The Casino di Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi (also known as the Villa Aurora or the Casino dell'Aurora) is a villa in Porta Pinciana, Rome, Italy. Measuring 2.200 square meters, it is all that remains of a country retreat, best known as Villa Ludovisi, established in the 16th century by Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte. The Cardinal was a diplomat, intellectual, art connoisseur, collector, and protector and patron of such very different figures as Galileo and Caravaggio. The Casino is often referred to as the Villa Aurora, after the important fresco by Guercino, located in the Villa's main reception room, depicting the goddess Aurora. One of the smaller rooms of the casino boasts the only painting ever executed by Caravaggio on a ceiling, Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto, which reflects, in symbolic imagery derived from Classical mythology, another of the cardinal's interests, alchemy.

Del Monte sold the Villa Ludovisi and its extensive grounds to Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi in 1621. Due to the Ludovisi's family financial duress, the whole park was sold off in the 1880s and built up with hotels and expensive houses, including palazzi for members of the family. The facade of the main casino or Casino Grande (a separate building) is now hidden behind the 19th-century Palazzo Margherita. This building was acquired by the Italian State and became the residence of Queen Mother Margherita. It now houses the U.S. embassy.

Mappa di Via Lombardia, Roma (Municipio Roma I, Rione XVI Ludovisi). Elenco dei servizi vicino a Via Lombardia, Roma (Municipio Roma I: negozi, ristoranti, strutture ricreative e sportive, ospedali, stazioni di servizio e altri luoghi di interesse. Museo Boncompagni Ludovisi per le arti decorative, il costume e la moda dei secoli XIX e XX Roma Casa museo dell'inizio del XX secolo appartenuta alla famiglia Boncompagni Ludovisi, destinata a Centro di promozione e documentazione delle Arti decorative, della Moda e del Costume, inteso come evoluzione del gusto sociale, del periodo moderno.

The only part not sold was the Villa Aurora, which remains in the possession of the Ludovisi family, encircled by high walls and open to the public on written request. Apart from the works by Caravaggio and Guercino, it contains important works of art by Pomarancio, Michelangelo, and a collection of Roman and Greek artefacts.^[1]

References[edit]

1. ^'Villa Aurora, Rome's best kept secret?'. Minor Sights. Retrieved 20 November 2016.

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Coordinates: 41°54′27″N12°29′15″E / 41.9074°N 12.4875°E

The Casino dell'Aurora is the only portion spared from nineteenth-century demolition of the Villa Ludovisi (later Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi) in Rome. Originally the Casino, erected around 1570 and enlarged in the nineteenth century, was a three-story structure on a cruciform ground plan. During the pontificate of Pope Gregory XV Ludovisi the villa and its casino were used mainly for official functions such as dinners for the college of cardinals. The Casino was decorated by paintings on the ground floor and the second floor in the seventeenth century.

The ceiling of the central room on the ground floor was painted by Guercino depicting Aurora on Her Triumphal Chariot. This composition was a deliberate response to Guido Reni's Aurora in the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi in Rome. Guercino's coworker was Agostino Tassi who was responsible for the architecture (quadratura) painted in fresco technique. (Guercino painted in tempera instead of fresco.)

In the Stanza del Caminetto, a room adjacent to the central room, the centre of the ceiling shows a wreath of putti, the documented work by Antonio Circignani, called il Pomarancio (1560-1620). It is framed by four landscape pictures painted by Paul Bril, Giovanni Battista Viola, Domenichino, and Guercino. These were produced in a kind of competition between the four painters.

The ceiling painting in the former library on the ground floor, painted by Giovanni Luigi Valesio, depicts crowds of putti with intertwining bands whose isolated letters produce Cardinal Ludovisi's name and title.

The ceiling painting in the Sala della Fama, the central hall on the second floor, is entirely allegorical. The central picture is designed as a fictive opening with only a few figures. In the centre hovers the personification of Fame in billowing robes, holding in her outstretched hands an extremely long trumpet and an olive branch as a symbol of peace. In the lower part of the picture space personifications of Honour (Honos) and Virtue (Virtus) are seated on a dark gray cloud.

A tiny and very low room on the second floor, a space that the owner Ludovico Ludovisi used as a 'studiolo,' contains the only wall painting by Caravaggio.

In its combination of heraldic and allegorical elements, the pictorial program in the Casino dell'Aurora anticipates the pictorial idiom later perfected by Pietro da Cortona in the Palazzo Barberini.

Casino Ludovisi Roma Orari Fiumicino

Casino Ludovisi Roma Orari Lazio