‘His only vice is women’

Vittorio Sgarbi, the mayor of Salemi in Sicily, is a notorious philanderer who is obsessed with art, beauty — and the mafia. James Silver spends a day with him

When Silvio Berlusconi was in trouble last year, accused of trysts with girls young enough to be his granddaughters, his former undersecretary for culture Vittorio Sgarbi rode nobly to his defence. ‘The thing you have to understand about Silvio,’ he declared, ‘is that unless he gains sexual satisfaction he cannot govern properly.’ Such a claim could only be taken seriously in Italy, where womanising is a national pastime and the more colourful public figures are widely admired. They don’t come much more colourful than Mr Sgarbi.

Now mayor of Salemi, Sgarbi is a celebrity in Italy. He is a revered art critic, known for his excoriating attacks on political and cultural opponents. He also appears as a ‘judge’ on prime-time television talent shows, surrounded, of course, by bikini-clad girls.