ROMA (ITALPRESS) – An angel with the face of Giorgia Meloni, painted in the basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina in Rome, in a fresco overlooking the marble bust of Umberto II of Savoy. To bring the news back today, with photos of before and after the restoration, is the newspaper La Repubblica. Before the recovery intervention there was a generic cherubino, today one with the face that looks like the President of the Council, which holds a cartiglio with the map of Italy. To make the restyling, according to the daily newspaper, not a professional restorator, but a sacristan who delights himself as a decorator. Inevitably the case becomes political. On the indication of the Minister Alessandro Giuli, the special supervisor of Rome, Daniela Porro, has given charge to the technical officials of the MiC to carry out today an inspection in order to ascertain the nature of the intervention carried out on the contemporary painting contained in one of the chapels of San Lorenzo in Lucina and decide the to be done. Premier Meloni, on Instagram, publishes an image of the fresco, and ironizes, with so much of laughter emoji: “No, I definitely don’t like an angel.”.
The intervention of Giuli was asked in the morning by the Pd. “What emerged is not acceptable. The hypothesis that a restoration intervention on a protected asset may have produced an image attributable to a contemporary face represents a potential and serious violation of the Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape, which prohibits arbitrary alterations, personalizations and interventions not strictly based on scientific and historical-artistic criteria”, says in a note the group leader of the Pd in Commission Culture of the House, Irene Manzi. “The Italian cultural heritage cannot be folded to improper readings or even less transformed through operations that compromise its authenticity and historical value – Manzi continues. Regardless of the fact that it is the face of Giorgia Meloni, we consider indispensable an immediate intervention of the Superintendence, aimed at ascertaining the facts, verify the regularity of the interventions carried out and to arrange the restoration. The protection of cultural heritage is a public duty and an institutional responsibility that does not admit ambiguity or delays”. The news “has left us alluded and if confirmed it would require immediate intervention of the Ministry of Culture. In addition to a verification it is necessary to ascertain the responsibilities and how the work has been carried out. It cannot be allowed that art and culture risk becoming a propaganda tool or more, regardless of whether the face depicted is that of the President of the Council,” says M5S MPs of the Chamber and Senate Culture Committees.
“On the controversy surrounding the angel depicted with the face of the President of the Council, we witness the yet another case of selective indignation, where art suddenly becomes a scandal only when it does not like someone – says the Senator of Brothers of Italy Matteo Gelmetti –. An angel, by definition, represents protection, guidance and strength. Evidently quality that bothers those who prefer to read reality always and only with dull ideological lenses. It is surprising that a symbolic representation is transformed into a political case, as if Italy had no more concrete issues to deal with. Moreover, it should also be said that it would not be easy to imagine an angel with the face of Count or Bonelli”.
– photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
