The Borghese

 One of my stops while in Rome was the Borghese gallery. This gallery is mostly famous for some Bernini sculptures. Outside the door there was a large vase with a cow head base, so I knew we were destined for great things. 

Inside, the hall itself is quite ornate. There were murals on all the ceilings and lots of decorated nooks to hide statues in. The floor was covered with some intense mosaics. 

One of the murals transitioned into a relief of a rider being thrown from his horse toward the floor. You can't tell from this picture, but the rider is quite concerned about the fast approaching floor. 

There were 5 large Bernini statues in the gallery, one in each of the rooms on the main floor. There was a David who was concentrating very hard and biting his lip. There was a statue of the nymph who turned into a tree, you can see her fingers and hair are sprouting leaves and her toes are growing roots. She is even wrapped up in a spiraling tree trunk. Persephone is getting kidnapped, you can see Hades fingers digging into her. The statues are very impressive.

While impressive on their own, I appreciated Bernini's pieces all the more when I took a more careful look at the other sculptures in the rooms. Some were less good. Like this boy with bowling pin duck. 

Others were very odd compositions like this pile of babies. Or the classic story of the babies and the singing lama. 

In addition to sculptures there were other kinds of art upstairs. Like pictures made from inlaying semi precious stones I particularly like that the clouds in the sky are the natural swirls in the rock. 

Or this mosaic with really really tiny tiles or the ever entertaining story of Tobit and his giant angel friend and pet dead fish.