Once, twice, sold? Rome villa with Caravaggio up for auction

A Rome villa containing the only known ceiling painted by Caravaggio is set to go on a court-ordered auction block Tuesday, thanks to an inheritance dispute pitting the heirs of one of the Italian capital's aristocratic families against their step-mother, a Texas-born princess.

Princess Rita Jenrett Boncompagni Ludovisi, formerly known as Rita Carpenter, woke up Tuesday morning in the Casa dell'Aurora surrounded by her dogs, as usual, on what might be the last day that her home of nearly two decades is actually hers.

An online auction organized by the Rome tribunal is planned to start at 3 p.m. sharp. The starting bid is set at 353 million euros (US$400 million), and the villa just off the famous Via Veneto has an value of 471 million euros (US$533 million).

"It's been emotional since I received the notice from the judge on Sept. 2. I've rarely slept," Boncompagni Ludovisi told The Associated Press in one of her sitting rooms a few hours before the auction began. "It's like going through the stages of death and dying. ... You're angry at first, and then you can't believe it, and then you finally go into a point of accepting it."

The house, built in 1570, has been in the Ludovisi family since the early 1600s. 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, Princess Rita.