Villa Borghese Historical Timeline

A vineyard turned into the largest gardens built in Rome since antiquity, then remade in the English taste, then sold to the nation and handed to the city.

Chronology

1. 1605 — Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Paul V and patron of Bernini, begins turning a former vineyard into the most extensive gardens built in Rome since antiquity. Structural impact: the estate is laid out at a scale nothing in the city had matched for a millennium. What you see today: the extent of the park, which is still essentially the Borghese boundary.
2. 1618 — Massoni works on the south forecourt of the Casino Nobile. Structural impact: the formal approach to the villa building takes shape. What you see today: the forecourt in front of what is now the Galleria Borghese.
3. 1715 — statues by Claude-Augustin Cayot are added. Structural impact: the gardens gain sculpture as a deliberate layer rather than as collection overflow. What you see today: figures along the walks, a later addition than the garden they stand in.
4. 18th century — Marcantonio Borghese, 5th Prince of Sulmona, transforms the formal garden architecture into an English landscape garden. Structural impact: the geometry is deliberately dismantled in favour of irregular planting and contrived views. What you see today: the park's whole character — winding paths, scattered groves, a lake — is this decision rather than the seventeenth-century one.
5. From 1782 — the architect Antonio Asprucci and his son Mario landscape the gardens over more than twenty years. Structural impact: a single family of designers gives the park its built furniture. What you see today: nearly every structure in the gardens dates from this campaign. Asprucci was simultaneously redecorating the gallery interior.
6. 1785–1792 — the Temple of Aesculapius is built in the ionic style at the centre of the lake. Structural impact: the lake gains its focal point. What you see today: the temple, and the rowing boats that exist to be photographed in front of it.
7. 1791 — Vincenzo Pacetti executes the Sea Horse Fountain, from a design by Christopher Unterberger. Structural impact: another Asprucci-era set piece. What you see today: the fountain, on its own small square in the gardens.
8. 1896 — William Waldorf Astor, United States Minister to Italy until 1885, purchases the Borghese Balustrade and installs it at his English estate, Cliveden. Structural impact: a piece of the gardens permanently leaves Rome. What you see today: its absence — and, in England, a consequence nobody intended (see Biodiversity).
9. Late 19th century — the gardens are remade in their present form. Structural impact: the layout a visitor walks today is this remaking, not the Borghese one. What you see today: the avenue structure and planting.
10. 1902 — the villa, the collection and the entire estate are sold to the Italian government. Structural impact: the Borghese cease to own the place. What you see today: the split between a state museum and a municipal park, which begins here.
11. 1903 — long informally open, the gardens are bought by the commune of Rome and given to the public. Structural impact: the park becomes formally public property. What you see today: free, unticketed access at every gate.
12. From 1904 — monuments to famous foreign personalities and writers, Victor Hugo among them, are placed along the avenues. Structural impact: the park acquires a second, civic layer of sculpture. What you see today: busts and statues of foreign writers lining the walks, easily mistaken for Borghese-era work.
13. 1922 — the first horse show is held at the Piazza di Siena. Structural impact: the oval becomes an equestrian arena in regular use. What you see today: the Piazza di Siena, which hosted the equestrian dressage, individual jumping and the jumping phase of the eventing at the 1960 Summer Olympics.

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