 At first, the villa and its gardens were in a sad state and had to be renovated to house the winners of the Prix de Rome.The competition was interrupted during the first World War, and Mussolini confiscated the villa in 1941, forcing the academy of France in Rome to withdraw to Nice then to Fontainebleau until 1945.The competition and Prix de Rome were eliminated in 1968 by André Malraux (the last Grand Prix for architecture came to an end as early as 1967, the events of 1968 preventing its continuation).