ROME — It was heralded as the actual property deal of the century.

Up on the market was a 16th-century, 30,000-square-foot villa in downtown Rome full with a landscaped backyard and a masterpiece painted on its ceiling — by Caravaggio.

But when the Villa Aurora went up for public sale on Tuesday, the hefty price ticket — 471 million euros, or $533 million — stored potential patrons away. There have been no provides on the minimal bidding value, in accordance with the notary overseeing the sale.

Aside from Caravaggio’s fresco — “Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto,” which he painted for the villa’s first proprietor, Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte, in 1597 — the villa has ceiling frescoes by different Baroque masters, together with Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, higher often called Guercino. His fresco in the primary corridor of the Roman goddess of daybreak, “Aurora,” gave the villa its identify.

The villa has been the property of the Boncompagni Ludovisi household for 400 years. But an inheritance dispute between the widow of Prince Nicolò Boncompagni Ludovisi, who died in 2018 at age 77, and his three sons from his first marriage prompted a judicial order to promote it.

Any patrons would want very deep pockets as a result of the villa requires no less than €10 million for restoration work, stated Alessandro Zuccari, a professor on the University of Rome who was tasked by the Rome courtroom overseeing the inheritance dispute to ascertain the villa’s financial worth. “I told the magistrate it was priceless, from a cultural point of view; she told me I had to come up with a number,” he stated.

Most of the villa’s worth rests within the Caravaggio fresco — valued at €310 million. Professor Zuccari stated the general value was justified due to the villa’s “immense cultural value.”

“What building in the world has a wall painting by Caravaggio near a wall painting by Guercino?” he requested. The villa additionally contains works by different well-known 17th-century artists and vintage Roman statuary.

Thousands of individuals visited the auction website, the place a video supplies an exhaustive gallery of photos of the property’s artwork.

Meanwhile, a web based petition signed by nearly 39,000 individuals referred to as on Dario Franceschini, Italy’s tradition minister, to make use of European Union funds to purchase the villa on the asking value. The ministry additionally has the best to match any provides for the villa, ought to a purchaser emerge.

Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, the American-born third spouse of the deceased Prince Nicolò Boncompagni Ludovisi, who has lived within the villa for the higher a part of 20 years, stated she had blended emotions in regards to the failed public sale. “I had hoped for some kind of resolution today,” she stated, including that she had come to phrases with leaving.

As the villa’s guardian, she made it accessible to students, and gave personalized tours and dinners to assist pay for its maintenance. She and her late husband “put everything into Villa Aurora,” she stated.

T. Corey Brennan, a classics professor at Rutgers University who has been engaged on the Boncompagni Ludovisi archives for over a decade, stated that a lot remained to be found within the villa.

In current years, frescoes have been detected behind false and dropped ceilings within the villa, and have but to be totally uncovered and restored, Professor Brennan stated.

And a “full subterranean underground survey of the villa,” carried out with noninvasive ground-penetrating radar and different methods, present that it’s sitting on large stays that dwarf the dimensions of the villa.

“If you were able to start digging, you would immediately hit Roman remains,” he stated. “It’s not just what’s there but what is certainly there that excites me.”

The villa will return to the block on April 7, its price slashed by 20 % to a mere €377 million.

“We go onward,” Princess Rita stated in a phone interview. “Here we are.”



Source link