Italy’s junior culture minister has resigned after being investigated for taking money in connection to art events he contributed to. Vittorio Sgarbi says he was merely paid a fee for giving lectures and taking part in discussions, as he always had in his role as an art critic. An antitrust inquiry sought to establish whether the €300,000 he received over the course of nine months was paid for events undertaken as part of his political portfolio. Il Fatto Quotidiano first reported the figure.
‘According to the antitrust notice, I could not talk about art to avoid conflict of interest. And therefore I would like to announce here my resignation as Undersecretary of State for Culture’, the former minister said in his resignation.
He also faces separate accusations relating to two paintings in his possession. He is implicated in the theft and vandalisation of a seventeenth-century painting by Sienese painter Rutilio Manetti, which was stolen in 2013. Sgarbi is accused of adding a candle to the The Capture of Saint Peter, which was stolen from a Piedmont castle in 2013, to hide its provenance before offering it for sale under a different title. He is also suspected to be involved with the illegal exportation of a work by French artist Valentin de Boulogne. Sgarbi denies both the allegations and says the latter work, of the same period, is a copy.
Sgarbi, who was part of Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government, is no stranger to controversy, having previously been condemned by the staff of the MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Art in Rome for making a string of sexist remarks during a public appearance at the museum. At the opening the summer programme last year he said ‘The dick is an organ of knowledge, that is of penetration’ and boasted he slept with nine women a month.
In 2012 he was removed from his position as mayor of Sicilian town Salemi following Mafia infiltration into the local administration.
