THE GARDEXS ()T ITALY. 



67 



CHAPTER VI. 

 VILLA BORGHESE AND THE BORGHESE PALACE, ROME. 



THE end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries in Rome saw the 

 creation of the greater part of the modern aristocracy. With the one exception of 

 the Farnese, no Pope of the Renaissance had founded a great family, but now came 

 the period of nepotism, and each successive Pope was ambitious of founding a princely 

 House. Great Roman families were established, and the magnificent palaces and villas required 

 by their unbounded taste for pomp and display spread over vast sites hitherto covered by mean 

 buildings, gardens or vineyards. The family of Borghese was one of the earliest to rise into 

 splendour. In 1605 Camillo Borghese was raised to the papal throne as Paul V, and the splendid 

 patron of art to whom we owe the villa, Scipione Caffarelli, born in 1576, was the Pope's 

 nephew on his sister's side. He had been brought up at Perugia, where his wit and versatility 

 excited the highest expectations. Immediately on his uncle's accession he was sent for to the 

 Vatican, and the Pope formally adopted him, giving him the name and arms of the Borghese. 

 He was created a Cardinal, and at once assumed the superintendence of the palace, the direction 

 of politics and management of State affairs. In April, 1608, the State archives record that 

 Cardinal Scipione Borghese intends to establish a grand villa outside Porta Pinciana. In the 



79. IN THE LOWER AVENUE. 



