They just replied to my email and said the booking office will be open next week. For all the answering of my emails, they could have saved a lot of time by going ahead and booking me!

Missypie, thanks for the info. I am trying to book for 9 June, and the response I got was just to try again after the "middle of May". Have a wonderful trip! :) Gianni

If you have several days in Rome and flexibility in your sightseeing, you can go to the Villa ticket desk and they will give you options for a visit within a couple of days. We had several days and times to choose from by doing this. We also did this in Florence for the Uffizi and have often gone to box offices on days of performances to secure tickets to opera and ballet. Sometimes it hasn't worked to our advantage, but most of the time it does. We chose not to secure any reservations on our recent trip and got to do everything we wanted. Hope you can try this.