Incident occurred in Turin park named after anti-fascist figure.

A swastika has been sprayed on a plaque dedicated to Tina Anselmi, a member of Italy's Resistance movement during world war two and the first woman to hold a ministerial position in an Italian government.

The incident, which took place at a Turin park renamed after Anselmi earlier this year, was condemned by Enrico Letta, leader of the centre-left Partito Democratico (PD) who wrote on Twitter: "For us, memory matters. And it matters to be indignant at these unspeakable acts."

Per noi la memoria conta. E conta indignarsi per questi inqualificabili gesti. #TinaAnselmi pic.twitter.com/OoM2JmNjCT

— Enrico Letta (@EnricoLetta) August 19, 2022

Italy's outgoing health minister Roberto Speranza described the incident as a "disgrace without limits", hailing Anselmi as "the mother of the National Health System. To offend her is to insult the most important thing we have."

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Born in Treviso in 1927, Anselmi joined the Italian Resistance movement as a 17-year-old schoolgirl in 1944 when Nazi soldiers forced her and a group of other students to witness the hanging of 31 young partisans or partigiani.

After the war she joined the Democrazia Cristiana party, campaigning tirelessly for equal opportunities, and between 1968 and 1987 she was re-elected five times as a member of the Italian parliament.

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In 1976 she became the first woman member of an Italian cabinet, serving first as Italy's labour minister and subsequently as minister of health.

In 1998 she was awarded the Knight's Great Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, and featured on an Italian postage stamp in June 2016, six months before her death aged 89.