The Borghese Gallery is Italy's oldest museum collection, and after visiting you will soon see why Roman's call this wonderful villa "The Jewellery Box".

Originally a private collection of the famous and poweful Borghese family, designed to celebrate Classical and Contemporary Art and show the superiority of the Renaissance artists over those of Ancient times, due to financial difficulties the Villa, along with its entire collection, was sold to the Kingdom of Italy for just 3.6million lire (about 4 million USD) at the turn of the 20th century.

Painting, sculptures, mosaics, elegant decorations on every ceiling, all compacted into 20 rooms on 2 floors, make a visit to this elegant building - with its eclectic collections from Ancient Rome and the greatest Reniassance and Baroque artists - a must for any visitor to Rome.

The gardens are not bad either!

Among the highlights on the tour are the mosaic floor of Gladiators and animals from Ancient Rome, the wonderful sculptures commissioned from Bernini, Da Canova's exquisite Pauline Bonaparte (sister of Napoleon, who forced her husband Camillo Borghese to sell half its treasures to him in 1808!), the revolutionery paintings of Caravaggio, as well as works by Raphael and Titian.