Mauro Mazza commissioner for Italy guest of honor at Buchmesse 2024- Corriere.it

Mauro Mazza new extraordinary commissioner of the government for the participation of theItaly guest of honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2024: the Council of Ministers approved it on Thursday evening, 15 June, on the proposal of the president Giorgia Melonihaving regard to the designation by the Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano.

Mauro Mazza (Rome, 1955), formerly director of Tg2, Rai1 and Rai Sport, succeeds Ricardo Franco Levi, who resigned on 26 May. We wanted to choose,” he says Sangiuliano — a high-profile figure by indicating his colleague Mauro Mazza in the role of commissioner who, in addition to being a prominent writer and essayist, has shown to possess great organizational skills when he directed, among others, Rai1, the most important Italian television network. I am sure that Mazza will do very well thanks to his cultural sensitivity and I am sure that he will characterize the Fair with a pluralist participation open to all the editorial expressions of our nation. The minister also reiterated that being a guest country is a great opportunity for Italy to showcase its culture and the values ​​of its publishing industry.

Levi, while assuring that everything took place in absolute transparency, had presented his resignation after the newspaper Libero had made it known that the communication of the Italian mission to the Buchmesse had been entrusted to Icf Next, a company in which the son of the then commissioner works. Furthermore, a couple of weeks earlier, Levi’s decision – later revoked – to cancel the invitation to Carlo Rovelli to open the Buchmesse had aroused controversy, after his words at the Concertone on May 1, when he had attacked, without naming him, Minister Guido Crosetto.