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.

The Casino Borghese was erected in an area that in the seventeenth-century was outside the walls of Rome, with the closest access being the Porta del Popolo.

[3] By 1644, John Evelyn described it as "an Elysium of delight" with "Fountains of sundry inventions, Groves and small Rivulets of Water".

Evelyn also described the Vivarium that housed ostriches, peacocks, swans and cranes "and divers strange Beasts".

[12] The second Scipione Borghese portrait was produced after a large crack was discovered in the marble of the first version during its creation.