Villa Ludovisi

Just off Via Veneto in Rome stands a small garden pavilion, the casino, which is all that remains of the Villa Ludovisi. Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Pope Gregory XV, bought it in 1621 and laid out a park of more than 30 hectares around it, partly over the ancient gardens of Sallust. In the 1880s the family sold the land for building, and hotels, apartment blocks and the streets of today's Ludovisi quarter replaced the park.

The casino survived, and so did what is painted inside it. In the ground-floor hall, Guercino frescoed Aurora, the goddess of dawn, driving her chariot across the ceiling in 1621. In a small room upstairs is the only ceiling painting known by Caravaggio, Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto, done in oil on plaster around 1597 for an earlier owner, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, his first important patron, who is said to have used the room for alchemy.

The house is still privately owned and has been caught since 2018 in an inheritance dispute and in court auctions that found no buyer, so visits are rare. During the 2025 Caravaggio exhibition at Palazzo Barberini, it opened to visitors for a few months.