THE GARDENS OF JTALY. 
67 
CHAPTER VI. 
VILLA BORGHESE AND THE BORGHESE PALACE, ROME. 
T he 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. 
