The sale of a Roman villa with the world's only Caravaggio ceiling painting, which was put on the market valued at €471 million, has been rescheduled with a new reduced price after a court-ordered auction on Tuesday failed to attract a single bid.

The base asking price for the Casino di Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, whose opening bid had been set at €353 million, has been slashed by about 20 per cent to the reported figure of €376.8 million, with a new online auction set for 7 April. The sale is the result of a bitter inheritance battle following the death in 2018 of Prince Nicolò Boncompagni Ludovisi, whose family have owned the historic 2,800-sqm property, known as Villa Aurora, for the last 400 years.