How Silvio Berlusconi changed Italy – BBC News

This is the end of an era. It is very difficult to imagine Italy without Silvio Berlusconi, even as it has been grappling with its identity in a post-Berlusconi era.

For the past fifty years, his shadow has loomed large over parliament, the media, football and the man on the street.

In a video tribute on Monday, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni praised his “courage and determination”, calling him one of the most influential men in the country’s history.

“With him, Italy learned that it must never allow itself to be limited, and it must never give up,” she said.

At the height of his power, sporting colourful bandanas on board yachts in the Mediterranean, Silvio Berlusconi could have passed for a pirate.

But he had an outsized impact on Italian society and politics, and was the subject of highly complex civil and criminal investigations.

He first enjoyed the thrill of an adoring audience as a cruise ship singer, and that experience of being centre stage was to define his adult life.

As a media mogul inspired by the razzmatazz of American networks, he transformed Italian TV. Scantily-clad women would define many of his programmes, much as they would his private life.

This led to a change of culture for Italians, who were suddenly able to watch TV programmes with politically incorrect jokes and “veline”, an Italian word that means “show girls”.

For decades, Italian TV – led by public broadcaster RAI – had been rigorous and serious. Berlusconi decided to put audiences first, and single-handedly invented commercial TV in Italy.

Even today, if you channel-surf Italian TV, you will inevitably come across half-naked young women.

Berlusconi’s foray into politics was not driven by ideological zeal, as much as it was a desire to protect his growing business interests.

Elected prime minister four times, he appealed to a wide range of voters. The former entertainer cut a colourful figure, in stark contrast with the more reserved intellectual types who had previously charted Italy’s course.

But the man dubbed “Il Cavaliere” (The Knight) divided Italians, as much for his policies – including his controversial decision to join the US-led invasion of Iraq – as his entire approach to life.

I saw this for myself when I interviewed him for the BBC in 2018. At the end of our conversation, with the cameras still rolling, we shook hands.

Quick as a flash, he said to me: “Don’t shake hands so strongly! Men will be frightened of you, and no one is going to marry you!” When I replied, suggesting a firm handshake was a good thing, he smiled and said he was only joking: “You’ve got to joke every once in a while.”

This struck me as an example of why so many Italians hated him, for apparent sexist and disrespectful behaviour, while others adored him as a “man of the people”. As the writer Curzio Malaparte wrote, Berlusconi’s qualities and defects “are the qualities and defects of all Italians”.

Indeed, many Italian newspapers credit him with inventing populism in Italy. Several right-wing politicians from the 2010s have been compared to him – including Donald Trump.

Berlusconi was crucial in allowing the far-right to enter mainstream politics. He created alliances with the Northern League – a party that called for a section of northern Italy to become independent – and with the post-fascist Alleanza Nazionale, from which the party of the current Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, descended.

Giorgia Meloni herself first became a known politician under Berlusconi’s wing – serving as a junior minister in his last government.

More than anything, Berlusconi wanted to impress. He transformed his villa in Arcore into a palace with Renaissance paintings, and his villa in Sardinia looked like a theme park – including a fake volcano that erupted lava.

Investigators were to discover that these villas were regularly visited by showgirls and models, where they received gifts and envelopes filled with cash.

Ultimately it was not the “bunga bunga” parties that undid him, but his inability to cope as Italy’s debt reached unsustainable levels in 2011.

His political downfall came during the financial crisis, when Italians held him responsible for the country’s anaemic growth.

Countless criminal investigations for bribery and corruption – and the fallout from infamous bunga bunga sex parties – also proved a constant distraction.

What is Berlusconi’s political legacy? He passed very few political reforms. He seemed more concerned with managing his own image, rather than running a country.

But his ups and downs hypnotised a nation.