Arianna Meloni, the brusque older sister of Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has been in politics since she was 17 years old, but she has never sought the spotlight. “I am not running for office” is one of her favorite phrases. But now that Georgia’s right-wing government is in trouble, Arianna has stepped out to help her sister stay in office.
Giorgia’s leadership is threatened by increasingly truculent government allies, so Arianna is overseeing the backroom process of reverting their post-Fascist party to its more tribal roots. Giorgia, who leads the Fratelli d’Italia party (Brothers of Italy), had come into office promising to tame Italy’s far right into a more palatable conservative force. But now it’s the sisters of Italy who are making their power grab.
First, they got rid of the men in their way.
Last fall, Giorgia posted on X that she had had it with Andrea Giambruno, a rakish anchorman who is the father of her daughter. She didn’t need to elaborate: Giambruno had been caught propositioning women guests on hot microphones and in off-air video footage.
In August, Arianna broke up with her longtime partner, Francesco Lollobrigida, known as “Lollo”—who happens to be Italy’s minister of agriculture, a distant relative of the actress, and a key figure in the party—after months of gossip about his affairs.
The chattering got so loud that Rachele Silvestri, a member of the Italian Parliament from the Brothers of Italy party, felt obliged to take a DNA test to prove that Lollobrigida, whom she identified euphemistically as “a very influential party member,” was not the father of her child.
Arianna once told the conservative newspaper Il Foglio that, for Lollo, she would “jump into the Tiber, as they say in Rome.” Now she is asking the media to “stop with the morbid curiosity” about her private life.
The thing is, in Mondo Meloni, the personal is political, and the entire party is an intricate web of family relationships and loyalty pacts sealed by blood ties.
Arianna had always been Giorgia’s closest confidante, chief strategist, head of the inner circle, shadow chief of staff, B.F.F., guardian angel, sister’s keeper, party puppeteer, Cabinet queen-maker, and, behind the scenes, the mistress of ceremonies of the far right. Last year, however, she was appointed to the newly minted role of head of the political secretariat of the party, and she now often acts as a surrogate for her sister.
Last fall, Giorgia posted on X that she had had it with Andrea Giambruno, a rakish anchorman who is the father of her daughter.
They steer a government short on successes and embarrassed by lurid sex scandals. The promised major constitutional reforms (moving Italy to a presidential-election system, among other things) are at a standstill. Economic growth is slow, and even support for Ukraine, once the linchpin of Meloni’s Atlanticism, is faltering. Meloni has complained of “Ukraine fatigue” in Europe and is opposed to allowing Ukraine to fire long-range missiles into Russia.
This summer, the right-leaning newspaper Il Giornale reported that prosecutors were readying an investigation of Arianna, on the vague charge of “influence trafficking.”
That was certainly the lament of one woman at the heart of yet another government scandal. Maria Rosaria Boccia, a comely 41-year-old influencer, boasted on Instagram that she was now “Adviser for Major Events” at the Ministry of Culture. When the minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, who was her lover, denied the appointment, Boccia posted photos of herself with Sangiuliano, who is married, on official trips. In September, Sangiuliano was forced to resign, and the advisory job went poof. (Sangiuliano recently filed a complaint against Boccia, accusing his former mistress of violating his privacy, physical abuse, and stealing his wedding ring.) Boccia complained that Arianna had used her position to block her rise.
The two sisters are “somehow re-enacting the scenario of their childhood,” a Brothers of Italy official told me. “Their life back then was marked by a father who had abandoned them, leaving them alone with their single mother.” He added, “In a way, they are now experiencing a similar situation, but this time they are in charge of the government.” The third “sister” dominating the inner circle is Giorgia’s longtime assistant adviser Patrizia Scurti, who is running government operations.
Sangiuliano recently filed charges against Boccia, accusing his former mistress of violating his privacy, physical abuse, and stealing his wedding ring.
Besieged by real as well as imagined threats, the prime minister took refuge in the only political relationship she could fully trust. Giorgia said Arianna is “the best person I have met on this earth,” and the feeling is undoubtedly mutual.
The two sisters did everything together, including lighting a candle in their bedroom when Giorgia was four and leaving it there while watching TV in the next room. The apartment caught fire, fortunately without hurting anyone. More importantly, they stood together against their father, who left home when they were little and maintained only a formal relationship with his daughters until they decided they would never have anything to do with him again. Giorgia was 11 years old.
Arianna has been described as the “rebel” of the family, the one standing up to bullies and speaking up to defend her little sister.
“She experiences everything that happens to me as if it were happening to her,” Giorgia wrote in her best-selling memoir, Io Sono Giorgia (I Am Giorgia), and claimed Arianna is the “only person for whom I feel the physical need to call and have a chat.” She told Arianna she was pregnant even before the father knew.
Now that things are getting hard, she has asked her sister to step forward. The sisters of Italy are leading the way back to where they started.
Mattia Ferraresi is the managing editor at the Italian newspaper Domani
