Italian Culture Minister Vittorio Sgarbi Exits Under Pressure

Vittorio Sgarbi, Italy’s undersecretary of culture, on February 2 announced that he was departing the role to avoid what he characterized as a “conflict of interest.” Sgarbi is the subject of a government antitrust investigation, having been accused of accepting remuneration for appearing at cultural events, with Italian dailyIl Fatto Quotidianoestimating that he raked in nearly $380,000 in the span of nine months for such appearances. As well, Sgarbi is currently being investigated for his role in the theft more than a decade ago of a seventeenth-century painting by Rutilio Manetti. Manetti’sThe Capture of Saint Peterwas reported stolen by the owner of a castle in Italy’s northern Piedmont region in 2013. According to Italian broadcasterRAI, the canvas was cut from its frame just weeks after a friend of Sgarbi had visited the castle, professing an interest in the painting. Sgarbi in 2021 presented at an exhibition in Lucca, Italy, a painting that appeared to be the stolen work, but with the addition of a candle in the upper left corner.

When questioned regarding the canvas, he claimed that the work in his possession was the originalCapture of Saint Peterand that he had come upon it while restoring a disused villa in Viterbo purchased by his mother in 2000. Sgarbi contended that the work stolen from the palace was a crude copy made in the nineteenth century.RelatedVENUS LAU TO LEAD JAKARTA’S MUSEUM MACANRUTH FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS NAMES WINNERS OF INAUGURAL $100,000 RUTH AWARDS Speaking at a conference in Milan ahead of his scheduled lecture on Michelangelo, Sgarbi made no mention of the purloined painting but instead tied his departure to the antitrust case and suggested that he had planned the timing of his exit for the benefit of his audience there. “This conference, according to what the antitrust authority has sent me, would be incompatible, illicit, outlawed,” he said. “Therefore, in order to prevent all of you from being accomplices to acrime, I speak from this moment free from my mandate as undersecretary.” Sgarbi, the first member of right-wing Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s cabinet to resign, has been in thenewsoften in recent weeks, having told a reporter who queried him about a $4.3 million Valentin de Boulogne painting Sgarbi is accused of illegally importing, that he would be “happy” if the man died in a road accident. Sgarbi then stood up andfumbled with his zipper, announcing that he was willing to strip off in order to end the interview..