Global Courant 2023-04-20 00:38:35
A Texas-born princess living in a Rome villa with the only known ceiling painted by Caravaggio faces a judicial eviction Thursday, in the latest chapter in an inheritance dispute with the heirs of one of Rome’s aristocratic families.
Princess Rita Jenrette Boncompagni Ludovisi, formerly known as Rita Carpenter, was still holding out at the Casino dell’Aurora on Wednesday evening, awaiting what she expected the Carabinieri police to arrive in the morning. With her are her Ukrainian housekeeper Olga, the housekeeper’s daughter, and two young grandchildren who fled Kiev after Russia’s invasion last year.
In January, Rome judge Miriam Iappelli ordered Carabinieri police at Via Veneto station to evict her, accusing the princess of, among other things, failing to keep the house in a “good state of repair” after an outer wall had collapsed. Now that the warning time has passed, the decree calls on the police to evict anyone still living there, take possession of the property, change the locks and “throw away or destroy” any furniture or documents left behind.
The eviction order marked the culmination of a bitter legacy saga in which, at the same time, the villa, located along the famous Via Veneto, was auctioned last year by court order and was valued at $533 million by the court. After the $400 million minimum bid failed to find buyers in the first auction, the price was gradually lowered in a series of subsequent auctions, with more planned until a buyer is found.
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Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi shows journalists some of the paintings on display at the Casino dell’Aurora, also known as Villa Ludovisi, in Rome on January 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)
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The house, built in 1570, 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.
The children have argued that the house is theirs, that their grandfather intended for them to inherit it, and that their late father mismanaged his fortune. They have launched a multifaceted legal campaign to gain control of the house so it can be sold.
The villa, also known as Villa Ludovisi, is famous for the Caravaggio that decorates 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 30-foot-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 American Princess was previously married to former US Representative John Jenrette Jr. from South Carolina.
