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The Archivio Digitale Boncompagni Ludovisi is an ongoing (since 2010) initiative to highlight new discoveries regarding the social, cultural, intellectual and political history of the papal Boncompagni, Ludovisi, and Boncompagni Ludovisi families from the tenth century CE to the present.
This is the family of Popes Gregory XIII (1572-1585, who introduced the Gregorian Calendar) and Gregory XV (1621-1623, who canonized the first Jesuit saints), as well as many other notable figures in the Roman Catholic church, in the arts and sciences, and in politics.
The aim is to bring together unpublished documentary sources and objects from the collection of HSH Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi at her home, the Villa Aurora in Rome, and add to the analytic mix an entirely fresh and invaluable perspective—the family’s unusually rich and well-informed oral history.
The project received a generous grant of University Strategic Funds from the New Brunswick Chancellor's Office to scan the 150,000+ pages of documents in the family's archive in Rome. That work started in February 2016 and has been completed; in 2020 Google Arts & Culture launched a partner site to showcase highlights from this archive: https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/archivio-boncompagni-ludovisi
Recently, a court-mandated auction of the Villa Aurora (built ca. 1570) has attracted worldwide press attention, with much comment on the fact that Rutgers has already digitized its extensive archive: https://villaludovisi.org/2022/02/01/the-historic-sale-of-the-villa-aurora-2022-resources-and-media-coverage/
Indeed, it seems fair to say that a sale of the Villa, perhaps to be complete in 2024, has enhanced the significance of this Rutgers-based digital project, since our efforts are likely to be key to the future conservation, restoration and understanding of this landmark private residence.
The ultimate aim of this collaboration always has been to disseminate in the electronic medium the greatest portion possible of this rich new archival material to students and scholars for study and publication. It is hoped that making this large and important collection of primary materials available for scholarly use in what is essentially an “open source” format will serve as a pioneering example for other family archives in Italy and elsewhere.
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