An image of an angel with a face resembling the right-wing Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has been erased from a fresco in a Rome church after officials at the Vatican complained about the controversial work.
The artist, Bruno Valentinetti, said that last year he restored the fresco he had painted in 2000 in the chapel of the Basilica of St Lawrence in Lucina in the heart of Rome, denying repeatedly that the angel looked like Meloni. The parish priest, Monsignor Daniele Michelett, told the BBC that the fresco required conservation following recent water damage.
The Meloni likeness was spotted by La Repubblica earlier this month, which claimed the angel holding a map of Italy had previously looked like a “generic cherub”. Valentinetti admitted to La Repubblica newspaper yesterday (5 February) however: “Okay, it was Meloni, but along the lines of the painting that was there before.”
The face of the angel was erased earlier this week after the Italian ministry of culture and the Diocese of Rome launched an inquiry into the contentious angel depiction. The Five Star Movement, a political party opposed to Meloni’s Forza Italia, meanwhile added that art must not become “a tool for propaganda”.
Valentinetti said that he “covered the face because the Vatican told me to. The Curia [the administrative body of the Holy See] wanted it that way, and I erased it.” The angel depicting Meloni “presented features that did not conform to the original iconography and the sacred context” added the Vicariate of Rome, the administrative body of the Diocese of Rome, in a statement.
The Vatican was contacted for comment.
The Italian ministry of culture warned in a statement (4 February) that further restoration work in the church “requires an authorisation request to the Religious Buildings Fund of the Interior Ministry, which owns the property, as well as to the Vicariate and the Special Superintendency of Rome, accompanied by a sketch of the image”. Meloni meanwhile said in a post on Instagram that she was "definitely not like an angel", accompanied by a laughing emoji.