#Caravaggio's Villa Aurora Mural

[qudachuk]

Princess Rita Jenrette has been involved in an inheritance dispute with the sons of her ex-husband.

[blueiscoool]

A $547 Million Italian Villa with World's only Caravaggio Ceiling Mural  

A stately villa in the heart of Rome, which houses the world's only ceiling mural by the Italian painter Caravaggio, will be auctioned at a starting price of 471 million euros ($547 million) in January, a court in Rome has confirmed.

While most of the infrastructure was demolished in the 19th century, Villa Aurora is the only remaining part of the larger Villa Ludovisi, a 16th-century house which was considered "one of the wonders of the world," according to art historian Claudio Strinati in a column published on the daily Repubblica on Friday.

Barely a stone's throw away from Via Veneto, the iconic street memorialized by "La Dolce Vita" director Federico Fellini, Villa Aurora is flanked by a garden and various garages, and covers a total of 2,800 square meters (just over half an acre), according to public sales documents published by the Justice Ministry.

The six-floor property houses a myriad of artworks including an oil wall painting attributed to Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, better known simply as Caravaggio, whose body of work became synonymous with the artist's visceral depictions of violence.

Spanning the ceiling of a small 2.75 square meter room (approximately 30 square feet), Caravaggio's Villa Aurora mural represents three gods -- Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto -- as they gather around a translucent globe.

It was commissioned by cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte in 1597, who would have used the room as an alchemical laboratory, according to the expertise commissioned by a tribunal, published by the ministry.

The painting has an estimated value of more than 310 million euros ($360 million), according to Alessandro Zuccari, a history of modern art professor at Sapienza University of Rome.

Zuccari, who was called by the tribunal to estimate the work of art inside the property, concluded in his evaluation ordered by the tribunal that Caravaggio's painting is "priceless, being the only mural by one of the greatest painters of the modern age."

The villa is also frescoed by the Baroque painter Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Guercino, who worked in the villa between 1621 and 1623. Among Guercino's works are the fresco of the Aurora, the Roman goddess of dawn, which was painted for the nephew of Pope Gregory XV, Alessandro Ludovisi.

Villa Aurora belongs to the Boncompagni Ludovisi family, who are descendants of Pope Gregory XV. However, no detail of the judicial reasons that underlie the auction sale have been disclosed.

But maintenance of the property will not be cheap. One of the conditions for whoever will buy the property will be to spend 11 million euros in restoration expenses.

As a protected art site, the state will have the right of first refusal over the villa.

Auction company Fallco Zucchetti is handling the sale.

[blakegopnik]

IN THE VILLA AURORA, CARAVAGGIO PLAYS TRICKS WITH THE UNIVERSE

THE DAILY PIC is Caravaggio’s circa 1597 ceiling painting of Jupiter (at left in my image, with his iconic eagle), Pluto (top right, with his three-headed dog Cerberus) and Poseidon (with his horse-fishy hippocamp). It’s been much in the news of late, because it’s on a ceiling in the Villa Aurora in Rome, which has recently been put up for sale at the modest price of $550 million. 

For some reason, most of the news pieces seem to have published it in mirror-image (from what I understand, the hippocamp should be cradled in Poseidon’s right arm, as here).

In publishing the picture as a tall vertical, I’d say that they’ve also rotated its ideal view by 90 degrees, since I think it’s better understood as a horizontal, with the three gods arrayed to either side, in equality, rather than with Jupiter flying “above” the other two. (Also, the perspective has been calculated for someone looking up at the center of the piece, not approaching it from one end; also also, the zodiac symbols are upright when seen in my orientation.)

But the really neat thing about a ceiling like this one that’s been painted “di sotto in su” (”from below looking up”) is that it undoes normal ideas about orientation in art. With images painted or hanging on walls,  the viewer is pretty much always planted in about the same position, in front and below; with a work placed on a ceiling, there’s no saying how the image will be approached and then taken in — especially in this case, since it seems the mural’s in a kind of hallway that can be entered from either end.

Also destabilizing is the way scale starts to come loose in this work. Because Caravaggio used the perspectival tricks of “quadratura” in composing his piece, we read his figures as standing in a space that’s completely continuous with ours, as though the ancient gods were real people standing at the edge of an opening in the ceiling, a dozen or so feet above our heads. And yet Jupiter’s left hand, half obscured by the orb of the universe, makes it very clear that Caravaggio’s figures have in fact been imagined at a scale that dwarfs anything in the merely material world that we’re standing in.

And then there’s that sotto in su view of Pluto’s scrotum. (A shaved one, no less; see https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/40/gopnik.php). Lots of people have been commenting on it, but the weirdest thing about it is that it’s a common device in this kind of 16th-century ceiling painting. Now that’s a PhD subject, if there ever was one.

For a full survey of past Pics visit blakegopnik.com/archive.

[lineageandtrajectory]

Caravaggio ceiling mural at the Villa Aurora in Rome.

[meret118]

The Villa Aurora in Rome is on the market and almost has it all: lush gardens dotted with statues of Roman deities, more than one colorful fresco and the only known ceiling mural painted by Baroque master Caravaggio. The only thing it doesn't have? A bidder. The 30,000-square-foot, 16th-century villa made waves after it was listed on the market for a starting price of $534 million Tuesday, making it potentially the most expensive home in the world. But despite its extravagant masterpieces of Western art and location of historical significance, the villa neglected to get any offers.

. . .

The grounds are also home to a statue, attributed to Michelangelo, of the Greek god of nature Pan. In 2010, a box of letters was found at the villa that included the writings of Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI and a number of former popes.

. . .

But with history from antiquity to the Renaissance comes with the need for restorations as well, possibly as much as €10 million worth, or $11.35 million. "You have to have a billionaire; a millionaire is not enough for this. It needs someone with deep pockets, (who) doesn't care if you have to spend 10 thousand on a water leak or something," Princess Rita told NPR.

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It's now going up for auction.

[ricmlm]

Yesterday's auction, Tuesday (18) of an exceptional mural by Caravaggio, [don't know results yet] which can be found in the Roman residence of princes Ludovisi Boncompagni, provoked strong protests from the world of Italian culture, demanding state intervention. The work of Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi, 1571-1610), an important Italian painter of the Baroque style, is from 1597 and represents Jupiter, Pluto and Neptune, in the midst of a terrestrial globe surrounded by the signs of the Zodiac. The painting is in the monumental Casino da Aurora, better known as Villa Ludovisi, an imposing palace of 2,800 square meters, spread over six floors with a sumptuous garden. The monument is located in the heart of Rome, a few steps from the famous Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, one of the noblest sectors of the capital. The country residence of one of the richest and most powerful aristocratic families in Italy also preserves frescoes by Guercino (1591-1666), a renowned Baroque painter from Bologna, as well as ancient statues. The initial minimum price was set at 353 million euros. Only those who have deposited 10% of the initial amount will be admitted. https://www.instagram.com/p/CY7EIqpDFDR/?utm_medium=tumblr

[cuadernodeviajesleovicent]

la VILLA ROMANA de 500 MILLONES con el CARAVAGGIO que quieren COMPRAR B...

¿Busca una residencia opulenta en Roma y tiene 500 millones de euros de sobra para gastar? No busque más: el Casino de Aurora Ludovisi o simplemente Villa Aurora, una joya de arte y bienes raíces en la capital italiana, está a la venta. La propiedad, que se extiende a lo largo de 2.800 metros cuadrados, incluido un exuberante jardín, no tiene piscinas ni unas vistas perturbadoras, pero alberga el único mural del techo conocido del artista barroco italiano Michelangelo Merisi, más conocido como Caravaggio.