ROME – A modest-sized ceiling painting accounts for more than half the value of a Roman villa that’s on the market for $500 million.
The 9-foot-wide fresco is the only known ceiling mural by Caravaggio, and it’s valued at 310 million euros ($272 million).
Villa Aurora will go to auction in January with an opening bid of 471 million euros ($535 million). The 32,000-square-foot home on half an acre near Rome’s famed Via Veneto is what is left of a country retreat established in the 16th century by Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte.
The sale is the result of a drawn-out inheritance dispute after the 2018 death of Prince Nicolo Boncompagni Ludovisi and involving his third wife.
Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, who was born and raised in Texas but has lived in the villa for 18 years, told Reuters that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates had once been interested in buying the property, as well as an emir of Qatar.
“I just pray and hope that whoever buys it will love it as much as we have,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion.
In 1597 Cardinal Del Monte, a diplomat and art patron, commissioned Caravaggio, then in his early twenties, to paint the ceiling of a small room on the first floor which he used as his alchemy laboratory.
The mural depicts an allegorical scene with the gods Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto representing the transformation of lead into gold. Caravaggio painted his own face and body on each of the three figures. The dramatic chiaroscuro lighting for which the artist would become known is not in evidence, but the work does display a sophisticated grasp of perspective (with the viewer looking straight up at the genitalia of Neptune).
The villa owes its name to a fresco by another baroque artist, Il Guercino, which adorns the huge ceiling of the entrance hall and depicts Aurora, goddess of dawn, in her chariot.
The Robb Report, which covers high-end real estate, noted that the conditions of sale require that the new owner commit to spending 11 million euros on restoring the property. The Italian government will also have right of first refusal; it can pay the gavel price and acquire the villa for the nation.
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