"The Palazzo Borghese is an immense edifice standing round the four sides of a quadrangle; and though the suite of rooms, comprising the picture-gallery, forms an almost interminable vista, they occupy only a part of the ground-floor of one side. We enter from the street into a large court surrounded with a corridor, the arches of which support a second series of arches above. The picture-rooms open from one into another, and have many points of magnificence, being large and lofty, with vaulted ceilings and beautiful frescoes, generally of mythological subjects, in the flat central parts of the vault. The cornices are gilded; the deep embrasures of the windows are panelled with wood-work; the doorways are of polished and variegated marble, or covered with a composition as hard, and seemingly as durable. The whole has a kind of splendid shabbiness thrown over it, like a slight coating of rust; the furniture, at least the damask chairs, being a good deal worn; though there are marble and mosaic tables which may serve to adorn another palace, when this has crumbled away with age."--_Hawthorne._ The Borghese Picture Gallery is the best private collection in Rome, and is open to the public daily from 9 to 2, except on Saturdays and Sundays. The gallery is entered from the side of the palace towards the Piazza Borghese. It contains several gems, which are here marked with an asterisk; noticeable pictures are:-- _1st Room._--Schools of Milan and Perugia. 1. Holy Family: _Sandro Botticelli_. 2. Holy Family: _Lorenzo di Credi_. 3. Holy Family: _Paris Alfani Perugino_. 4. Portrait: _Lorenzo di Credi_. 5. Vanity: _School of Leonardo da Vinci_. 27, 28. Petrarch and Laura. 32. St. Agatha: _School of Leonardo_. 33. The Young Christ: _School of Leonardo_. 34. Madonna: _School of Perugino_. 35. Raphael as a boy: _Raphael?_ 43. Madonna: _Francesco Francia?_ 44. Calvario: _C. Crivelli_. 48. St. Sebastian: _Perugino_. 49, 57. History of Joseph: _Pinturicchio_. 59. Presepio: _Sketch attributed to Raphael when young_. 61. St. Antonio: _Francesco Francia_. 66. Presepio: _Mazzolino_. 67. Adoration of the Child Jesus: _Ortolano_. 68. Christ and St. Thomas: _Mazzolino?_ 69. Holy Family: _Pollajuolo_. _2nd Room._--Chiefly of the school of Garofalo. 6. Madonna with St. Joseph and St. Michael: _Garofalo_. 9. The mourners over the dead Christ: _Garofalo_.* 18. Portrait of Julius II.: _Giulio Romano, after Raphael_. 22. Portrait of a Cardinal: _Bronzino? called Raphael_.* 23. 'Madonna col divin' amore': _School of Raphael_.* 26. Portrait of Cæsar Borgia: _Bronzino, attributed to Raphael_.*[5] 28. Portrait of a (naked) woman: _Bronzino_. 36. Holy Family: _Andrea del Sarto_. 38. Entombment: _Raphael_.*