Italy’s culture minister finally resigns after affair

ROME: Italy´s culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano finally resigned on Friday after being caught in an adulterous affair with a younger woman who filmed their rendezvous with connected glasses.

“After reflecting during these painful days I decided to irrevocably resign from my post as Minister of Culture,” Sangiuliano wrote to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in a letter published by his ministry.

Meloni, in a statement, thanked him for his “extraordinary service”.

Sangiuliano is the first minister to quit Meloni´s government, and his departure comes less than two weeks before Italy hosts a meeting of culture ministers of the G7 group of industrialised countries which Italy is presiding this year.

Meloni has already named his successor, Alessandro Giuli, president of MAXXI, Italy´s national museum for 21st-century art.

On Wednesday, in an attempt to hold on to his job, Sangiuliano gave a long and at times tearful television interview -- largely mocked in the press.

He tried to explain his relationship with Maria Rosaria Boccia, a younger woman who has inundated social media with accounts of their affair.

He said it had started in May but insisted that he had put an end to it in “late July, early August”.

Boccia had posted late August on Instagram that she had been named a special adviser to the ministry, which he denied.

She then started posting photos on social media sites of them together at various public events, as well as emails and boarding passes for flights.