The Diocese of Rome and the Ministry of Culture opened investigations into the case. Technicians were sent to inspect the figure. Meloni joked that “No, I definitely don’t look like an angel”, in an Instagram post in which he attached a photo of the winged figure. Everything so that, on Wednesday, Bruno Valentinetti had to erase the angel’s face, by order of the Diocese of Rome and the parish priest of the basilica located not far from the steps of Piazza di Spagna.
Yes, I went to Rome and I didn’t see the “angel Meloni”. I didn’t see the Pope either, in fact, having to make do with a handful of cardinals who I crossed paths with in the impressive St. Peter’s Square. But I saw the steps of Piazza di Spagna. And I saw the Vatican Museums, with their endless treasures, from the statues of emperors like Augustus, Claudius or Titus, to the splendor of the School of Athens, the fresco commissioned from Raphael by Pope Julius II, without forgetting the dazzling Sistine Chapel, where a few months ago the cardinals made the American Robert Francis Prevost Pope Leo XIV, under the ceiling painted by Michelangelo.
I also saw the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona and Castel Sant’Angelo. And in the Capitoline Museums I saw the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, the Capitoline She-Wolf, with Romulus and Remus, Bernini’s Medusa and many more busts and statues of emperors, in addition to the unmissable Cartier and Myth exhibitionin which some of Maison Cartier’s most prestigious creations enter into an evocative dialogue with the ancient sculptures from the Palazzo Nuovo collection. If you go to Rome until March 15th, it’s really not to be missed, starting with the magnificent bust of Lívia, the very powerful wife of Augustus, who greets us right at the entrance to that exhibition.
The pope? The angel Meloni? What you really can’t miss if you go to Rome is… Rome.
Executive editor of Diário de Notícias
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