🇮🇹Borghese Gallery Guide: Book Early, and What Bernini Left Here
The one Rome ticket to buy the moment your dates are fixed: how the hourly timed entry actually works, why the last slot costs €5 less, what the cloakroom will make you leave behind, and the Bernini sculptures worth the trip.
2026-09-05
The Borghese Gallery (Galleria Borghese) holds Renaissance and Baroque work, and above all Bernini's sculpture: The Rape of Proserpina, Apollo and Daphne and David are all here. Alongside them are two Caravaggios — Boy with a Basket of Fruit and David with the Head of Goliath — plus Raphael, Titian and Rubens.
Visitor information
Time needed: about two hours — and that is the official length of every ticket, not a suggestion. Staff will come and move you along when it's up.
Opening hours: Tuesday–Sunday 9:00–19:00, last entry 17:45, ticket desk closes an hour before the gallery. Closed Mondays, 25 December and 1 January.
Address: Piazzale Scipione Borghese 5, inside the Villa Borghese park.
Official site: galleriaborghese.cultura.gov.it. Note the domain moved from beniculturali.it to cultura.gov.it; the old links still redirect. Most of what ranks above it in search results is a reseller charging a markup.
Prices (official, and every one of them carries a mandatory €2 booking fee):
| Ticket | Price | You pay |
|---|---|---|
| Full | €16 | €18 |
| Last slot, 17:45 | €11 | €13 |
| Ages 18–25 | €2 | €4 |
| Under 18 | free | €2 |
| First Sunday of the month | free | €2 |
The last slot is €5 cheaper — do the arithmetic first. The gallery closes at 19:00, so entering at 17:45 gives you about an hour and a quarter, a third less than a normal slot. Fine if you're going for the Bernini sculptures and little else; too tight if you also want Caravaggio and the upstairs picture gallery.
The free first Sunday still requires a reservation and still costs the €2 fee, and those tickets are only released ten days ahead — you have to be quick.
Getting there: the nearest bus stop is Pinciana / Museo Borghese on via Pinciana, served by several lines. You can also take Metro A to Spagna or Barberini and walk up through the Villa Borghese park — 15–20 minutes, and a pleasant walk in itself.
Borghese Gallery timed-entry ticket
GetYourGuide · from $35
4.5 from 3,584 reviews, free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead. Includes escorted skip-the-line entry and an audio-guide app (QR code on arrival — bring your own headphones); a live guide is available for more. Two things to note: 6-17 year-olds are currently sold at the adult rate, and it isn't suitable for visitors with mobility impairments
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Why you have to book so far ahead
Booking is mandatory — there is no walk-up ticket, and that applies to the free tickets too.
One widely repeated claim needs correcting. The gallery used to clear the building completely every two hours and let the next batch in, but that changed in October 2021. Entry is now hourly and continuous, 180 people per slot, and the total number of tickets went up by around 20%. You won't see the whole museum turned out at once, and you don't have to crowd the door on the hour.
What has not changed is that your ticket is still good for about two hours. Two hours to cover four Bernini sculptures, the Caravaggios and the upstairs picture gallery is tight — decide before you go in which rooms matter most to you.
In summer it routinely sells out one to two weeks ahead. The practical advice: book this before you book anything else in Rome, then arrange the rest of that day around the slot you got.
Empty your bag before you go in
This is the thing that catches people out at the Borghese: the cloakroom is compulsory, and stricter than at most galleries.
The official list of what you must check in: medium and large bags, backpacks, shoppers, umbrellas and selfie sticks. The only thing you may carry into the rooms is a small pouch under 21 × 15 cm — roughly clutch-sized, so an everyday cross-body bag may well be too big. Pushchairs are allowed for children up to two.
Two practical consequences: don't turn up at the last minute with a big bag — there's a queue for the cloakroom, so allow 15–20 minutes; and on a wet day that umbrella has to be checked in, folded or not.
Audio guide: rented from a dedicated desk behind the ticket office, €5, available in Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Ukrainian.
Where it fits
The gallery sits inside Villa Borghese, the large park north of the historic centre, so it pairs naturally with a walk through the grounds afterwards. It works well as the closing act of a walking day — typically the Day 3 afternoon in a classic three-day Rome itinerary.
Back to the Rome travel guide for the full three days.