Expansion plans for Rome's Galleria Borghese draw fierce response

Rome’s Galleria Borghese is facing controversy after news emerged of a privately funded feasibility study, sponsored by engineering firm Proger, to explore adding exhibition and visitor space on the Villa Borghese Pinciana grounds. The initiative, estimated at about €900,000, would support an international architecture competition and study aimed at easing constraints such as a cap of 360 visitors per two-hour timed slot (around 4,000 visitors per day), long reservation waits, limited accessibility, and works kept in storage. Preservation groups including Italia Nostra Roma and Amici di Villa Borghese objected to new construction in a highly sensitive historic landscape, while director Francesca Cappelletti said at a press conference on 18 May that no project or even working hypothesis currently exists. Reuters reported the museum drew a record 630,760 visitors in 2025, up from about 506,000 a decade earlier, and ANSA reported a competition winner could be selected as early as the end of this year.

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