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Silvia Stellacci, Nicole Winfield and Trisha Thomas
Rome: Call it divine intervention, or maybe just a hasty fix-it job to put an end to days of speculation and scandal. But the end result is that the Angel Meloni is no more.
A painting of a cherub with a face bearing a remarkable resemblance to Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni had attracted large crowds to the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina, one of the oldest basilicas in Rome. That angel’s face was gone when the church opened its doors on Wednesday, Rome time: the cherub’s body remains, but the face was erased with a sloppy slab of paint or plaster.
La Repubblica newspaper, which broke the story when it published the Meloni-esque angel on its front page, said the restorer responsible for making the Meloni cherub had covered it up overnight at the request of church authorities.
Restorer Bruno Valentinetti admitted to the paper that he had styled the angel on Meloni, but didn’t say why.
The diocese of Rome and the Italian Culture Ministry had both launched investigations after the image of the cherub was first published.
The original painting only dated from 2000, so it wasn’t a matter of damage to the church’s historic patrimony. But Cardinal Baldassare Reina, the pope’s vicar for Rome, insisted that a political figure had no place in church art.
The ruckus gave the basilica newfound celebrity status, with curious locals and tourists lining up to photograph the Meloni cherub, at times disrupting Mass.
In a statement on Wednesday, Rome time, the Culture Ministry set down the rules going forward: if the basilica plans to repaint the angel face, it needs prior authorisation from the government, which owns the church, the diocese of Rome, which operates it, and the Culture Ministry’s special superintendency for Rome.
Lest there be any question, the Culture Ministry said the request for permission must be “accompanied by a sketch of the image”.
Valentinetti had first made the cherub in 2000, when one of the basilica’s front chapels was renovated to include a bust of the last king of Italy, Umberto II. Included in the decoration was a cherub holding a map of Italy, seemingly kneeling before the king.
The cherub was restored after water leaks damaged the basilica starting in 2023, and emerged with the face of Meloni.
The investigations that were launched were to identify how the original 2000 cherub looked, with the aim of restoring the painting to that image. The faceless cherub seen on Wednesday appeared to be a temporary fix to erase Meloni’s likeness from the work.
The Italian premier had made light of the whole thing. “No, I definitely don’t look like an angel,” Meloni wrote on social media on the weekend with a laughing/crying emoji alongside a photo of the work.
AP
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