Former culture undersecretary and art
critic Vittorio Sgarbi is being treated for severe depression at
Rome's Gemelli Hospital, sources said Monday.
The depression is so bad that he stopped eating, sources close
to the eminent art historian and noted political polemicist
said.
Sgarbi, 72, is currently facing a possible trial over a painting
that was allegedly stolen and then allegedly altered to try to
disguise its provenance.
Prosecutors in Marche capital Macerata have wound up their probe
into the painting, stolen from a northern Italian castle in 2013
and later allegedly found among Sgarbi's possession with the
addition of a torch to allegedly make it look like it was not
the stolen work.
The art critic reportedly risks 4-12 years in jail in the case.
According to il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper, a notorious forger,
Pasquale Frongia, has admitted to prosecutors that he added the
torch to the painting
at Sgarbi's bidding.
Sgrabi, who quit his ministerial post in February last year
after Italy's antitrust authority said that his private
conferences and other lucrative activities were incompatible
with his role as culture undersecretary, said last October that
"I have full trust in the judges and I will prove my innocence".
Sgarbi (born 8 May 1952) is an Italian art critic, art
historian, writer, politician, cultural commentator, and
television personality.
He is president of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of
Trento and Rovereto.
Appointed curator of the Italian Pavilion at the 2011 Venice
Biennale, Sgarbi is also a columnist for il Giornale and works
as an art critic for Panorama and IO Donna.
A popular, eclectic and media phenomenon, Sgarbi is well known
for his sharp wit, verbal aggressiveness, and insults, which
often led to libel suits.
A multi-time member of the Italian Parliament, Sgarbi is best
known for his mayoralty terms in several cities (San Severino
Marche, Salemi, Sutri, and Arpino) across different Italian
regions (Marche, Sicily, and Lazio).
He is also well-known for his many party switches, starting in
the Italian Socialist Party in 1990, before switching to the
Italian Liberal Party in 1992 and joining Silvio Berlusconi and
his centre-right coalition party Forza Italia in 1994, and to
other minor liberal and centre-right parties, including founding
his own parties in 1999, 2012, and 2017 (The Liberals Sgarbi,
the Party of the Revolution, and Renaissance).
In 2018, he returned to the 2013-refounded Forza Italia.
After a failed Senate bid in 2022, he was appointed
undersecretary for culture in the Meloni Cabinet.
One of his more recent media storms came in July 2023 over a
vulgar, foul-mouthed speech he made at an event at a Rome
museum.
Employees at Rome's MAXXI contemporary art museum wrote to their
director to protest after Sgarbi spoke extensively about his
"dick" and his sexual conquests and gave estimates about the
number of women famous statesmen of the past had had sex with.
Sgarbi was angered by the row.
"In that case, let's censor (Pier Paola) Pasolini's (novel)
Petrolio and (Lucio) Battisti's (song) Dieci Ragazze Per Me (Ten
Girls for Me)," he said.
"(French intellectual and writer Michel) Houellebecq says that
there is a moment in life in which we know only one organ: the
dick," Sgarbi said among other things.
"The dick is an organ of knowledge, that is, of penetration, it
is used to understand.
"Then, after 60, you discover that there are also other organs,
for example the colon, the pancreas, the prostate.
"I didn't know what the fuck this prostate was, never met it, at
a certain point around 67 the prostate appears and you have to
deal with this fucking whore that you have never met in your
life. The dick goes away and the prostate arrives."
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