Galeotta be Pompeii

The best headline in the Italian press on the Boccia affair involving Culture Minister Sangiuliano was made by Libero: It seemed to be love and instead …and instead it was a gig, as the famous Troisi film goes. A buggy moreover full of poisons, secretly filmed images, more or less veiled blackmail, slander on social networks and on TV, revealed documents, risk of crimes such as embezzlement, risk of violation of confidential information concerning the G7 of culture that is to be held precisely in Pompeii.

Why exactly? Because Lady Boccia, the beautiful influencer who bewitched the minister from whom she expected a formal appointment on his staff, is indeed from Pompeii. A love born, however, rather than on the fascination of the city buried by Vesuvius (the power of Eros over Thanatos, Freud would say), on the business-political milieu between the capital and Campania. The girl, in short, is not a Cinderella who comes from the petty bourgeoisie and meets the powerful man. He meets her in a network of relationships. But what matters today are two things: love, revealed in a RAI news program (where Sangiuliano comes from), cannot be commanded, but on institutional rules one must be strict.

The minister denied that even a public penny went into this, submitted his resignation, rejected by Meloni, and confessed not to a country parish priest but to the mainstream. The premier is holding out because he does not want to let the Trojan horse of the reshuffle into the government town, but what about the future, the reputation, the credibility of Genny, as his friends and especially his many enemies call him.

For now it is hard to predict, the fact is that the media hungry as ever for gossip and political nastiness are sifting through every little thing intercut with Lady Pompei, even dwelling on the type of glasses used to surreptitiously film the hallowed halls of institutions more than reporting the (serious) crime committed. We started with cinema and we end with cinema, from Trosi to Bigarth: it’s the press beauty….

The article Galeotta was Pompeii comes from TheNewyorker.