Zuccari

One pope threatened to demolish the Colosseum to build a broad road in the center of Rome, while another wanted to build a huge monastery inside where monks would have prayed continuously “to exorcise forever the ghosts of pagan times,” said Alessandro Zuccari, who teaches art history at Sapienza University in Rome.

The Colosseum was not the only ancient Roman monument to have undergone “a process of Christianization,” said Mr. Zuccari, citing the Pantheon, which was consecrated in 609 and dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Christian martyrs.

Any buyers would need very deep pockets because the villa requires at least €10 million for restoration work, said Alessandro Zuccari, a professor at the University of Rome who was tasked by the Rome court overseeing the inheritance dispute to establish the villa’s monetary value.

Professor Zuccari said the overall price was justified because of the villa’s “immense cultural value.”

They were completed during Zuccari’s stay in Spain from 1586 to 1588, and became part of the Uffizi collection in 1738.