Jan. 18 (UPI) —<\/span> An auction for a 16th-century Roman villa containing the only ceiling mural by Italian painter Caravaggio was rescheduled after failing to attract any bids on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Villa Aurora was put up for auction with a starting price of $533 million but no bidders registered their offers before the deadline at midnight on Monday so the auction was pushed to April 7 and the price was reduced by 20%, Beniamo Mioloto, a lawyer for the villa’s current occupant, confirmed to The Guardian.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n The villa was at the center of an inheritance dispute between Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi — the American-born widow of the villa’s late owner Prince Nicolo Boncompagni Ludovisi — and her three stepsons.<\/p>\n Prior to her husband’s death, the princess was credited with restoring the property, which was once made inaccessible to visitors by chest-high weeds, enabling scholars to search the grounds, which resulted in several historically important discoveries, including a chest stuffed with letters of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI.\n<\/p>\n “It was really a journey of love,” the princess said. “Basically, we sacrificed everything, my husband and I did, for this house and for his family.”\n<\/p>\n Following the prince’s death in 2017, a lien was placed on the property and his sons from a previous marriage contested their father’s will, which the princess said left her 50% of the villa’s value and the right to use it for life.<\/p>\n An Italian court ruled in September that the villa would be auctioned off.\n<\/p>\n Much of the villa’s asking price has been attributed to the Caravaggio but other ceilings in the villa were also frescoed by the baroque painter Guercino.<\/p>\n A prospective buyer would also be required to pay about $12 million in repairs.<\/p>\n The site is protected by the ministry of culture and once a bid has been agreed upon at the auction the state will have the opportunity to buy the property at the same price.\n<\/p>\n More than 35,000 people signed a petition last week urging the government to purchase the villa.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An auction for a Roman villa featuring a ceiling mural by Italian painter Caravaggio that is at the center of an inheritance dispute was rescheduled after failing to receive any bidders. File Photo by Riccardo Antimiani\/EPA-EFE Jan. 18 (UPI) — An auction for a 16th-century Roman villa containing the only ceiling mural by Italian painter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":756949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-756947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756947\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Auction](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Auction-for-Roman-villa-containing-Caravaggio-mural-draws-no-bidders.jpg\" "\\"Auction")
\n<\/div>\nAn auction for a Roman villa featuring a ceiling mural by Italian painter Caravaggio that is at the center of an inheritance dispute was rescheduled after failing to receive any bidders. File Photo by Riccardo Antimiani\/EPA-EFE<\/p>\n