Category Archives: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

US-born princess vows to stay in Rome villa despite eviction order

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Saga continues over property housing Caravaggio’s only ceiling fresco as fifth auction fails to attract bids

A princess living in a villa in Rome that contains the only ceiling fresco ever painted by Caravaggio has said she would “vigorously defend” her right to stay in the sprawling property after a judge ordered her eviction.

The US-born Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, the only occupant of the 16th-century Villa Aurora, has been embroiled in a long-running inheritance dispute with the three sons of her late husband, Prince Nicolò Boncompagni Ludovisi, who was the property’s last owner.

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Rome villa with Caravaggio’s only ceiling fresco fails to sell again

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Sprawling Villa Aurora – at centre of legal battle – attracts no bidders for second time at cut-price €377m

For the second time in three months, a historic Rome villa that contains the only ceiling fresco ever painted by the Renaissance master and famed scoundrel Caravaggio has failed to attract a bidder.

More than four centuries after his death at the age of 38, the man known during his lifetime for his fistfights, arrests and lawsuits as much as for producing what would become many of history’s best-known paintings is still causing trouble.

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The princess and the Caravaggio: bitter dispute rages over Roman villa

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‘It’s like a museum,’ says princess caught in inheritance feud over one of the world’s most expensive homes

As legend goes, tossing a coin into the Trevi fountain guarantees a return visit to Rome. When, as a 16-year-old American tourist, Rita Carpenter participated in the ritual and made a wish to one day marry a Roman and live in the Italian capital, little did she know that almost five decades on she would return to marry a prince and home would be a 16th-century villa stuffed with history, including the only ceiling mural ever painted by Caravaggio.

But now Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi is facing the prospect of having to move out of the sprawling Villa Aurora, and the vast treasures it contains are at risk of being closed off to the public.

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Suspected Caravaggio work given protected status in Spain

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Painting came close to being sold at auction for €1,500 before its true potential value of £50m came to light

A small oil painting that avoided being sold at a Spanish auction for €1,500 earlier this year after experts suggested it could be the work of the Italian master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio has been granted protected status as an item of cultural interest.

The painting of the scourged Christ, which measures 111cm by 86cm, was withdrawn from sale in April after suspicions grew that it had been incorrectly attributed to the circle of the 17th-century Spanish artist José de Ribera.

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‘Damn! This is a Caravaggio!’: the inside story of an old master found in Spain

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Art dealer Giancarlo Ciaroni attempted to buy painting listed at €1,500 for €500,000 – but discovered bewildered owners already had two offers of €3m

It took all of six minutes for Massimo Pulini to realise that the small oil painting due to go under the hammer in Madrid earlier this month with a guide price of €1,500 (£1,300) could be worth millions.

At 9.48pm on 24 March, Pulini, a 63-year-old professor at the Bologna Fine Arts Academy, received an email request for an evaluation. Sent by an antiques dealer and friend of Pulini’s, it included a photo of a luminous oil painting of the scourged Christ.

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Painting that was nearly sold for €1,500 could be Caravaggio worth €50m

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Spanish government imposes export ban on oil painting as experts study it to determine authorship

Before it was pulled from sale, lot 229, a small but luminous oil painting of the scourged Christ attributed to the circle of the 17th-century Spanish artist José de Ribera, had been due to go under the hammer in Madrid on Thursday with a guide price of €1,500 (£1,300).

Closer inspection, however, has raised suspicions that the Crowning with Thorns may be the rather more valuable work of the Italian master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, leading the Spanish government to impose an export ban on the painting.

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The ‘kidnapped’ Caravaggio: how the mafia took a razor blade to a masterpiece

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Masterpiece was kept in the home of notorious Sicilian, who sliced off a piece in order to make a deal with Catholic church

A Caravaggio masterpiece stolen from a Palermo church 50 years ago and listed among FBI’s “most wanted” stolen artworks, was kept in the home of a powerful mafia boss, who sliced off a piece of the canvas in order to convince the Catholic church to make a deal for its return, according to previously unseen testimony from the priest who tried to recover it.

In an video interview filmed in 2001, but locked in a drawer and now revealed exclusively to the Guardian, the parish priest of the Oratory of San Lorenzo revealed astonishing details of the October 1969 theft of Merisi da Caravaggio’s Nativity With St Lawrence and St Francis.

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