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Casino dell'Aurora

Historic site · Ludovisi, Italy

Permanently closed. This page is kept for reference.

The Casino dell'Aurora, also called Casino Ludovisi or Villa Aurora, on via Aurora, is a building of Villa Ludovisi that survives intact. Italian Wikipedia records that it was built for Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte in the sixteenth century and remodelled for Ludovico Ludovisi between 1621 and 1632, and that it takes its name from Guercino's Aurora on the vault of the ground-floor salone. Italian Wikipedia also records that the building holds a wall painting by Caravaggio, Giove, Nettuno e Plutone, painted for Del Monte between 1597 and 1600, and a triptych by Guercino and Tassi on the piano nobile.

History

The building is private. Italian Wikipedia records that it was put up for auction after an inheritance dispute, that every auction held between January 2022 and January 2023 drew no bidder, that Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi was evicted by court order on 20 April 2023, and that in July 2023 the heirs agreed to sell it privately instead. Whether and on what terms it can be visited is not established by any source, and this guide does not state opening arrangements for it. The Boncompagni Ludovisi family archive at villaludovisi.org, which is excellent on the family's documents, still describes the Princess as living in the building and is out of date on occupancy.

One warning about the name. Rome has two buildings called Casino dell'Aurora, in two different rioni, and Italian Wikipedia carries a disambiguation page rather than an article at that title; the Ludovisi one is covered inside its Villa Ludovisi article. Italian Wikipedia dates Guercino's Aurora here to 1621, and Guido Reni's Aurora, in the other building at Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi, to 1614.

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