The Twilight of Rome's Papal Nobility

Today, the Ludovisi district is one of Rome’s most luxurious neighborhoods, home to famous restaurants and some of the most expensive shops in the city. But it was once private property, part of an eighty-six-acre villa owned by the Boncompagni Ludovisis, an ancient noble family with close ties to the papacy. The story of how the palazzo fell out of the family's hands reveals the tremendous social upheavals that Italy underwent following its mid-nineteenth-century unification.
 
First privately published in 1921, The Twilight of Rome's Papal Nobility provides an intimate look at a family who grew up accustomed to almost unimaginable wealth, power, and glamour. A descendant of two popes, Ugo Boncompagni Ludovisi recounts the life story of his mother Agnese, who was raised in a palace full of priceless artwork, including pieces by Caravaggio and Michelangelo. We get a window into Agnese's private life-her girlhood, marriage, and raising of several children-as her public life becomes increasingly tumultuous amid the family’s struggles to retain its property. A tender elegy to a bygone era, Boncompagni Ludovisi's story provides a unique perspective on Italian history and Rome’s urban redevelopment.

"An intimate memorial to Agnese, who became wife, mother, and matriarch of a Roman aristocratic family in the tumultuous decades between the mid-nineteenth and the early twentieth century. From memoir to wider family history, Ugo's account intertwines the fate of the Boncompagni Ludovisi with the making of a new unified Italy. Cofone's translation captures the spirit of the now vanishing world of Roman aristocratic culture." - Caroline Castiglione (author of Accounting for Affection: Mothering and Politics in Early Modern Rome) "Cofone's translation offers an extraordinary glimpse into the lives and mental world of the nineteenth-century Roman aristocracy-intensely Catholic but increasingly international and, from a social position of certainty that would prove mistaken, intellectually curious. The economic ups and downs of the Boncompagni Ludovisi family, an astoundingly rich papal family which would topple from its great height by the end of the century, are the backdrop for marital alliances and travels, and the life of Agnese Borghese Boncompagni Ludovisi as written by her son was, in its own way, a gigantic adventure in which we can now participate." - Anthony Majanlahti (author of The Families who Made Rome: A History and a Guide)

"The Twilight of Rome’s Papal Nobility filters Agnese Borghese Boncompagni Ludovisi's life through the eyes of her son and biographer, Ugo. The exceptional encounters both she and the family at large had with elite members of the religious and secular establishment are combined with touching episodes of everyday life events. The biography exists at the crossroads of Italy's remarkable history, including Ugo's musings on the Risorgimento and the expropriation of his family's Villa Ludovisi, making Cofone's translation a truly fascinating read.”

UGO BONCOMPAGNI LUDOVISI (1856–1935) was the eldest son of Rodolfo Boncompagni Ludovisi and Agnese Borghese Boncompagni Ludovisi. A twice-widowed husband and father of five children, he was the founder of the Scacciadiavoli winery and progenitor of the current Boncompagni Ludovisi dynasty. Following the death of his second wife, he joined the priesthood and ultimately held the influential position of Vice Camerlengo at the Vatican.

CAROL COFONE is a translator and assistant director of the digital humanities project Archivio Digitale Boncompagni Ludovisi.

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