It's Official: Sandro Bondi Replaces Rutelli as Italian Culture Minister
Italian Culture Minister Sandro Bondi
What I foretold here (thanks to a helpful tip from Louis Godart) has now officially come to pass: Sandro Bondi has been named by the new Berlusconi government to replace The Great Repatriator, Francesco Rutelli, as Italy's minister of culture. (Above is his official portrait on the Ministry of Culture's website.) In addition to being head of Forza Italia, the political party of the recently elected prime minister, Bondi is a senator.
Here's his biography, as published yesterday by ANSA, the Italian news agency. Well connected politically, Bondi only has one cultural credential mentioned here. He is a published poet:
The son of a Socialist lumberjack who was forced to find work in Switzerland, Bondi, 49, is a former Communist and trade unionist who met Berlusconi through the sculptor who designed the premier's mausoleum."Hates flying?" Does that mean he won't be following in the footsteps of his predecessor, who winged across the Atlantic to major American museums in order to formalize restitutions and compensatory loans?
He became a fervent acolyte of the charismatic mogul and has served as lightning rod for criticism of his boss in his role as Forza Italia spokesman.
He claims to appreciate the many satirical imitators of his priest-like style of dealing with journalists. Bondi is one of Berlusconi's closest aides and biggest fans but is still so in awe of his boss that he addresses him in the formal 'Lei' rather than the familiar 'tu' form. An ex-journalist and published poet, Bondi is proud of his humble background but even prouder of Berlusconi, to whom he has devoted many of the semi-serious poems that have gained a cult following in the Italian edition of Vanity Fair.
A philosophy graduate whose thesis was about an Augustinian preacher, Bondi is a devout Catholic whose books include "Secularists and Believers, a Common Faith" (2006) and "Forgiving God" (2007). He has a fear of heights and hates flying.
May 9, 2008 12:28 AM
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I'm a veteran cultural journalist who writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal's "Leisure & Arts" page. I am contributing editor of Art in America magazine and a regular cultural contributor on New York Public Radio (WNYC). I've appeared as an art-market commentator on BBC-TV and have published numerous Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. I am author of The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf) and have lectured on cultural property issues at the New Acropolis Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, on deaccessioning at Columbia Law School and on museum governance at Seton Hall University.
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I'm a veteran cultural journalist who writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal's "Leisure & Arts" page. I am contributing editor of Art in America magazine and a regular cultural contributor on New York Public Radio (WNYC). I've appeared as an art-market commentator on BBC-TV and have published numerous Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. I am author of The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf) and have lectured on cultural property issues at the New Acropolis Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, on deaccessioning at Columbia Law School and on museum governance at Seton Hall University. Contact me
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