Villa and Galleria Borghese, 2013

The Villa Borghese and its museum beckoned again. Vicki likes the Caravaggios and other things. I like the Berninis mostly. The Borghese is so popular, however, that visitors are limited to 2 hours (well, at 1:52:00 they start unceremoniously shooing you out), cameras are not allowed in the galleries. Etc. Below is Bernini's Apollo and Daphne. And Caravaggio's Madonna and Child with St. Anne. There's much more on the web, all worth looking at. Interestingly, of the half dozen Caravaggios at the Borghese, not one is of the buttocks-centered composition so characteristic of his work. Almost as if Scipione Borghese had said to his agent "OK with the fruit, OK with the 'painter of light' crap, but NO BUTTS; and No IFs or ANDS either!"

As exquisite as it gets; some of the leaves are so thin they
are translucent...

Supposed to depict Mary's agency in Jesus' works...
interestingly, it was rejected by the monastery/
confraternity/whatever that had commissioned it;
perhaps because of Jesus' lack of circumcision?
Lack of halo? Maybe they were some sort of snake-
handling cult like in the US?