From jewellery to snake skin shoes, Meloni’s gifts from foreign leaders on her official trips abroad are worth an estimated €800,000.
Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni is to auction off 273 institutional gifts given to her over the past three years, primarily by other heads of state and government.
The gifts are worth an estimated €800,000, according to Italian news reports, and the proceeds of the auction will be donated to charity.
The Rome auction house that won the tender to host the sale, Bertolami Fine Art, is entitled to five per cent of the proceeds, up to a maximum of €40,000.The items are currently held in a storage room in government buildings and Meloni said she is considering auctioning off some gifts received by her predecessors.
By law, Italian prime ministers cannot keep items for themselves if they are valued at more than €300.
It is not yet known when the auction will take place, and the full list of items for sale has not been made public.
However, a list provided following a parliamentary question by centrist Italia Viva politician Francesco Bonifazi includes the following items:
A scarf presented to Meloni by Albanian prime minister Edi Rama – on his knees – during an energy security meeting in Abu Dhabi in January this year, and a traditional Kerala dress given by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi during the G20 summit in Bali in November 2022.
Also up for auction is a jewellery box presented to Meloni by Slovakian president Peter Pellegrini; a fine porcelain tea set and six bottles of white wine from Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán; a ceramic bowl from former US president Joe Biden; and around 15 carpets received during trips to Libya and other Arab countries.
The auction list includes symbolic gifts too, including a piece of high-conductivity cable from CERN in Geneva, given by its director Fabiola Giannotti, and a tablet from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
The most unusual gifts include those from Argentine president Xavier Milei, who gave the Italian leader a statuette of himself wielding a chainsaw, and a present from Kamel Al Munajjed, director of the Saudi Italian Business Council, who gave Meloni a pair of blue python skin shoes with gold heels.
Photo ANSA – Presidenza Argentina
