Brancaccio Heirs Demand Foundation Relocate Entire Palazzo to a Field in Umbria

The Marcantonio Brancaccio Foundation began dismantling the family palazzo in Rome on Monday, stone by stone, after a distant relative of the late Princess Fernanda Ceccarelli Brancaccio asked a court to seize the property she had left to the institution. Foundation staff numbered the marble blocks, labelled the frescoes with tape and loaded them onto flatbed lorries bound for a hillside outside Terni, where the building is to be reassembled on a plot the Foundation has never previously owned.

The relative, whose claim was lodged with the court in the presence of a notary, asked for the seizure of assets valued at five million euros. The Foundation's president said the request had left the board with no alternative. «If the courts wish to hold the property, the property will have to be found first,» he told reporters from a ladder in the cloisters. Engineers from three universities have been hired to plan the move, and a crane operator from Latina has been seconded full time.

Neighbours on the Via Merulana woke to the sound of masonry being removed and the smell of sawdust from the new workshops set up in the street. A bakery owner said her customers had begun ordering bread in portions suitable for the labourers, who now number more than the residents of the block. The city council has granted a temporary permit allowing the convoy to travel by night, and the transport ministry has closed a motorway lane so that the lorries can pass.

The Foundation says the reassembled palazzo will open to visitors next spring, with the original gardens replanted as a faithful copy of the eighteenth-century layout. A plaque at the new gate will read that the building was moved to keep it out of litigation. The court has scheduled a hearing for the autumn, by which time the Foundation expects the roof to be on.

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