The Senate culture committee on
Tuesday gave its backing to the appointment of cultural and
political journalist and writer Pietrangelo Buttafuoco as the
new chairman of the Venice Biennale Foundation, replacing
Roberto Cicutto when the latter's term ends in March.
"Buttafuoco is a professional with huge multifaceted talent,
attentive to innovations in the cultural sector at an
international level and to the young and future generations,"
said right-wing League senator and Committee Chair Roberto
Marti.
"I am certain that a person of his stature will also perform
this important role with the utmost commitment and
responsibility, enhancing the artistic peculiarities of our
country in the world," he added.
Buttafuoco, 60, was named in October by rightwing Culture
Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano and the opposition claimed the
appointment was a sign of a continuing rightwing takeover of key
cultural posts like state broadcaster Rai, which the government
says is a traditional part of Italy's spoils system.
Premier Giorgia Meloni's rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party
said the appointment marked the "breaking of another glass
ceiling", at a body where leftist placemen and cronies have
allegedly traditionally been appointed.
The eclectic Buttafuoco, one of Italy's top public intellectuals
and a practising Muslim, was a far-right activist in his youth
like Meloni, but both have since espoused more traditionally
conservative or rightwing positions.
Buttafuoco, indeed, writes for leftwing daily Il Fatto
Quotidiano, a fierce Meloni critic, and another liberal daily
that staunchly opposes the premier, La Repubblica, as well as
for centrist daily Il Foglio and business daily Il Sole 24 Ore.
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