Global Courant 2023-04-21 12:58:02
A Texas-born princess piled her four yapping Bichon Frize dogs into a taxi on Thursday after being evicted from a historic Rome villa with the only known ceiling painted by Caravaggio after a bitter inheritance dispute.
Princess Rita Jenrette Boncompagni Ludovisi, born Rita Carpenter, left the Casino dell’Aurora on posh Via Veneto hours after Carabinieri police arrived to enforce a court-ordered eviction order. Before she left, a locksmith changed the locks on the large green front door.
Her dramatic exit — one of the dogs briefly escaped while talking to reporters on the street — was the culmination of a remarkable, years-long soap opera that exposed the dirty laundry of one of Rome’s aristocratic families.
The Boncompagni Ludovisi are perhaps best known for having produced Pope Gregory XIII of Gregorian Calendar fame. But lately they have attracted more attention due to the inheritance dispute and court auction of their famous villa in the heart of Rome.
“I feel like I’m in a surrealist movie, like ‘No Exit’ by Sartre,” the princess said in the street, interrupted repeatedly by a barking fluffy white dog in her arms and three others at her ankles.
Casino dell’Aurora, also known as the Villa Ludovisi, has been in the Ludovisi family since the early 17th century. After Prince Nicolo Boncompagni Ludovisi died in 2018, the villa became the subject of an inheritance dispute between the children from his first marriage and his third wife, San Antonio, Texas native Princess Rita, whom he married in 2009.
Previously, she had been married to former U.S. Representative John Jenrette Jr. from South Carolina.
A court-ordered eviction was served on Thursday, in the latest chapter in an inheritance dispute with the heirs of one of Rome’s noble families. Andrew Medichini/AP
The children have argued that the house, built in 1570, is theirs, that their grandfather intended for them to inherit it, and that their late father abused them and mismanaged his fortune. They began a multi-pronged legal campaign to take control of the property so it can be sold.
The final chapter in the saga came in January after Judge Miriam Iappelli in Rome issued an eviction order accusing the princess of violating a previous order barring her from giving tours of the property.
Boncompagni Ludovisi has said the tours were necessary to raise money to maintain the villa. In addition, the judge ruled that the princess had failed to keep the house in a “good state of repair” after an exterior wall collapsed.
One of the heirs, Prince Bante Boncompagni Ludovisi, was present at the villa on Thursday to see ‘that woman’, as he calls his father’s widow, leave the property.
“This house needs renovation. The water pipes need to be repaired and the frescoes are in danger,” he told reporters. “This is a country: we have our police, we have our judges and you have to respect our country and our laws if you stay here.”
It is not clear who will now carry out the work on the house, which needs at least 11 million euros in renovations to get it right.
The villa was placed on the court-ordered auction block last year as part of the inheritance dispute and was valued by the court at 471 million euros ($533 million), thanks in large part to the Caravaggio. After the minimum bid of 353 million euros ($400 million) failed to find buyers at the first auction, the price was gradually lowered in a series of subsequent auctions, with more planned until a buyer is found.
The Caravaggio ceiling adorns a small room next to a spiral staircase on the second floor. It was commissioned in 1597 by a diplomat and patron of the arts, who asked the then young painter to decorate the ceiling of the small room used as an alchemy workshop. The 2.75-meter-wide mural, depicting Jupiter, Pluto and Neptune, is unusual: it is not a fresco, but rather oil on plaster, and represents the only ceiling mural known to have been painted by Caravaggio.
The fate of the villa is uncertain, but so is that of the princess.
The Texas-born princess leaves her home in Rome on Thursday.Andrew Medichini/AP
Boncompagni Ludovisi vowed the truth will eventually come out (and announced a book deal) and insisted that during her two decades of living there, she had taken care of the villa and digitized the family archive, with the help of Rutgers University .
“I don’t see any logic in this. I was a good keeper of the villa,” she said.
She did not say where she would go, although she noted that the Episcopal Church in Rome had provided assistance.
“I love Italy and I am sorry to have to bring such a brutal end to what has been a labor of love for 20 years,” she said. Her book, about the villa and the famous ceiling, is expected to be published at the end of this year.
“It’s dedicated to my husband, Nicolo,” she said, before speeding into Roman traffic with the dogs in a taxi.
