Culture Undersecretary Vittorio Sgarbion Friday quit amid a criminal probe into alleged laundering of cultural assets and an investigation by Italy's antitrust authority to see if lavish reported earnings from various private contracts represent an activity incompatible with that of being a member of the government.
"I am resigning with immediate effect as undersecretary of the government and will inform (Premier Giorgia) Meloni in the next few hours", said the 71-year-old art historian and polemicist on the sidelines of an event in Milan.
Last October the antitrust authority opened a probe sparked by a report from Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano to establish if the hundreds of thousands of euros reportedly earned in various gigs by the volatile art critic and cultural expert are incompatible with his government standing and whether the private sector works constitutes possible conflicts of interest.
Separately, in early January prosecutors in Macerata said they had opened an investigation into Sgarbi for the alleged self-laundering of cultural assets in relation to a work by Baroque painter Rutilio di Lorenzo Manetti that was stolen from Castello di Buriasco, in Piedmont, in 2013.
Sgarbi was accused of getting someone to add a torch into the top of the painting to make out it was a different one.
The former undersecretary has said he is innocent.
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