to ensure financial stability, he purchased entire towns and other extensive properties, including approximately one-third of the land south of Rome. Exploiting his authority as Cardinal Nephew, he often compelled owners to sell their holdings to him at substantial discounts. Borghese thus ensured that the fortunes of the family were not permanently dependent on ecclesiastical office. Cardinal Scipione Borghese died in Rome in 1633 and is buried in the Borghese chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore. Private life Contemporaries commented on the near-public scandals that resulted on occasions from Scipione's possible homosexuality, reflected in his taste for collecting art with strong homoerotic overtones. In 1605, Scipione allegedly angered his uncle the pope by bringing Stefano Pignatelli, to whom Scipione was closely attached, to Rome. According to the later writer Gaetano Moroni, Scipione: Scipione subsequently fell into a long and serious sickness, and only recovered when Pignatelli was allowed to come. The pope decided to keep a check on Pignatelli and had him ordained, the beginning of a career which led to him becoming a cardinal in 1621. Indeed, the Italian historian Lorenzo Cardella notes that Pignatelli was cleared twice by the Roman Inquisition of having "improper influence" on Cardinal Borghese. However, more recently published espionage reports of Giovanni Antonio Marta speak against the results of such official investigation and substantially confirm the homosexual inclinations of Cardinal Scipione. They include a report of a nobleman whom Scipione was said to love "to the point of insanity", and for whom he was determined to secure a cardinal's hat; as well as a darker episode where a young man of eighteen was supposedly murdered in Scipione's ante-chamber by his servants after leaving the cardinal's bed. Building projects Development of Gardens Borghese took special interest in the development of the extensive gardens undertaken by various artists at his Roman residences, the Palazzo Borghese on the Quirinal (primarily 1610-16) and the Villa Borghese (initiated in 1613 and elaborated for the rest of the Cardinal's life). Both these influential gardens featured innovative elements such as waterfalls, and they incorporated dense groves of trees, which provided rural seclusion within the city. Restoration of Churches In the first half of his career, Scipione’s church building was associated with his commendatrial or titular duties; in the latter half his public patronage was more wide-ranging, intervening at San Crisogono, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Santa Chiara a Casa