Blood on the Marble

The grand central ballroom of Villa d'Oro was a breathtaking, obscene monument to twenty years of criminal extortion and judicial corruption. Soaring thirty-foot ceilings painted with dramatic baroque frescoes of Roman emperors receiving tribute hovered over gilded plaster cornices, colossal double Murano crystal chandeliers, and polished white Carrara marble floors that gleamed like a frozen lake under the morning sunlight pouring through floor-to-ceiling arched windows. Soaring ceilings painted with baroque…