Vittorio Sgarbi, Undersecretary of Culture, is under investigation for theft of cultural goods. There is a file with registration and a first hypothesis of crime on the case of the painting attributed to Rutilio Manetti, stolen from the Castle of Buriasco in 2013 and reappeared in Lucca in 2021 as an 'unpublished' property of Vittorio Sgarbi. The case was covered by Il Fatto Quotidiano (which reports the investigation) and the Rai Report broadcast.
The file would have been opened by the Prosecutor's Office of Imperia, as a derivation of another investigation for illegal export of works of art, related to Valentin de Boulogne. According to Il Fatto, the file was then transmitted to the Prosecutor's Office of Macerata for competence, because Sgarbi declares his domicile in San Severino Marche, of which he was mayor in 1992, a place he himself designated for interrogations. It is not excluded that it could then be transferred to another Prosecutor's Office and that the crime hypothesis may also change. In the meantime, the carabinieri heard the restorer and the owners of the company in Correggio (Reggio Emilia) that would have made a copy of the work.
THE REPLY
'I have not received any notice of investigation. Nor would I know how to be investigated for a theft that I did not commit. And for a crime committed 11 years ago, in circumstances not clarified by the investigators of the time. From this news, there is a blatant violation of the investigative secret, the only crime for which there is evidence'. The Undersecretary of Culture, Vittorio Sgarbi, comments on the indiscretion of Il Fatto quotidiano. 'The umpteenth defamation' says Sgarbi who adds: 'Once again Il Fatto lies'. 'From what you read, the work has been badly cut. And the one in my possession is in good condition and with a well-preserved and uniform pictorial layer. Any evaluation must be made on the work of which the stolen one is obviously a copy, like all those kept in that castle that no one has worried about. Nor do I believe it is a crime to have a photograph of a work taken, of which all experts have seen the original exhibited in Lucca' adds the undersecretary who entrusts his reply to a statement in which he continues: 'That the Prosecutor's Office of Imperia has transmitted the acts to Macerata as a competent seat is news that could make sense if, as the law provides, I was aware of it. But it is not. In fact, it should be a magistrate, not a journalist, to decide what to investigate and on the complicity of restorers and photographers, sudden accusers, but who could prove to be accomplices of more serious crimes and omissions'.
M5S AND THE MOTION OF REVOCATION
The 5 Star Movement will tomorrow ask the group leader of the House for the immediate scheduling of the revocation motion for Undersecretary Sgarbi, already deposited in October and now integrated. Sources of the Movement report this. Also in the Senate, in today's group leader, the M5s will do the same by depositing a similar motion. 'If the news that is coming out is confirmed, the affair would confirm the 'seriousness' of the undersecretary's position that 'damages the honor of the institutions' and cannot maintain his position', the same sources explain.
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