The Nobel prize-winning playwright and actor Dario Fo has died aged 90, the Italian government has said.

Axar.az reports that Fo, famous his cutting political satire in plays such as Accidental Death of an Anarchist, won the Nobel prize for literature in 1997. The Corriere della Sera newspaper reported that the Italian had been suffering lung problems for months and had been in hospital for 12 days.

Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, sent his condolences on Thursday morning. “In Dario Fo, Italy has lost one of the great protagonists of the theatre, of culture, of the civic life of our country,” said Renzi.

“His satire, research, his work on set design and his versatile artistic activities are the legacy of one of the world’s great Italians.”

Fo and his wife, muse and leading lady, Franca Rame, captured the hearts and minds of ordinary Italians, writing and performing for stage, radio and television and regularly skewering political leaders with deft dialogue.

His subversive humour won him a cult status, but also saw him periodically hounded off stage and television in an attempt by the Italian establishment to muzzle him.

He maintained his political commitment past his 90th birthday, enthusiastically endorsing the maverick Five-Star Movement and comparing its anarchic, foul-mouthed founder Beppe Grillo to one of the heroes of his own chaotic comedies.