ROME, ITALY.- Robert Hughes has become the focus of a clash between the Italian Under-Secretary for Culture, Vittorio Sgarbi, and the president of the Venice Biennale, Franco Bernabe. Sgarbi offered Hughes the sought-after directorship of the biennale visual arts sector, but Hughes has not reached an agreement with Bernabe. Instead, Hughes has published a scorching article in the New York Post on the ``diatribes and ineptitude'' of Italian politicians. That could have been the end of Hughes' prospects in Venice, but Sgarbi still says he will ensure Hughes' visual arts appointment for the next two biennales in 2003 and 2005. And he has attacked Bernabe for ``losing Hughes after he had agreed to take the position''.