ROME, April 19, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - The Italian government said on Friday it would grant citizenship to American writer Frances Mayes, author of the best-selling memoir "Under the Tuscan Sun".

Cabinet ministers approved the proposal, submitted by Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, to grant Mayes citizenship "for special merits," the government said in a statement.

Mayes, 85, who was born in Georgia, currently divides her time with her husband between her home in Cortona, Tuscany, and North Carolina.

Her 1996 memoir, later turned into a film of the same name starring Diane Lane, recounted her purchase and renovation of a dilapidated and abandoned villa in the hilltop Tuscan town.

The book spent more than two years on the New York Times' best-seller list.

The government's move comes just weeks after it made it harder for those with Italian blood to apply for citizenship.

Under the new change to the citizenship law, Italy will only grant citizenship to those people whose parent or grandfather was Italian. Previous, those with blood ties of up to four generations could qualify.