Borghese Gallery tickets — Everything you need to know
The museum of the Borghese Gallery in Rome is undoubtedly a must-go stop for art lovers who visit Rome.
The Borghese Gallery is in the villa of the same name at Piazzale Scipione 5, in Rome, of course.
Even the villa and its magnificent park on their own are worth visiting. The one-time home of the ultra-powerful Borghese family, the villa has the absolute charm of a great aristocratic Roman villa.
Construction began on Villa Borghese in the late 16th century and then it was expanded and modified over the 17th and 18th centuries. Major master architects worked on it, including Gianlorenzo Bernini.
Borghese Gallery Park
The villa's garden is another beauty with its Italian-style gardens, English-style sections, buildings, fountains, and even a lake. And the Borghese Gallery is one of Italy's most visited museums. It holds within masterpieces of great Italian painters and sculptors.
Borghese Gallery tickets — Why book them
The Borghese Gallery Museum is always quite crowded, so it's a good idea to plan ahead and book entrance tickets or a guided tour. The important thing is to book plenty ahead of time. For safety reasons, the number of visitors allowed inside the gallery is limited to a few hundred. This is why you often see that a reservation is required to get into the museum. It's more accurate to say that it's practically impossible to get in without a booking given the number of visitors allowed in at once.
Borghese Gallery Tickets hours
You should know that you need to choose the time range for your entrance tickets to the Borghese Gallery. Visitors can choose the time to start their visit and can stay in the museum for two hours. After the two hours is up, you'll have to make room for the visitors from the next time slot.
There are five time slots available, starting at 9:00 am, 11:00 am, 1:00 pm, 3:00 pm, or 5:00 pm.
The Borghese Gallery museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday, closed on Monday. On some special occasions, the museum is also open on Monday, on or around holidays, such as the Monday after Easter.
Entrance must be booked online paying the ticket in advance. Visitors will receive a voucher to exchange at the ticket office when entering. It is also good to know that you should come 30 minutes before your booked time to go through the security checks now essential for all museums.
Borghese Gallery tickets: Do I have to print them?
Many visitors ask if to enter the Borghese Gallery they have to print the voucher out to get the tickets. Starting in 2017, the voucher sent by email does not necessarily have to be printed. You can just show a digital image of it as long as the booking code is clearly legible.
Borghese Gallery — Getting there
A frequently asked question is how to get to the Borghese Gallery museum, especially which metro stop is closest.
The nearest metro stop to Borghese Gallery is Spagna. But, don't be fooled, though the Spagna stop is definitely the closest, once you're at the Spanish Steps, you still have about a half hour walk. If you don't want to walk or take a taxi, your best bet is the bus. There are several, very convenient lines that go there.
Borghese Gallery — What to see
We need hardly say that the Borghese Gallery is home to countless art masterpieces of great artists, such as Caravaggio, Canova, Bernini, Titian, Raphael, and many others. The beautiful marble statue of Apollo and Daphne surely is one of the pieces that makes the biggest impression when you visit the Borghese Gallery for the first time.
The group of statues depicting Apollo and Daphne was inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses. Apollo boasted of being able to shoot a bow and arrow better than anyone. To punish Apollo's arrogance, Cupid shot him with an arrow and made him fall in love with the nymph Daphne. But she had already devoted her life to the goddess Artemis. Daphne asked her father, Peneus, to help her and so he turned her into a laurel tree to let her escape Apollo's amorous madness. In this scene, Daphne is being chased by Apollo and stretches forward while her transformation into the laurel tree begins. Her hands take the shape of branches and leaves, her hair and legs become the trunk and her feet, the roots. Daphne's expression is stunned and terrified. Bernini rendered Ovid's text flawlessly.
Enjoy the museum!
