Only a Caravaggio on the ceiling… but Italian villa still fails to sell
CRANING her neck, Princess Rita Jenrette Boncompagni Ludovisi gazes up for one of the last times at an oil painting on a ceiling that depicts three muscular male figures, one with his genitalia rendered in graphic detail.
“A potentate from the Middle East once walked into the room, looked up at the painting, and walked straight out again,” she said. “I guess he was a bit shocked.”
Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto (Allegory of the alchemical creation) is by none other than Caravaggio and it is the jewel in the crown of a 16th-century villa in Rome that was meant to have sold at auction this week, with an estimated value of €471million (£394million).
In the end, after much anticipation, there were no bidders. The huge villa, which has more than 40 rooms and a large raised garden in the historic heart of the city, will go back on sale in April, but with the asking price knocked down by nearly €100million.
Princess Rita is hoping that the Italian state will buy the property for the nation and turn it into a museum. But the original asking price represents around a quarter of Italy’s annual cultural heritage budget and the government has so far shown no interest.
“If Franceschini (Italy’s culture minister) would go ahead and buy it, it could become a museum. That would appeal to me. But I don’t know if they have the money to do it,” she said.
Texan-born Rita Carter acquired her title through marriage, but has never wanted to sell up.
It was ordered by a court in September after judges ruled that a long-running, acrimonious dispute between her and her three stepchildren – the sons of her late husband, Prince Nicolo Boncompagni Ludovisi – had become intractable. Asked how she felt about the auction not resulting in a sale, the 72-year-old princess said:
Princess Rita wants her art-filled villa to become a museum “It’s hard to say. I was certainly ready for the insanity and toxicity to be over. The last 20 years that I’ve lived in the villa were the happiest of my life … but I’m exhausted by the court system.”
The property – known as Villa Ludovisi or the Casino dell’Aurora – is packed with art and history. Its perimeter walls are adorned with classical statues. In the garden there is a priapic statue of the Greek god Pan, attributed to Michelangelo. The villa was built for a cardinal in the 1570s and Caravaggio painted his mural – the only ceiling painting he ever produced – in 1597.
It depicts the gods Pluto, Jupiter and Neptune gathered around a celestial orb decorated with zodiac signs. The face of each god is a self-portrait of Caravaggio.
The oil-on-plaster painting alone is estimated to be worth more than €300 million. “It’s kind of amazing to live with the painting. You never get sick of it,” the princess said.