In the turkey and chestnuts recipe, the hardest part is getting the turkey into the chestnuts. It showcases the Roman collections of the Borghese family, who occupied several palaces, including the sumptuous Villa Borghese, built by Cardinal Scipio Caffarelli-Borghese in the early 17th century.my century on the Pincio hill with an 80-hectare park, in the handkerchief that is the eight exhibition halls of the Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris, faces the same challenge.
Despite the cramped conditions of the premises, we salute the curators of the current exhibition, Francesca Cappelletti and Pierre Curie, for having achieved this small miracle. They were able to present, reduced to the bone, but with the flavour of a long-cooked sauce base, the essence, the juice of the follies of the cardinal and his successors. Visitors should therefore know that they will not be experiencing the festivities of Pantagruel, but rather an experience of nouvelle cuisine. Yet they are fighting for the festivities.
This was not without frustration, particularly for Pierre Curie, Jacquemart-André’s curator, who was left with the table open by his co-curator, director of the Borghese Gallery. He could choose almost anything he wanted, except for certain paintings that were too fragile (not counting those that, inserted into the walls, would have to be dismantled with a chisel…) or certain sculptures that were too heavy to travel with, to compose his menu.
So he prepared an ideal one, before realizing that some of his ingredients did not fit in the pan and having to give it up. However, he managed to fit it into Botticelli’s large tondo, sacrificing its original frame to replace it with a more sober and less delicate setting. We will also appreciate the two baskets of fruit, one carried by a young and pleasant boy painted by Caravaggio, the other placed on the table of the Concertby Gerrit Van Honthorst, which, hanging in the same room, gives it an appetizing echo.
Colossal sums
Thirty-nine paintings and four sculptures, therefore, which give an overview of the tastes of Cardinal Scipio Caffarelli-Borghese: he was crazy about Caravaggio, he wholeheartedly supported Bernini, whom he met when he was very young, and he did not limit his choices to Roman artists, since he also acquired works from all over Italy, and mainly from Venice. An unusual fact in an era when provincialism reigned. We cannot find his only precursor, except in that of Cardinal Pietro Bembo, who dreamed, a century earlier, of unifying Italy by giving it a common language, based on Tuscan.
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