2023-06-12 17:10:01
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi He died this Monday at the age of 86, according to the newspaper ‘Corriere della Sera’. Berlusconi had been hospitalized since Friday at the San Raffaele health center in Milan, where he was being checked for myelomonocytic leukemia, which he had suffered for some time.
Although his emergency hospitalization was initially due to cardiovascular problems and breathing difficulties, the last medical report revealed a lung infection caused by cancer. In addition, he had already started the first chemotherapy treatments to limit the effects of carcinogenic cells and achieve the “reestablishment of pre-existing clinical conditions,” said the statement made public at the end of last week by the San Rafael Hospital.
Berlusconi’s admission to the health center was done by himself, unlike the previous ones in which he had to resort to ambulances or helicopters. All this fed the feeling that he would be something of a routine. Just a week ago he had already been in the clinic for four days for a “control” and to undergo some tests. But he was discharged, and he was back to his normal life. “I went back to work. I am willing and determined, as always, to commit myself for the country I love,” he wrote on social media.
He was also seen smiling in a photograph published by his partner, the deputy Marta Fascina, 54 years his junior, when they were in an extensive field of tulips in their luxurious villa in Arcore, in northern Italy.
impaired health
The tycoon’s health had been deteriorating since he was infected with covid in 2020, which aggravated some diseases he already had. This infection caused him very serious pneumonia, incompatible with his heart problems, which have forced him to wear a pacemaker for a decade.
Silvio Berlusconi returned to the Senate last October, from where he was expelled in 2013 after being convicted of tax evasion. The leader of Forza Italia, one of the parties of the conservative coalition together with Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) and the League, resisted leaving politics until the end, although his 86 years weighed heavily on him and he had to help himself with assistants to walk.
Political, judicial and media scandals dominated the political life and people of Silvio Berlusconi, one of the most representative Italian personalities of the 20th century, when he built one of the largest private fortunes and headed the Government during different periods.
A life linked to scandal
He began as a cruise ship singer and vacuum cleaner salesman to build up a meteoric career in business and politics that led him to become one of the great communication and sports magnates and to lead the Transalpine Executive up to four times.
The eldest son of a family belonging to the petty bourgeoisie in Milan, ‘Il Cavaliere’ graduated in Law in 1961 and began his business adventures that same year, establishing Cantieri Riuniti Milanesi Srl to enter the world of real estate business and build the foundations of one of the largest empires in the country.
However, beyond his fruitful deals, the figure of Berlusconi reached enormous heights of popularity beyond national borders thanks to his role as prime minister. He stood at the head of the Government for the first time in 1994 with his Forza Italia party, when he was already a recognized businessman in different sectors.
This first experience, however, had a short life, due to accusations against ‘Il Cavaliere’ of collaboration with the Mafia, bribery, corruption and tax fraud, which tarnished his image and prevented his re-election in the 1996 elections.
return to power
After five years as opposition leader, Berlusconi returned to power in 2001 with a coalition called Casa delle Libertà after regaining the confidence of the Italians, who kept him as prime minister until 2006, in a period in which he formed two different governments.
That same year he lost the elections in favor of the center-left, led by Romano Prodi, but returned to the Chigi Palace (residence of the president of the Council of Ministers) in 2008 after dissolving Forza Italia and creating another party, Il Popolo della Libertá.
In 2011, ‘Il Cavaliere’ was again forced to leave the Executive branch early. The economic crisis that was plaguing Europe and the conditions of the EU to help the country, the loss of the parliamentary majority and five judicial processes for inducing the prostitution of minors and tax fraud led Berlusconi to present his resignation before the President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano.
After a period disqualified by the Justice from holding public office, he won a seat in the European Parliament in 2019. In 2022, he again led Forza Italia in the elections in a center-right coalition, led by Fratelli d’Italia and shared with the Lega, they ended up winning.
Beyond his turbulent political career, ‘Il Cavaliere’ undertook intense business activity from a very young age. His ambition never had limits, as he demonstrated throughout his life with the creation, investment and purchase of companies in various fields.
communication tycoon
After those first urban forays inside and outside the country at the beginning of the 60s, he opted for communication and, at the end of 1990, he was already a magnate in the sector after having started in the 70s a great process of acquisition of various newspapers and Italian and European media.
The creation in 1974 of a local channel, Teleminalo, and four years later of a general national channel, Canale 5, was the starting point for the founding of multiple advertising companies and earned him an almost monopoly on the audience in his country, with content based primarily on entertainment.
Later, it would unite both in Finninvest, which would become one of the most important financial groups in Italy with control, among others, of Mediaset (including its Spanish subsidiary), the Mondadori publishing house, Banco Mediolanum and AC Milan, which it left behind. to belong to the group in 2017.
Precisely in the expansion of his business beyond the media, Berlusconi acquired one of the largest department store chains in Italy (La Standa, from which he later divested) and the AC Milan football club, which he sold in 2017. for 740 million euros. However, he did not abandon the world of football and in September 2018 he bought Monza for three million, which he had gone bankrupt in 2015. With this investment, in the 2022-2023 season the team plays in the country’s first division.
Problems with Justice
Throughout his entire life, wrapped in a halo of luxury and controversy, scandals have dogged Berlusconi. In addition to those linked to bribery and corruption, the most notorious was probably the one related to the controversial private parties in 2010. Although there were previously rumors of this type of encounter, the best known was the Ruby case. She received the name of the Moroccan minor Karima El Mahroug – nicknamed by the press Ruby Rubacuori (Heartstealer) -, who had sexual relations with the politician when she was less than 18 years old.
For this, Berlusconi was sentenced in 2013 to seven years in prison and perpetual disqualification from holding public office for the crimes of abuse of power and incitement to the prostitution of minors, but he was acquitted in 2015 by the Supreme Court considering that there was a lack of evidence. . In 2023, in a parallel process, he was exonerated of buying the silence of those attending his private parties. Not all the participants fared so well, as three were convicted in another trial -the Ruby bis- for pimping.
Beyond these processes, other scandals have surrounded Berlusconi, many of them also related to women. Already in 1984 his then wife, Carla Dall’Oglio, with whom he had two children, filed for divorce after learning that ‘Il Cavaliere’ was going to have another offspring with the actress Verónica Lario.
Predilection for the young
He later married her and had two more children, but they too separated in 2009 due to rumors about the businessman’s predilection for attractive young women. In 2012 he began a relationship with Francesca Pascale, 49 years younger than the tycoon, and since 2020 his partner was the 33-year-old deputy Marta Fascina.
In addition to its love affairs, ‘Il Cavaliere’ surprised public opinion with its controversial phrases, dubbed ‘berlusconadas’. “I always win. I am condemned to win », she declared in 2003 before the media, in a display of pretentiousness and ego. «The opposition tells me to go home: which one? I’m twenty”,
“I had eleven in a row at the door and I have fucked eight”, “Only Napoleon did more than I have done” or the most recent “I am sending you a bus full of prostitutes”, addressed to the Monza players, are some of the expressions that the magnate dedicated to the press and that draw an accurate portrait of his personality.
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