Flaminio Ponzio in the context of Viggiù

The Galleria Borghese or Borghese Gallery is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. At the outset, the gallery building was integrated with its gardens, but nowadays the Villa Borghese gardens are considered a separate tourist attraction. The Galleria Borghese houses a substantial part of the Borghese Collection of paintings, sculpture and antiquities, begun by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V (reign 1605–1621). The building was constructed by the architect Flaminio Ponzio, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese himself, who used it as a villa suburbana, a country villa at the edge of Rome.

The museum displays one of the most prestigious art collections in the world, with masterpieces by artists such as Caravaggio, Bernini, Canova, Raphael and Titian. Scipione Borghese was an early patron of Bernini and an avid collector of works by Caravaggio, who is well represented in the collection by his Boy with a Basket of Fruit, St Jerome Writing, Sick Bacchus and others. Additional paintings of note include Titian's Sacred and Profane Love, Raphael's Entombment of Christ and works by Peter Paul Rubens and Federico Barocci. Considered among the greatest masterpieces of Italian art, some of these works show the evolution of art between the Renaissance, the Baroque and the Neoclassicism, artistic movements born in the Italian peninsula and subsequently spread throughout Europe.

Villa Borghese Pinciana ('Borghese villa on the Pincian Hill') is a villa built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio (and, after his death, finished by his assistant Giovanni Vasanzio), developing sketches by Scipione Borghese.

Villa Borghese is a landscape garden in Rome, containing a number of buildings, museums (see Galleria Borghese) and attractions. It is the third-largest public park in Rome (80 hectares or 197.7 acres), after the ones of the Villa Doria Pamphili and Villa Ada. The gardens were developed for the Villa Borghese Pinciana ("Borghese villa on the Pincian Hill"), built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese, who used it as a villa suburbana, or party villa, at the edge of Rome, and to house his art collection. The gardens as they are now were remade in the late 19th century.

Giovanni Vasanzio or Jan van Santen (1550 – 21 August 1621) was a Dutch-born architect, garden designer and engraver who spent his mature career in Rome, where he arrived in the 1580s.

Vasanzio was born in Utrecht. He worked as assistant to Flaminio Ponzio and completed works in progress at Ponzio's death (1613); he became in some sense the "house architect' for the Borghese, responsible for ephemeral decorations to provide settings for dynastic events both gay and grave. Vasanzio died in Rome. After his death, Giovanni Battista Soria assumed his role with the Borghese.