Skip the long lines to one of Rome’s most popular museums on a 2-hour guided tour of the Museo e Galleria Borghese (Borghese Gallery).

Housed in a stunning villa just outside the Porta Pinciana, the collection has been described as the “Queen of all Private Art Collections.” One of the most interesting, charming, elegant and compact art museums in Rome, the collection is neither chronologically arranged, nor very ordinate. Instead, it is a personal, lovingly matched collection that reveals the personalities and tastes of 2 people: Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the greatest of the Baroque artists; and Scipione Cardinal Borghese, the greatest art collector, who initiated the Roman Baroque.

Explore his passion for art, for which he had an infallible instinct, and his unscrupulousness in obtaining the works of art he wanted to posses. Highlights of the museum are many, but include Raffaello's “Woman with the Unicorn,” Domenichino's “Diana,” Botticelli's “Madonna and Child,” and Caravaggio's “David.”

Marvel at Bernini's “Apollo and Daphne,” Canova's “Paolina,” and Tiziano's “Amor Sacro & Amor Profano.” Hear a never ending drama of untold stories about art being stolen from churches, artists being sent to jail, their workshops devastated by Borghese's confiscations, mysterious deaths, and other stories of intrigue and passion that explain how the Baroque could sometimes cost more than life itself.