Rome has history embedded in its heart and soul, clearly apparent on the streets, roads, walls and air of the renowned city. What appears to be the most expensive property on sale in Rome as well as one of the most expensive in Europe is being offered for £26million ( about $40 million) now by the family of Iris Origo. She was the daughter of an American diplomat and an Anglo-Irish peer and was married to an Italian aristocrat, Antonio Origo. She is well-known for the book ‘War in the Val’D’Orcia, an Italian War Diary’, which contains the diary entries of her experiences from 1943-1944. The Palazzo Orsini was bought during the war, where the couple looked after refugee children and local families displaced by the fighting, as well as escaped POWs and Allied airmen who were trying to make their way through German lines. It is an 11,000 square foot palace that includes frescoed staterooms, a ballroom, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a library, a dining room, a terrace, a separate penthouse, and cellars.
It also features garden with fountains and orange trees and is built on top of the still-standing stone and marble shell of the 1st century BC Theatre of Marcellus, which resembles a mini Colosseum. The theatre, which could seat 20,000 people, was begun by Julius Caesar, but it was completed in 11BC by the emperor Augustus. The Orsini family acquired it in the 18th century.
