# View of the Casino [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [SILVESTRE, Israël]() - Date: 1651-1700 - Technique: Graphite, watercolour, with gray and brown wash on paper, 206 x 316 mm ## Commentary The Casino dell'Aurora is the only portion spared from nineteenth-century demolition of the Villa Ludovisi in Rome. Originally the Casino, erected around 1570 and enlarged in the nineteenth century, was a three-story structure on a cruciform ground plan. During the pontificate of Pope Gregory XV Ludovisi the villa and its casino were used mainly for official functions such as dinners for the college of cardinals. The Casino is decorated by paintings on the ground floor and the second floor. A tiny and very low room on the second floor, a space that the owner Ludovico Ludovisi used as a "studiolo," contains the only wall painting by Caravaggio. The other rooms were painted by Bolognese artists, Domenichino, Guercino, Giovanni Luigi Valesio, and Giovanni Battista Viola. ## Related artworks - [Cour de Marbre in Versailles]() - [Evening performance in the Cour de Marbre]() - [Garden Front in Versailles]() - [Grand Cavalcade Given in Paris in 1662]() - [Grand Cavalcade Given in Paris in 1662]() - [Grand Cavalcade Given in Paris in 1662]() - [Palace and grounds in Versailles]() - [Piazza San Marco]() - [Piazzetta from the Piazza San Marco]() - [Plan of Versailles]() - [Santi Giovanni e Paolo]() - [The Rialto Bridge from the North]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()