Yet another right-winger has risen up the ranks of Italy’s increasingly politicized cultural sphere. Alessandro Giuli, head of the Maxxi national museum for contemporary art in Rome, has been named the country’s next culture minister. He replaces Gennaro Sangiuliano, who resigned last week after the alleged appointment of his ex-mistress as an advisor caused a national scandal.

“[Giuli] will continue the effort to revive national culture, consolidating the break with the past that Italians have asked for and that we have initiated since we took office,” said Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni, who appointed him to his new role on September 6. Giuli is a long-time friend and acolyte of hers.

Her comments may refer to efforts by her party, the far-right party Fratelli d’Italia, to rid the arts of the left’s prior “cultural hegemony,” a mission she has spoken of in the past.

In November 2022, shortly after Meloni came to power, Alessandro Giuli was named president of the foundation that runs the Maxxi by then-culture minister Sangiuliano. He did not have any experience in museum management but was a well-known TV personality, author, and journalist for right-wing papers like Il Foglio.

It was not long before Giuli’s tenure was mired by controversy. In July 2023, he appeared on a panel with Italy’s then-undersecretary for culture Vittorio Sgarbi who was caught on camera erupting into a crudely sexist rant. “The d*ck is an organ of knowledge, that is of penetration, it serves to [make us] understand,” Sgarbi said, according to Euronews. These comments were poorly received by the Italian public and Giuli was forced to apologize for not interrupting Sgarbi.

Pietrangelo Buttafuoco and Alessandro Giuli. Photo: Domenico Cippitelli/ NurPhoto via Getty Images.

When asked why he made no attempt to stop Sgarbi, Giuli claimed that he wanted “to avoid risking an incident,” and added that “the consequences for Maxxi would have been potentially worse” if he had offended Sgarbi. The undersecretary was eventually forced to resign after he was accused of possessing a stolen 17th-century painting.

Born in Rome in 1975, Giuli was a member of the neo-fascist group Meridiano Zero and, at the age of 14, joined the Youth Front, part of the now defunct neo-fascist Italian Social Movement.

These origins echo those of Pietroangelo Buttafuoco, who was also a member of the Italian Social Movement while growing up and went on to become a right-wing journalist and TV personality. Last fall, he became president of the Venice Biennale, an appointment that was met with great excitement by Fratelli d’Italia. One party member proclaimed “another glass ceiling has been broken.”

Unsurprisingly, Buttafuoco and Giuli are friends who were reportedly seated next to each other in the Sala Grande during the final evening of the Venice Film Festival over the weekend.

Sangiuliano, meanwhile, has stepped down from his role after a media furore broke out over his alleged appointment of ex-mistress Maria Rosaria Boccia to be his advisor. She advertised the news on LinkedIn, which Sangiuliano initially denied before admitting during an interview on Italian TV that he had hired her as an unpaid consultant.

Much of the media backlash centered on the question of whether or not Sangiuliano was spending public money on Boccia’s travel or accommodation and whether she had gained access to classified information.

The ex-minister also apologized on air to his wife about the affair, which took place earlier this year. According to the BBC, some of the couple’s interactions were secretly recorded by Boccia using RayBan Stories, a type of sunglasses with a built in camera and microphone.

Meloni appears to view the arts as a useful medium to progress her far-right agenda. Last fall, she inaugurated a state-sponsored exhibition dedicated to J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, a trilogy that some interpret as a celebration of conservative values despite the writer’s own rejection of extremism.