Gulezian has a personal Web site and a blog, operated under the professional name David Wayne. One contains photos from happier times showing him embracing his wife in a variety of romantic settings and a link to her site. That site now hosts a long response to the La Repubblica article, in which Gulezian explains that he was driven to start writing against his wife because she had cut contact with his son. "Now finally I have some power on my side, the power of the truth," he wrote.

The animosity normally reserved for divorce court papers has even spilled onto Brigandi's Wikipedia entry. The last line, evidently added by Gulezian, reads: "She is currently using her son as a pawn in her chess game against her husband by not letting him speak to his father." And there are extensive comments -- mainly in defense of Brigandi -- on blogs devoted to the dispute.

There may be some light at the end of the tunnel for Brigandi, however. Last month a court in Milan handed down a suspended two years and four months prison sentence and a US$7,960 fine to a 32-year-old man who had posted erotic photos of his former girlfriend on a personal Web site.