Plans to expand Galleria Borghese spark protests from conservationists and civic groups.
Rome’s Galleria Borghese has become the focus of a heated debate after the celebrated museum set in motion a process to expand its facilities with a new building adjacent to the 17th-century villa.
Earlier this year the gallery awarded a technical sponsorship contract to Proger SpA, a Pescara-based engineering and architecture firm, commissioning a feasibility study for the expansion.
The company has pledged to cover the estimated costs of around €900,000, in exchange for promotional visibility within the museum.
The stated aims of the project are to increase the capacity of the complex, improve visitor flow and security, and create new spaces for exhibitions, educational activities and a conference room.
Museum constraints
Visitor access in Galleria Borghese is limited to 360 people. at a time for a maximum of two hours per session.
In 2025 more than 630,000 visitors filed through the museum’s halls – to admire the masterpieces by Bernini, Caravaggio and Raphael – up from an average of around 600,000 in preceding years.
The expansion would also aim to bring into public view works currently held in storage on the third floor of the building due to lack of exhibition space.
The gallery has said it will provide further details at a press conference scheduled for 18 May.
Reaction
Heritage bodies Italia Nostra Roma and the Bianchi Bandinelli Association have expressed firm opposition, warning that constructing a new building alongside the historic villa risks irreparably disrupting a context that has remained virtually unchanged for more than four centuries.
In a statement, the organisations argued that the vision driving such projects prioritises commercial returns over cultural stewardship and has already contributed to the spread of a form of mass tourism antithetical to genuine engagement with heritage.
Criticism has also come from prominent academic voices. Art historian Tomaso Montanari has described the project as an act of devastation, writing that the villa and its grounds have achieved such a state of perfection that even the slightest alteration can only cause harm.
Writing in Il Fatto Quotidiano, Montanari compared the prospect of erecting a new building beside Galleria Borghese to adding an extension onto Brunelleschi’s dome in Florence.
Fabio Rampelli of Meloni’s right-wing Fratelli d’Italia party, vice-president of the chamber of deputies, also condemned the plan.
“I express my solidarity with the associations that have risen up against this heinous project”, Rampelli wrote on Facebook, slamming the plans to build a “concrete and steel monster” beside the museum.
On social media, the Facebook group “SOS patrimonio storico di Roma” called on opponents to flood the gallery’s inbox with critical messages, arguing that citizens should make their voices heard on what it characterised as an act of cultural recklessness.
City’s response
The institutional response has sought to calm the debate by emphasising the preliminary nature of the process which has the initial backing of the city council.
Rome’s culture councillor Massimiliano Smeriglio stressed that the feasibility plan remains at a generic stage and that, before any decision is reached, the project will be subject to binding assessments – not merely advisory opinions – from the city’s departments of environment, culture and urban planning, as well as from the capitoline superintendency.
The complication is structural: while the gallery falls under the national culture ministry, Villa Borghese itself is municipal property, meaning that Rome city council holds a decisive role in any future approval.
No design has yet been produced and no timetable for construction work has been established. A project is expected to be drawn up by early 2027.
More details are expected to be known after the media presentation next Monday.
