The Villa Borghese Pinciana, which now houses the Borghese Gallery, was built between 1607 and 1616 by the powerful Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1577–1633), a nephew of Pope Paul V (1550–1621). Drawing his inspiration from the luxurious Roman villas of antiquity, Scipione wished to use the palace surrounded by sumptuous gardens for exhibiting his collections of antique works and contemporary paintings and sculptures, evoking a new golden age. Cardinal Borghese thus became one of the leading collectors and patrons of the art of his time, turning the Villa Borghese into a veritable museum before museums even existed.

For its first exhibition after more than one year of renovations, the Musée Jacquemart- André is presenting forty masterpieces from the Cardinal’s fabled collection. This a unique opportunity for the Paris public to admire an ensemble of major works by some of the greatest masters of the Renaissance and Baroque periods rarely loaned outside Italy, from Caravaggio to Rubens, along with works by Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, Veronese, Antonello da Messina, and Bernini.