Only in a country where Culture is worth so little can you make fun of anyone who has anything to do with that word. The mockery of our Minister of Culture, for example. It has now become a journalistic genre. Since Gennaro Sangiuliano entered the Collegio Romano, October 2022, we have read dozens of columns, portraits, editorials, pamphlets and comments, all more or less satirical, all more or less funny (even if perhaps a little cloying in the long run). They are like Elly Schlein’s mockery of her oratorical bullshit. We could read dozens of them (or write them, as we do), and that’s fine. They always give satisfaction.
And it is in this spirit that yesterday we read in Repubblica the amusing “Carezza” that Francesco Merlo – a master of writing, by the way – dedicated to the head of the most illustrious and least respected ministry of our Republic. Once again the perfidious journalist, said with affection, has lined up gaffes and slips of Sangiuliano (who, however, among all his predecessors, at least up to Antonio Paolucci, is the one who has read the most books; yes, more than Franceschini, Bonisoli, Bray, Ornaghi, Galan, Bondi…).
Only, humbly, we point out that in 30 lines Merlo makes two missteps. The ringing that is heard in the ear is called “tinnitus” and not “innitus”.
And the minister was contested in Polignano, and not Putignano. Which will always be Puglia, however…
All this not to act like schoolteachers, us who insert a typo every line. But to say that you don’t have to be a minister to string together gaffes. You just need to be a decent journalist.