An ugly mural in the heart of Rome would have gone unnoticed if it weren't for one absurd detail: the face of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, painted as an angel.
The mural is located in a side chapel of the ancient church of San Lorenzo in Lucina and is the work of Bruno Valentinetti, an 83-year-old artist who had previously painted a tribute there to Umberto II, the last king of Italy.
In a church that also houses Guido Reni's magnificent Crucifixion, this photorealistic, banal and kitschy mural stands out for all the wrong reasons. After water damage, Valentinetti restored the work himself and decided to give an angel Meloni's face - clearly taken from a contemporary photograph. Was it a political gesture of love, a provocative joke or disguised propaganda? Questions that were all the more raised given Meloni's far-right roots and the fact that it "appeared" precisely in the chapel dedicated to the last Italian monarchy, historically linked to fascism.
The reaction was not long in coming. After pressure, Meloni's face was removed and the Vatican, through Cardinal Don Baldo Reina, expressed "regret" over this secret portrait. The argument was that sacred art should not be misused for political purposes and that the sacred should remain separate from the profane. But the history of Italian art refutes this idea.
Italian churches are full of portraits of real people – rich, powerful and politically active – inserted into biblical scenes. In Florence, the Tornabuoni family appears prominently in Ghirlandaio’s frescoes; the Medici were portrayed among the Magi by Benozzo Gozzoli and Botticelli. These were open demonstrations of power and status within the sacred space. Great artists have even inserted portraits of contemporaries as a joke, revenge or irony. Suffice it to recall Michelangelo, who gave the face of a critic to Minos in Hell, in The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.
So the problem is not that politics has “entered” the church – it has been there for centuries. The difference lies elsewhere. The portrait of Meloni was not removed because it was blasphemous in the art historical sense, but because it was artistically weak and politically awkward. Today, church art is expected to be safe, neutral and meditative, not provocative or overtly linked to the current power.
At a time when the Church – especially under a more progressive pope – is distancing itself from right-wing populism, the idea of Meloni being portrayed as an angel was unacceptable. For the artist, it may have seemed divine; for many others, it is quite the opposite. And perhaps that is the crux of the whole scandal. /GazetaExpress/
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