View of the Villa Borghese

The building at the end of this avenue is the one that now houses the Galleria Borghese. When Abraham van Cuylenborch painted it, around 1636, it was still a fairly new garden villa, built for Cardinal Scipione Borghese and completed about 20 years earlier. Its facade was designed by Giovanni Vasanzio, whose real name was Jan van Santen, and like the painter he came from Utrecht in the Dutch Republic. At the entrance you can see a double flight of steps rising to the door, with a fountain in front. That staircase was replaced by a single broad stair at the end of the 18th century and rebuilt to its old design only in a modern restoration. In the foreground, groups of visitors stroll toward the house, and a carriage waits beside the low wall.