Goodbye to Silvio Berlusconi

He didn’t make it through the last game, the most important. Silvio Berlusconi passed away today at the age of 86.

Milan 2, Canale 5, Milan. The 1989 Champions Cup. The descent into the field, Forza Italia. March 27, 1994. Berlusconi I, Berlusconi II, Berlusconi III, Berlusconi quater. Olgettine and bunga bunga. The decline (condemned and banned from public office in 2013) and the rebirth (rehabilitated in May 2018, he returns to the Senate in 2022, after 9 years, thanks to the result obtained in Politiche swept by Giorgia Meloni). For everyone it has always been: Knight. But the closest collaborators in recent years have continued to call him: Doctor.

The beginning

The son of an employee and a secretary, the man who marked the history of Italy for over twenty years was born in Milan on 29 September 1936. After high school he improvised as a bartender, photographer, singer, entertainer on ships from cruise, electric broom salesman. Then the law degree and the big plunge into construction. He founds Cantieri Riuniti Milanesi Srl, dreams of a model city. Milan Two: the company of Berlusconi’s cousin, Lidia Borsani’s Edilnord Sas, buys the land in Segrate. It’s 1968.

The gun

Ten years later. In 1977 Giovanni Leone made him a Knight. Berlusconi is about to take The newspaper by Indro Montanelli (who will then sell in 2023) and is preparing to change the face of Italian television. By now everyone knows him, not only in Lombardy. Outside, on the street, terrorism and robberies. In the Edilnord offices, where he is in the company of right-hand man Marcello Dell’Utri, the builder welcomes The Espresso for a service on him and poses to be immortalized. One of the photos shows him next to a revolver placed on the desk.

The television

In 1976 he held a baptism Channel 5, two years later he founded Fininvest and became his broadcaster. In 1981 he transformed his local TV stations into a single national network. Buy Italia 1, Rete 4. However, it was only in 1990, with the Mammì law, that the full legality of the diffusion of private networks at national level was established. The Rai-Fininvest duopoly officially sees the light. Berlusconi made the definitive leap in quality in 1990 with the acquisition of Mondadori group. However, this opens one of the longest chapters in his judicial history, the Lodo Mondadori, over thirty judicial proceedings opened against him.

Milan

Helicopters and Valkyries. Berlusconi’s debut in football that matters has remained in history. On 20 February 1986 he bought Milan from Giussy Farina. On 18 July she lands on the lawn of the Arena Civica in Milan by helicopter, to the tune of Wagner’s Cavalcade of the Valkyries. “Milan reminds me of my childhood, it reminds me of my father, we talked about it almost every night,” he confided once. The first championship dates back to 1987. In 1989 the Champions Cup won at the Camp Nou in Barcelona. In 2017 Berlusconi sold Milan to the Chinese entrepreneur Li Yonghong. A year later he bought Monza and brought it back to Serie A.

1994

After Tangentopoli, after having supported for years Bettino Craxi, the multitasking entrepreneur founded Forza Italia and won the polls on 27 March 1994, with Umberto Bossi and Gianfranco Fini as partners. At his side are his most trusted collaborators, from Gianni Letta to Fedele Confalonieri. That day Italy changed forever, even though Berlusconi’s first government lasted a few months. He will return in 2001, with the Casa delle Libertà, a centre-right coalition. Forza Italia reaches 29.4%, a record. Five days earlier Berlusconi had signed the famous “contract with the Italians”.

Berlusconi II

The second Berlusconi government is that of the law Schifani (no more trials of the highest state offices), the Tremonti law (abolition of the tax on inheritances and donations), the Gasparri law (reorganization of the television system). The government of ad personam laws, many argue. He resigned in 2005, after the defeat at the regionals, but after two days he returned with Berlusconi III. In the subsequent duel with Romano Prodi, the card of abolition of the ICI is played on the first house, however in the 2006 policies he still loses and not by a small amount.

The great crisis

He triumphed again in 2008, this time with the People of Freedom. But these are the years of the economic crisis: the «spread coup», at the end of 2011, forced him to resign. These are also the years of the Noemi case. And the parties at Villa Certosa. And some bunga bunga. And some olegettines. And Ruby’s. And of all that this entailed, starting with the trials for aiding and abetting prostitution, an accusation from which Berlusconi was definitively acquitted in 2015. Those who did not acquit him were Verónica Lario, mother of Barbara, Luigi and Eleonora (while Marina and Pier Silvio were born from the previous union with Carla Elvira Lucia dall’Oglio). The two divorced in 2013. With Francesca Pascale, now wife of Paola Turci, the story lasts more than ten years. In 2022 Berlusconi gets married (pretend) to Marta Fascina.

The decline

In 2013, after the defeat in the general elections in February, he was sentenced for tax fraud in the Mediaset trial and with it the disqualification from public office. Berlusconi suspends himself from the office of Cavaliere, falls from senator, becomes eligible until 2019. He loses across the board and ends up in a retirement home where he serves his sentence with probation to social services. For others the game would have ended there, but not for someone like him who built a new town, broke the monopoly of state television, brought Milan to the top of the world and governed Italy for 3,340 days.

Apocalypse now

In 2014 he signed the famous Pact of the Nazarene with Matteo Renzi, an agreement broken following the election of Sergio Mattarella al Colle. Four years later he is back on the front line, even if he still can’t run for office. In the 2018 general elections, the center-right established itself as the first coalition, but Forza Italia was outclassed by Matteo Salvini’s League, which allied itself with the M5S, giving life to the yellow-green government. Covid arrives, Draghi arrives, who Berlusconi initially supports but who then helps to bring down. And it is precisely after the banker’s departure that the “Doctor” scores one of his most unexpected goals: at the Policies of 2022 everyone considers Fotza Italia’s blue dream finished and instead it turns out that 8 percent of voters still believe in it. Berlusconi regains the upper house of Parliament and lets himself be discovered while writing on a piece of paper what he doesn’t like about the new leader of the right, Giorgia Meloni. He doesn’t really make a fuss about it. Better to remember him as he gets off that helicopter, on the lawn of the Arena Civica in Milan, accompanied by the Cavalcade of the Valkyries, as in Apocalypse Now.