‘Culture has become a battlefield. It’s madness’ Italy: Giorgia Meloni’s cultural takeover Giorgia Meloni strengthened her party’s position in the recent EU election. That’s more bad news for Italy’s cultural sector, where top jobs are going to political figures eager to rewrite the country’s past.
by Antoine Pecqueur Italy: Giorgia Meloni’s cultural takeover ↑ Italy’s culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano (right) at a press conference for the exhibition Tolkien: Man, Professor, Author, Rome, 8 November 2023 Simona Granati · Corbis · Getty G ennaro Sangiuliano is Italy’s culture minister and one of prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s closest allies. He has been a journalist and media director, and before that an activist with the (now dissolved) neofascist Italian Social Movement (MSI), and is now trying to develop a far-right culture in Italy. On 17 March, the anniversary of Italy’s unification, he was in Naples, although he went there for the opening of a Tolkein exhibition at the Royal Palace.
The culture ministry is sponsoring its tour of Italy, and Meloni, leader of the rightwing populist party Frattelli d’Italia and a big Tolkein fan, launched the show in Rome last November. The exhibits are nothing special: what’s important is the descriptions that accompany them, which praise ‘the beauty of The Lord of the Rings , rooted in the Christian faith’. This worries Romeo Castellucci, the internationally renowned theatre director.
‘The gover.
