When visiting Rome last month sourcing new artisan handbags for Attavanti, the one thing I just had to do in our free time was to visit the Villa Borghese art gallery to see the beautiful sculptures by the Neopolitan Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

The Borghese Galleria is set inside the former Villa Borghese Poinciana, a spectacular building set in it's own garden within the vast beautiful public parkland. The collection was started by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, a patron of the budding prodigy, Bernini and an avid collector of art by artists such as Caravaggio, Rubens, Barocci and Raphael. The gallery covers two floors and twenty rooms, tickets can be pre-booked but these are limited and sell out quickly. We went early and bought last minute tickets which cover you for a two hour visit.

The sculpture I had come to see in the flesh so to speak was the famous, if unromantically titled Rape of the Porsepina, also known as Pluto and Persephone. This large Baroque sculpture is based on Roman and Greek classic mythology of Pluto abducting Porsepina, daughter of Zeus and Demeter into the underworld. I had seen many photographs but they do not do it justice and it is hard to believe that this beautiful work of art was completed in 1622 when Bernini was just 23 years old. As I gazed and walked around this magnificent piece of art, I got totally absorbed in it's definitive beauty and the unbelievable detail. Wow, the texture of the skin, the flying hair, the hand of Pluto in the yielding flesh of her thigh, the face, frozen mid cry as tears run down her cheek and there is even a mole on Pluto's back. Every detail appeared so real, alive and also evoked the emotions of terror, turmoil and struggle from this inanimate cold marble. The style contrasts markedly to the snarling three headed dog Cerberus, who guards the entrance of Hades. The body of this animal has been carved with a grooved texture to imitate the swirls of the fur which contrasts with the smoothness of the rest of the sculpture.

This for me was the icing on the cake of the monumental trio of Bernini sculptures at the Borghese Galleria, that includes Apollo and Daphine and Aeneas, Anchises, Ascanius Fleeing Troy. The magnificent painting collection includes some of the greatest artists from Caravaggio to Raphael plus there are also classical antiquities and mosaics.

We strolled through the immense beautiful gardens after with a gelato, the perfect end to an unforgetful visit. Do go if you travel to Rome it is so worth seeing, it is a must.