American Widow of Italian Prince 'Brutally Evicted' From Rome Mansion

The American widow of an Italian prince has been evicted from her $533 million mansion in Rome, following a bitter dispute with her ex-husband’s children. She was forced to leave the villa with her four bichon frise dogs on Thursday, after a judge found she had allowed an exterior wall at the property to collapse, according to The Daily Mail. Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, 73, lived in the Villa Aurora, built in 1570, for two decades. The ornate villa features the only known ceiling painting by Caravaggio, and sits on the former site of Julius Caesar’s home. Prince Nicolò Francesco Boncompagni Ludovisi, the princess’s late husband died in 2018 and she has been locked in a bitter inheritance battle with the children from his first marriage over who owns the mansion. Prince Bante, Ludovisi’s son, has called her a “gold digger” and said she has let the property fall into disrepair. Before she became Italian royalty, the Texas-born princess posed naked in Playboy and later worked as a real estate broker—helping Donald Trump close his purchase of the General Motors building in 1998. While in Italy she met Prince Ludovisi and they married in 2009.