THE 2026 PROGRAMME
The Galleria Borghese enters 2026 on the strength of unprecedented success: in 2025 it recorded 630,759 visitors, a record that confirms its ability to engage ever broader and more diverse audiences.
Building on this momentum, the 2026 programme brings together inclusion, scholarly research, and new ways of experiencing the collection. The calendar weaves together conservation and enhancement, experimentation and international openness, placing the visitor experience at its core.
The programme opened in January with Zanabazar at the Galleria Borghese. From Mongolia to the Global Baroque, presented in collaboration with the Asian Art Museum in Turin. Through 22 February, two extraordinary works by the Mongolian artist Zanabazar, engage in dialogue with Bernini’s masterpieces, creating an unprecedented encounter between distant cultures united by inventive power.
The year 2026 also marks the return of the “dossier exhibitions,” focused research projects that revisit the history of the collection. With Return to the Galleria Borghese. Giovan Francesco Penni and Raphael’s Workshop (10 March – 3 May 2026), curated by Lucia Calzona, and Marcello Provenzale from Cento. A Genius of Baroque Mosaic in Borghese Rome (17 March – 10 May 2026), each staged in a single gallery, the museum brings back into focus key works, figures, and moments of its heritage.
At the heart of the exhibition programme, from 23 June to 20 September 2026, is the major exhibition Metamorphoses. Ovid and the Arts, curated by Francesca Cappelletti and Frits Scholten and developed in collaboration with the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where it will be presented from 6 February to 25 May 2026. Born from a shared scholarly dialogue, the project takes shape in Rome in an autonomous and original configuration, conceived in close relation to the collection, spaces and history of the Galleria Borghese. Starting from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, one of the most foundational and enduring texts of the Western imagination, the exhibition explores metamorphosis as a universal principle and as a key to understanding the cosmos, matter and the human condition. From the great masters of the Renaissance and the Baroque to artists of more recent centuries-including Correggio, Michelangelo, Titian, Rubens and Poussin, through to Gérôme, Rodin and Brancusi-the exhibition conveys the visual and conceptual power of Ovid’s narratives, capable of giving form to passion, desire, conflict, violence and redemption. Centred around Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne and Pluto and Proserpina, alongside the Galleria’s other mythological masterpieces, the exhibition reaffirms the enduring relevance of myth and its central role in shaping the European imagination.
Completing the programme, new thematic routes, multimedia tools, and immersive experiences further enhance accessibility and dialogue with the public. With its 2026 programme, the Galleria Borghese confirms its role as a vibrant laboratory of research, innovation, and shared beauty.