Sandro Bondi

Senator Sandro Bondi
Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities
In office May 8, 2008 – March 23, 2011
Prime Minister	Silvio Berlusconi
Preceded by	Francesco Rutelli
Succeeded by	Giancarlo Galan
Personal details
Born	May 14, 1959 Fivizzano, Massa-Carrara, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Political party	Independent (2015-present)[1][2]
Other political affiliations	Italian Communist Party (until 1991) Forza Italia (1994-2009) The People of Freedom (2009-2013) Forza Italia (2013-2015)[3]
Alma mater	University of Pisa
Profession	Politician
Religion	Christian (Roman Catholic)

Sandro Bondi (born 14 May 1959) is an Italian politician. He was appointed on 8 May 2008 to be Culture Minister until March 23, 2011 in Silvio Berlusconi's fourth cabinet.

Biography

Bondi was born in Fivizzano, province of Massa-Carrara, Italy. He first attended school at Lausanne, where his emigrant father had settled. The family later returned to Italy and at a young age Sandro joined the Italian Communist Youth Federation, soon becoming its secretary in Lunigiana. He gained a laurea in philosophy from the University of Pisa with a dissertation on Leonardo Valazzana, precursor of the Augustinian order and opponent of Girolamo Savonarola.

A Catholic democrat, he campaigned for the Italian Communist Party, and was elected mayor of Fivizzano in 1990. In 1992 the town council led by him was overturned by the local Socialist Party, in association with Christian Democracy. Activists already playfully compared him to a ravanello (radish): that is, red on the outside but white on the inside. Following these events he left the PCI.

Subsequently getting to know Silvio Berlusconi via the sculptor Pietro Cascella, he became Berlusconi's secretary, collaborator and faithful advisor, so much so that - for Berlusconi's 2001 campaign - he was given the task of quickly coordinating the compilation of Una storia italiana (An Italian Story), a book of photographs on Berlusconi's public and private life, as electoral propaganda for future elections (as used by all Italian families).

Bondi returned the great trust accorded him by Berlusconi by over the years becoming one of his main supporters, publicly proclaiming his devotion and fidelity to him on several occasions,^[4] as well as in poems he composed and read on television programmes, which were a major target for his critics and for satirists.

In the 2001 general election he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for Berlusconi's Forza Italia party in the III circoscrizione (Lombardia 1). In the campaign for the 2005 regional elections he organised the party's communications and was the same year named the party's coordinator. In the 2006 general election he was re-elected to the Chamber, elected from the results of circoscrizione XX (Campania 2). In the meantime he collaborated with Vanity Fair on a poetry page. In summer 2006 he published his latest sayings under the title "Laici e credenti: una fede comune".

In the course of the 2008 general election he participated in hustings in several Italian towns, as well as one in teatro Fenaroli in the city of Lanciano, where he declared that he did not wish to leave Berlusconi alone in government, as had been done in the past, thus leaving an invitation for all to lean on and encourage him. In the 2008 election, he was a People of Freedom candidate for Senate for the Tuscany region, as well as a centre-right candidate for president of the Province of Massa-Carrara. He was elected to the Senate, and he reached the second ballot for the provincial presidency with Osvaldo Angeli (candidate for the centre-left Democratic Party), which Angeli then won with 55.4% of the vote, against Bondi's 46%.

In 2008 he was made Culture minister in the Berlusconi IV Cabinet, relinquishing his post as national co-ordinator of Forza Italia to Denis Verdini. He still holds this ministry, and during his tenure of it he has announced the appointment of a special commissioner for the ruins at Pompeii^[5] and been censured for criticising modern art and architecture.^[6]

References

1. Bondi: “Forza Italia ha fallito, centrodestra senza futuro. Sosteniamo Renzi”, il Fatto Quotidiano, 24 aprile 2014
2. Sandro Bondi: «Forza Italia ha fallito, sosteniamo Renzi», Corriere della Sera, 24 aprile 2014
3. Sandro Bondi, il testamento di un uomo "innamorato di Silvio Berlusconi", l'Espresso, 24 aprile 2014
4. http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Politica/2006/10_Ottobre/15/stella.shtml
5. Hooper, John (5 July 2008). "Italy declares Pompeii a state of emergency". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-08-13.
6. Kington, Tom (13 August 2008). "I just don't get modern art, says Italy's culture minister". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-08-13.

External links

• (Italian) Biography on the Forza Italia website