Vittorio Sgarbi is in intensive care; his condition is critical but stable

The art critic has been suffering from health problems for some time. Last year, he had already been admitted to the Gemelli Hospital due to the worsening of his condition, caused by a depressive syndrome from which he was suffering and his refusal to eat (Sgarbi himself had revealed that he had dropped to 59 kilos).

A bout of depression which he himself had later spoken about (“Just as we have a body, so too do the shadows of the mind exist – thoughts, ghosts that are with us and which I cannot shake off. I had never suffered from it before. ‘It feels like a train that has stopped at an unknown station,’ he had explained in an interview) and from which he appeared to have recovered. After all, he never made a secret of his troubles, whether legal or physical.

Just as when he revealed in March 2021 that he was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. Going back even further, ten years ago, in 2016, he was rushed to hospital in Modena due to heart problems: he suffered an ischaemic episode whilst travelling and underwent coronary angioplasty.

Among his most recent public appearances were last May in Ferrara, when he took part in the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the *Corriere della Sera* in Ferrara, and then in July, as a guest in Bergamo at La Milanesiana, the cultural festival directed by his sister Elisabetta, and in August in Rovereto to chart the course of the Mart museum, of which he is president.