This Roman Villa Could Be The Most Expensive Home Ever Sold At $532 Million | Forbes

If Villa Aurora sells for $532 million—the price established by an Italian court—it would set the record for the most expensive home ever sold, topping the 2017 sale of a $361 million apartment complex in Hong Kong. Villa Aurora, as it is widely known, sits near the highest point within Rome’s Aurelian Walls, near where some historians believe Julius Caesar hosted Cleopatra at one of his homes. The 32,000-square foot villa and surrounding garden are all that’s left of a once estate owned by the Ludovisi family since 1621. In 1885, most of the property was redeveloped into smaller lots to create Via Veneto, one of the world’s most glamorous streets. A statue of the Greek god Pan long attributed to Michelangelo greets visitors in the garden, and on the ceiling in the main reception hall, Guercino painted a fresco of the goddess Aurora from whom the villa takes its name. Caravaggio’s only ceiling mural, “Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto” watches over a foyer, painted while the artist was still in his earl