The Boncompagni Ludovisi family’s own photographic album (late 1880s-early 1890s) of their sculptural collection. Collection of HSH Prince Nicolò and HSH Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome.

In January 1858, after four years of service as US Consul in Liverpool, American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) came to Rome with his wife and three children. He spent almost a year and a half in Italy, into May 1859, with visits to Siena and Florence. In his journals he recorded from what was essentially a tourist’s vantage point many exquisitely detailed impressions of the country and its cultural riches. The chief literary expression of this Italian experience was Hawthorne’s 1860 work The Marble Faun, the last of his four great romances, which he mostly wrote after leaving the Continent for England.

The journals include  Hawthorne’s account of a family visit to the Villa Ludovisi (quoted in full below), on 26 March 1858, some two months after their arrival in Rome. Here one can sense early glimpses of a melancholic view of the Eternal City that soon became much more pronounced after his eldest daughter, Una, then aged about 18, suffered a serious attack of  the notorious strain of malaria known as “Roman fever”.  [Read more…]

A new dossier of sovereigns’ letters to Ippolita Ludovisi, powerful Princess of Piombino. Collection of HSH Prince Nicolò and HSH Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome.

Olimpia Ippolita Ludovisi (born in Cagliari 24 December 1663, and died in Rome 29 December 1733) was to be the last member of the Ludovisi family proper. She was the fourth of five children of Niccolò Ludovisi (1613-1664), who acquired the Principate of Piombino in 1634, and his third wife Costanza Pamphili (1627-1665, niece of Pope Innocent X). Ippolita and her siblings thus had two Popes as great-uncles; for their father’s paternal uncle was Alessandro Ludovisi (1554-1623), named as Archbishop of Bologna in 1612, Cardinal in 1616, and then as Pope Gregory XV in 1621. Yet Ippolita hardly was to know her parents. Her father Niccolò died in Sardinia just one day after her first birthday, and her mother Costanza only three months after that, in her ninth month of pregnancy with a posthumously-born (and short-lived) son. [Read more…]

One of the most conspicuous monumental buildings in Rome today is the Galleria Alberto Sordi on the Via del Corso, directly facing the Piazza Colonna on the east. It was the architect Dario Carbone (1857-1934) who designed this as the “Galleria Colonna”. Construction covered the years 1914 to 1922, with final completion coming only after Carbone’s death in 1940.

The Galleria Alberto Sordi on Rome’s Via del Corso, as seen from Piazza Colonna

 What is less noticed is that the two arcades of this 20^th century Galleria occupy the spot where the late 16^th century Palazzo Piombino stood until its demolition in 1889.

The Piazza Colonna shortly before the destruction of the Palazzo Piombino (at left) in 1889. Collection of HSH Prince Nicolò and HSH Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome.

In this post are gathered some previously unseen Boncompagni Ludovisi family photos of the interior of the Palazzo Piombino just before the Comune di Roma expropriated it and knocked it down. This was part of the city’s long-standing project (envisaged certainly by 1874) to widen the Via del Corso. The photos offer a remarkable glimpse into the private life of this noble family in the late 1880s, at the pinnacle of its fortunes. [Read more…]

One of the most spectacular finds that the Villa Aurora yielded in summer 2010 was a long series of letters by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette of France. There are 25 in all, written from Versailles over the period 1775-1787. Thirteen are by Louis XVI, and twelve by Marie Antoinette. Each of these newly discovered letters is addressed to Cardinal Ignazio Boncompagni Ludovisi (1743-1790), who after 1777 governed Bologna (then in the Papal States) as Cardinal Legate of Pope Pius VI. Boncompagni Ludovisi eventually rose to the position of Secretary of State for the Vatican in 1785, but resigned after just four years, because of poor health.

Letter of 1775 from Louis XVI, addressed to Card. Ignazio Boncompagni Ludovisi. Collection of HSH Prince Nicolò and HSH Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome.

The Archivio Segreto Vaticano possesses just one letter from Louis XVI (also to Cardinal Ignazio) and none from Marie Antoinette in its Fond Boncompagni Ludovisi. So this fresh discovery marks a particularly significant contribution to the study of the relationship of European rulers to the Boncompagni Ludovisi family. [Read more…]

It was Niccolò Ludovisi (1610-1664), younger brother of Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, and nephew of Alessandro Ludovisi (= Pope Gregory XV), who acquired for the Ludovisi family the Principality of Piombino (1634) and then the Principality of Venosa (1656). He also obtained high-ranking political positions under Spanish patronage, such as Viceroy of Aragon (since 1660) and of Sardinia (since 1662).

Quattrino of Piombino featuring portrait of Prince Niccolò Ludovisi on obverse, arms of Ludovisi on reverse [Read more…]

Ravenna makes Giacomo Boncompagni a citizen and Senator

One of the new archival finds from the Villa Aurora is a magnificently executed declaration of 7 August 1581. It records that Ravenna has granted to Giacomo Boncompagni (1548-1612, son of Pope Gregory XIII) citizenship and a place in its Senate.

Collection of HSH Prince Nicolò and HSH Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome (this and all MS photos below).

The grant is otherwise attested by a document in the Biblioteca Comunale di Bologna (lvi, Cancelleria 34, e. 136 v.°). Giacomo followed up this grant with a grand ceremonial entrance into Ravenna on 7 December 1581. [Read more…]

Collection of HSH Prince Nicolò and HSH Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome.

One of the most valuable items to emerge from the new archival finds from the Villa Aurora is an autograph declaration in Latin and Italian dated 22 December 1552 by Ugo Boncompagni (1502-1585, from 1572 Pope Gregory XIII). Here Ugo confirms his paternity of Giacomo (or Jacopo) Boncompagni (1548-1612) by Maddalena de’ Fucchinis, a servant in the employ of his sister-in-law Laura Ferro.

The future Pope explains in detail the circumstances of the boy’s conception, which took place in 1547 in Bologna, after the Council of Trent had moved to that city; his motive was to assure his inheritance rights following the death (in 1546) of his father Cristoforo Boncompagni. [Read more…]