The angel bears a striking resemblance to Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.Image: imago images
After the restoration of a church painting, an angel suddenly has the facial features of Giorgia Meloni. The Prime Minister takes it calmly – the Holy See less so.
02/02/2026, 3:18 p.m02/02/2026, 3:18 p.m
Dominik Straub, Rome / ch media
Bruno Valentinetti pretends he doesn’t understand what’s going on: “How? Is that supposed to be Giorgia Meloni? That’s what you say. But it’s not Giorgia Meloni,” emphasized the 82-year-old church servant and decorative painter throughout the weekend. He is responsible for the restoration of a painted angel in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, one of the oldest churches in Rome and thus in Christianity. Depending on their political preferences, half of Italy was either upset or amused.
Because the resemblance of the angel’s face he restored to the face of the head of government is, even if Valentinetti himself doesn’t like to admit it, astonishing. You could even say: He met Giorgia Meloni really well.
The angel is located in a side chapel of the church and is part of a wall decoration, at the center of which is a bust of Umberto II of Savoy (1904 to 1983), the last king of Italy. The disgraced monarch is flanked by two angels, the right one of which now bears Meloni’s facial features.
The slightly more vital “angel” of Rome.Image: keystone
Valentinetti denies having political sympathies for Meloni to the numerous reporters who are now besieging him in the church. “I have to survive on a pension of 600 euros. Meloni didn’t give me anything. I don’t like her. I have nothing to do with her.” He also denies that he once ran for the Roman municipal council for the right-wing extremist splinter party La Destra. “This candidacy took place without my knowledge.”
Pope’s deputy is alarmed
Whatever. In any case, the angel with Meloni’s face has long since called the authorities onto the scene – from two states, namely the Vatican and Italy. Cardinal Baldo Reina, as Vicar General none other than the Pope’s deputy as Bishop of Rome, declared in a note that images of sacred art and Christian tradition must not be misused for other purposes.
The diocese was never informed of any planned changes and additions. It was clearly an initiative of the artist, emphasized Reina – and then added with a threatening undertone that they would now consider which initiatives should be taken.
In secular Rome, Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli, a long-time party friend of the head of government, reacted to the outrage and sent some experts from the ministry and the head of the Roman Cultural Property Authority, Daniela Porro, to the crime scene, i.e. to the church. Porro tried to dismiss it and emphasized that the angel was a recent mural, namely from the year 2000, which was not listed as a historical monument.
But of course the church as such does. Porro said the angel’s current appearance will be compared with old photos and, if necessary, requested that it be restored to its original state.
The priest of San Lorenzo in Lucina, Daniele Micheletti, openly admits that the angel resembles Giorgia Meloni. But he defends his elderly church servant and decorative painter Valentinetti: “I can’t see anything bad in portraying the head of government.” In any case, it doesn’t mean “that we are Meloni fans”.
The Meloni angel (right) and another angel on the left bend over the last king of Italy, Umberto II, who was in office for a month in 1946 before the Kingdom of Italy became the Italian Republic by referendum.Image: www.imago-images.de
The chapel also contains the bust of Umberto II, and the parish is therefore not monarchist-minded. People of public interest were repeatedly depicted in the churches, “and they were not always decent people”.
The protagonist, who is at the center of all the excitement, was relatively brief in contrast to everyone else involved: Prime Minister Meloni posted a post on Instagram at the weekend with a laughing smiley and wrote: “No, I definitely don’t resemble an angel.” (aargauerzeitung.ch)