Vitti shot to international fame in Michelangelo Antonioni’s drama L’Avventura in 1960

• Monica Vitti – a life in pictures

Italian actor Monica Vitti, an icon best known for her starring roles in films by Michelangelo Antonioni, has died aged 90, the country’s culture ministry said on Wednesday.

“Goodbye Monica Vitti, goodbye queen of Italian cinema. Today is a truly sad day, we have lost a great artist and a great Italian,” the culture minister, Dario Franceschini, said in a statement.