Borghese Gallery
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BORGHESE GALLERY, THE STORY OF THE ABDUCTION OF PROSERPINA BY BERNINI

The Borghese Gallery is one of a kind among the Museums in Rome. Once a country house built to host the vast art collection of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nowadays it is home to some of the best pieces of works of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Antonio Canova. In particular, two works are the flagship of this collection: the Paolina Borghese of Canova and the Abduction of Proserpina. Regarding Bernini’s masterpiece, to get inspired for its creation the artist had access to a great deal of works from his time. His connections to Maffeo Barberini and Scipione Borghese in the early part of his career granted him access to the Vatican archives. Combined with Bernini’s daily visits to the Vatican’s collections as a child, and his tutelage under his father, Pietro Bernini, Gian Lorenzo would have had a great deal of sources of inspiration to draw from.

Bernini may have been inspired by Pietro da Barga’s mediocre bronze Pluto and Proserpina, which features a Pluto holding a Proserpina parallel to himself and aloft, as well as a Cerberus at his feet. It was likely an attempted reconstruction of Praxiteles’ bronze Rape of Proserpina, which has since been lost but was discussed in Pliny’s Natural History. The same work discusses a lost bronze Bacchus statue from Praxiteles, which Michelangelo later reconstructed in marble. Therefore, despite the work’s apparent poor quality, Bernini may have been following Michelangelo’s lead and attempting to reproduce Praxiteles.

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