Raffaello Committee, Fioramonti replaces Sgarbi with Montanari. Sgarbi: Fioramonti as ignorant as a goat

Art critic and historian Vittorio Sgarbi lashes out at former Education Minister Lorenzo Fioramonti: the object of Sgarbi’s invective is his replacement as a member of the Committee for the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the death of Raphael, established in 2018 to draw up the program of events dedicated to the great Urbino, and composed of fifteen members, nine designated by MiBACT (Antonio Paolucci, Mario De Simoni, Luigi Bravi, Carla Di Francesco, Claudio Strinati, Sebastien Allard, Alessandro Zuccari, Michela Di Macco, and Catherine Whistler), five from the MIUR (Vittorio Sgarbi, Pierluigi De Vecchi, Silvia Ginzburg, Arnold Nesselrath, and Maria Rosaria Valazzi), and one from the Unified Conference (Raimondo Orsetti).

Fioramonti, shortly before resigning, had arranged for Sgarbi to be replaced by art historian Tomaso Montanari: the former minister had justified the measure as a move to free Sgarbi from his numerous commitments and to give other experts a chance to represent the ministry. Sgarbi, however, does not take this lying down and does not send Fioramonti a message: “Ignorant as a goat, the former minister of snacks, Lorenzo Fioramonti,” he declared in a statement, “does not know that the National Committee for the Celebrations of Raphael, having arrived at the fateful year of the initiatives for the fifth centenary of the artist’s death, 2020, has long since concluded its work, distributing all the funds and defining all the initiatives that will be included in the perimeter defined by the committee itself. It has therefore exhausted its functions and will not meet again. The replacement of a member is therefore a completely pleonastic and irrelevant act.”

Sgarbi also questions the validity of Fioramonti’s measure: "the impeded, speaking from beyond the grave, minister by accident, signed invalid documents. The revocations he made in two boards and in the National Committee for Raphael, with obvious personal persecution, are ineffective and do not depend on the Ministry of Education but on the Ministry of University. The national committee set up in 2018 finished its work a few months ago and has already allocated funding. Urbino had, thanks to my persuasive action, a funding of about 425 thousand euros, divided into 50 thousand for the exhibition on Raphael’s father, Giovanni Santi; 50 thousand for the exhibition Raffaellino del Colle and Raphael, curated by me; 150 thousand for the exhibition Raphael and his friends; 150 thousand for the exhibition on Baldassar Castiglione, curated by me and Elisabetta Soletti, scheduled for June in the Ducal Palace of Urbino; 25 thousand for the activities of Casa Raffaello. Billboard sold out, with the major exhibition, in Rome, Raphael, at the Scuderie del Quirinale."

Finally, from Sgarbi, a comment also on his replacement: “Montanari, painfully summoned by the former Fioramonti, can simply stay and watch the exhibitions we have proposed.”

Pictured: left Lorenzo Fioramonti, right Vittorio Sgarbi

Raffaello Committee, Fioramonti replaces Sgarbi with Montanari. Sgarbi: Fioramonti as ignorant as a goat

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