£393m Rome villa with Caravaggio ceiling fails to sell in court-ordered auction
The house, built in 1570, has been in the Ludovisi family since the early 1600s, and has become the subject of an inheritance dispute.
FILE – Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi stands beneath a fresco by Italian Baroque painter Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Guercino, inside The Casino dell’Aurora, also known as Villa Ludovisi, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021. The villa containing the only known ceiling painted by Caravaggio goes on the court-ordered auction block Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022 with an estimated value of nearly a half-billion euros (dollars), thanks to an inheritance dispute pitting the heirs of one of Rome’s aristocratic families against their step-mother, a Texas-born princess. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)
A villa in Rome containing the only known ceiling painted by Caravaggio went up for auction on Tuesday, thanks to an inheritance dispute – but failed to reach the reserve price.
The dispute has pitted the heirs of one of Rome’s aristocratic families against their stepmother, Texas-born Princess Rita Jenrett Boncompagni Ludovisi, formerly known as Rita Carpenter.
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