... Meanwhile, on what was once the property of the neighboring Barberini family, a nondescript Capuchin church boasts a Baroque crypt with an unusual memento mori...