ROME (AP) - Italy's president began slurring his words and had to interrupt a speech he was giving Monday because of sudden weakness that he blamed on a drop in blood pressure.

President Giorgio Napolitano, 82, was speaking at the University of Trento when he leaned forward over the podium and then sat down as a bodyguard and officials on the stage moved in to support him. While seated, Napolitano resumed the speech.

Napolitano's spokesman, Pasquale Cascella, said that Napolitano had a spell of low blood pressure because the auditorium was warm and he had been on his feet a long time.

Italian news agencies quoted the president as saying he was all right when he arrived at his next public appearance in the northern city of Trento.

"I'm well. I only had a bit of a drop in pressure," Napolitano was quoted as saying.

Napolitano delivered another speech in the afternoon.

The Italian news agency ANSA said Napolitano had told his staff that the academic robes he had been wearing during the university speech were too tight around his neck; he took them off before he sat down.

Napolitano, whose role as head of state is largely ceremonial, was thrust into the political spotlight last month after Premier Romano Prodi's government collapsed in a Senate confidence vote.