A former Playboy model-turned-Italian princess who was evicted from the castle she restored over the past decade by her royal stepsons is still searching for a permanent home months later.
Her Royal Highness Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, 73, was granted the rights to the Casino dell’Aurora by her late husband, Prince Nicolo Boncompagni Ludovisi, in his will.
However, their stepsons, Princes Bante, Ignazio and Francesco, have argued that they have a legitimate claim to part of the 32,000-square-foot Renaissance villa and surrounding estate that serves as the ancestral home of the Boncompagni Ludovisi clan.
They argued in an Italian court that the princess damaged the world’s most expensive estate when she tried to restore it and took tours of the estate.
A judge then issued an evacuation order in January, which was finally enforced when police arrived at the gates of the palace on April 20, when they had just 30 minutes to collect all their belongings.
The princess is now homeless and penniless while the status of her $533 million home remains in limbo.
To make matters worse, the Ukrainian refugee family who housed them on the property once again became homeless.
“It was such a brutal ending to a beautiful story,” she said.
Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, 73, was evicted from the castle she had restored by her royal stepsons over the past decade
The princess said: “We had a wonderful life together” with Prince Nicolo
Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi poses for a photo in front of the Villa Aurora, a building with Caravaggio’s only painted ceiling
Pictured here is one of the entrances to the 32,000-square-foot Renaissance mansion
“It was very Kafkaesque and deeply confusing,” the princess, who was born in Texas and has made a name for herself as a political activist, told the New York Post.
She said all of her assets had been frozen and an Italian court ordered her to pay her stepsons’ legal bills.
The princess was also left without her 16-year-old Mercedes-Benz after one of the princes claimed he was the legal owner of the car.
“I lost my home where I lived for 20 years, my Ukrainian guests were thrown out into the street with nowhere to go, my dogs and the caretaker are traumatized.” [judge] “I wasn’t allowed to take my car,” she said.
“Bante was very aggressive with me for no reason,” Rita said of her 52-year-old stepson.
“None of this had to happen like this,” she continued. “I get along pretty well.”
Rita now resides in a villa outside Rome, loaned to her by Princess Maria Pia Ruspoli, but will soon seek shelter with another friend outside of Paris.
The Ukrainian refugee family who took them in after the Russian invasion last year now lives in an apartment outside of Rome.
But the device is only available for a week, “and then the unknown,” Masha Bratashevska, a Kiev-based stylist, told the Post.
“All of our acquaintances are trying to help us find a place to rent for several months, but to no avail.”
The princess said all her assets were frozen and even her car was confiscated
The princess was born Rita Carpenter in November 1949 in San Antonio, Texas
Italian police officers stood in front of the villa when they evicted the princess on April 20th
Her stepsons have argued they have a legitimate claim to part of the 32,000-square-foot Renaissance mansion and surrounding estate that is the ancestral home of the Boncompagni Ludovisi clan. Francesco and Bante are pictured here
A court ruled she allowed an outer wall of the world’s most expensive property to collapse – although pictures showed it was still standing
The mother-of-three said her youngest children Elisabetta, 7, and Vlad, 8, now have to leave home at 5am to go to central Rome so they can attend their old school near the palace .
“The children still go to the local school,” explained Bratashevska. “Stability is extremely important now, at least in a way.”
Their eldest son, now 17, has returned to Ukraine to live with his father, who he missed when he was being bullied at school in Italy.
“Thanks to Rita, this place has become a second home for us, where we can above all relax and lead a normal life again.” [for] the kids,” she said.
“The news of the eviction was absolutely overwhelming and shocking to us.”
After the eviction, the princess said, the children returned to the villa to collect their clothes and toys – before locking themselves in a room and refusing to leave the house.
“Every time Vlad sees me, he gives me coins,” she said. “He said he wanted to help me.”
“It was such a brutal ending to a beautiful story.”
