Barely a stone’s throw away from By way of Veneto, the enduring avenue memorialized by “La Dolce Vita” director Federico Fellini, Villa Aurora is flanked by a backyard and numerous garages, and covers a complete of two,800 sq. meters (simply over half an acre), in keeping with public gross sales paperwork revealed by the Justice Ministry.
The six-floor property homes a myriad of artworks together with an oil wall portray attributed to Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, higher identified merely as Caravaggio, whose physique of labor grew to become synonymous with the artist’s visceral depictions of violence.
Portrait of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, seventeenth century. Discovered within the assortment of Nationwide Museum of Western Artwork, Tokyo. Credit score: Heritage Photos/Hulton Advantageous Artwork Assortment/Getty Photos
Spanning the ceiling of a small 2.75 sq. meter room (roughly 30 sq. toes), Caravaggio’s Villa Aurora mural represents three gods — Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto — as they collect round a translucent globe.
It was commissioned by cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte in 1597, who would have used the room as an alchemical laboratory, in keeping with the experience commissioned by a tribunal, revealed by the ministry.
The portray has an estimated worth of greater than 310 million euros ($360 million), in keeping with Alessandro Zuccari, a historical past of recent artwork professor at Sapienza College of Rome.
Zuccari, who was known as by the tribunal to estimate the murals contained in the property, concluded in his analysis ordered by the tribunal that Caravaggio’s portray is “priceless, being the one mural by one of many best painters of the trendy age.”
The villa can also be frescoed by the Baroque painter Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, generally known as Guercino, who labored within the villa between 1621 and 1623. Amongst Guercino’s works are the fresco of the Aurora, the Roman goddess of daybreak, which was painted for the nephew of Pope Gregory XV, Alessandro Ludovisi.
Aurora, 1621, by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, generally known as Guercino, fresco. On line casino of the Villa Ludovisi, Rome. Credit score: DeAgostini/Getty Photos
Villa Aurora belongs to the Boncompagni Ludovisi household, who’re descendants of Pope Gregory XV. Nonetheless, no element of the judicial causes that underlie the public sale sale have been disclosed.
However upkeep of the property won’t be low cost. One of many circumstances for whoever will purchase the property can be to spend 11 million euros in restoration bills.
As a protected artwork website, the state can have the best of first refusal over the villa.
Public sale firm Fallco Zucchetti is dealing with the sale.
