His death has been described in the Italian press as the “end of an era”.
Silvio Berlusconi died on Monday at San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, his doctors said in a statement.
The former Italian prime minister was readmitted last Friday for scheduled medical check-ups related to his chronic leukemia.
The 86-year-old had recently spent 45 days in the same hospital being treated for a lung infection and chronic leukemia, before being discharged exactly three weeks ago.
The three-time prime minister was one of Italy’s most successful businessmen and an influential but controversial and divisive politician.
He was a dominant force in Italian politics for the past 30 years and still led his centre-right party, Forza Italia, despite suffering from various health problems since 2016.
Last year, his party entered the right-wing coalition currently in government, and Berlusconi returned to parliament as an elected senator after a nine-year hiatus.
But many now agree that Berlusconi had been progressively marginalized and isolated in the context of Italian politics, and had lost his role as leader of the country’s right-wing coalition.
Berlusconi’s death is “the end of an ‘era'” for Italy, according to the country’s Repubblica newspaper.
It is the final line that closes a 30-year chapter in Italian history that has been marked by great cultural changes, political scandals and international gaffes.
Il Cavaliere (the knight), as he was nicknamed, was born in Milan in 1936 into a middle-class family.
He began his business career in real estate development before founding Mediaset, Italy’s largest private network, after singing on cruise ships and nightclubs as a youngster.
Berlusconi rose to the top of Italian politics despite his lack of experience, driven by his success as a businessman.
He was elected prime minister for the first time in 1994, and then again in 2001 and 2008. In 2011, he was forced to resign due to an acute debt crisis.
His career was affected by scandals – in one, nicknamed ‘Ruby ter’, he was accused of paying to have sex with a woman under 18 – and allegations of corruption.
In late 2012 he was convicted of tax fraud, for which he served a one-year sentence doing part-time community service at a residential home in Milan.