The princess will be evicted from her 20-year-old home on April 20
Texas-born Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi said it didn’t have to be that way
She decided to pose nude for Playboy in 1981, the same year she and a South Carolina congressman divorced
The princess was born Rita Carpenter in November 1949 in San Antonio, Texas.
Her father, C. Hunt Carpenter, was an insurance tycoon turned natural gas millionaire.
Rita lived a life of privilege and became a Republican Party official—only to marry Democratic Rep. John Jenrette Jr. in 1976.
Rita is pictured on the cover of Playboy in 1984, three years after she first appeared in the magazine in 1981
She later claimed he was a serial cheater and decided to pose nude for Playboy in 1981, the same year she and Jenrette divorced.
At the time, sometime in the ’80s, when she appeared on the cover of Playboy, scandal erupted when she told the magazine that she and Jenrette were having sex on the capital’s steps during a break in a late-night session of the House of Representatives .
But in 2017, during a CBS Sunday Morning interview, she claimed it was merely a “kiss” and claimed that “we didn’t make love on the Capitol steps.”
Luviosi then met Prince Nicolo in the early 2000s when one of his friends asked her to act as an agent for a hotel he wanted to develop, and in 2009 she became his third wife. (The Prince’s mother, Beneatta Barberini Colonna di Sciarra, was his first).
Despite the family drama, the princess said: “We had a wonderful life together” and dedicated her time to renovating the mansion that was once the home of Julius Caesar.
Together they discovered 150,000 documents in a previously unseen archive of the property.
It has been converted into a digital archive by students, highlights of which are detailed financial accounts of the Boncompagni and Ludovisi families and 25 previously unknown letters from Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette belong.
A formal collaboration with Rutgers University resulted in the creation of a course focusing on Gregory XIII. Boncompagni (1572–85) and Gregory XV. Ludovisi.
The villa also houses the only mural that Caravaggio is known to have painted.
Adorning a tiny room next to a spiral staircase on the second floor, the Caravaggio ceiling was commissioned in 1597 by a diplomat and patron of the arts to decorate the ceiling of the small room used as an alchemy workshop.
The 2.75 meter wide mural depicting Jupiter, Pluto and Neptune is unusual: it is not a fresco, but oil paint on plaster.
Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi shows journalists her stunning Renaissance home
The Casino Boncompagni Ludovisi, also known as Casino dell’Aurora. Pictured is the ornate ceiling showing the lands, with side panels painted by Guercino, Paul Bril, Domenichino, and Gian Battista Viola
Hidden in a small room on the second floor, “Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto” (pictured) is the only ceiling painting by Caravaggio
But since Prince Nicolo died in 2018, his children have argued that the house, built in 1570, is theirs, that their grandfather left it to them as an heir and that their late father mistreated them and mismanaged his fortune.
They launched a multifaceted legal campaign to gain control of the property so it can be sold, but attempts to lower the price to $353 million still failed to bring the price down.
Rome Judge Miriam Iappelli issued an eviction order in January, accusing the princess of violating an earlier order prohibiting her from conducting tours of the property.
Rita said the tours were necessary to raise money for the villa’s upkeep. In addition, the judge found that the princess had failed to keep the house in a “good state of preservation” after an outside wall allegedly collapsed.
But photos posted to social media show that an upper piece of the wall appeared to have come loose and that the structure had not collapsed completely.
The princess has now hired six lawyers and is due to appear in court again later this month to challenge the eviction again.
She claimed she was fired because of her stepson’s anti-American attitudes.
Meanwhile, it has become known that Prince Bante is wanted in the United States for domestic violence.
The prince, who is married to Delphina Lapham – the daughter of journalist Lewis Lapham – was accused of domestic violence in 2012 in Newport, Rhode Island.
He was accused of pushing his wife to the ground during an argument and, when handcuffed, reportedly told police it was “none of their business” and that they would be “arrested” in Italy.
The prince then fled the United States, but an arrest warrant still exists for him.
“I have never committed a crime and never will,” he told the Post. “It’s known around the world that American police are worse than dogs.”