The Italian Minister of Culture failed. He said that Christopher Columbus sailed to America using Galileo’s theories

“The Minister of Culture is rewriting history” – this is one of the comments on the speech of Italian Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiulian in Taormina, Sicily, on Sunday during the literary festival held under the slogan: “Italian Identity, Cultural Identity.”

The head of the Ministry of Culture there stated: “Columbus did not expect that he would discover a new continent, but he wanted to reach India by circumnavigating the globe based on Galileo’s theory.”

The Italian media recorded the minister’s statement, which reminded him of the key dates in this issue: Columbus arrived in America in 1492, and Galileo lived from 1564 to 1642.

– According to Sangiuliano, Christopher Columbus was not only a great sailor, but also a fortune teller. 70 years before Galileo was born, he used his theory to circumnavigate the Earth. Angelo Bonelli, a lawmaker on the opposition left, said: “I would give him a history book, but we have a culture minister who not only does not know history, he does not read it either.”

In this way, Bonelli recalled another blunder committed by the head of the Ministry of Culture, who admitted that he had not read the books nominated for the prestigious Strega Prize, despite his vote as a member of the jury.

In April, Gennaro Sangiuliano said during a press conference in Rome: “When we think of Paris, we think of the Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe, and when we think of London, we think of Times Square.” The Minister may have been referring to Trafalgar Square in London. Times Square is located in New York.