He won the election anyway. For their campaign, Forza Italia sent a 127-page glossy magazine to the doorsteps of Italy. Called “An Italian Story,” it offered a fairy tale version of the life of Mr. Berlusconi, striking notes that resonated with aspiring Italians: his wealth, his respect for his father and love for his mother, his insistence on punctuality, even his food. habits “Her diet is based on carbohydrates at noon and protein in the evening,” the magazine said. “He can’t resist apple pie, a specialty of his mother, Rosella, and he hates garlic and onions.”
He explained the end of his first marriage, to Carla Dall’Oglio: “The family was quiet and peaceful, but something in his relationship with Carla began to change, and in the early 80s their love had turned into a close friendship.”
In 1980, at the age of 44 and still married to Mrs. Dall’Oglio, Mr. Berlusconi met Veronica Lario, an actress who starred in the play “The Magnificent Cuckold”, a 1920 farce by the Belgian playwright Fernand Crommelynck. When their first daughter was born in 1984, Mr Berlusconi recognized the child and separated from his wife. He married Mrs. Lario in 1990, after the birth of three more children. The couple divorced in 2014. In 2022, aged 85, he had a “symbolic” wedding to his then-32-year-old girlfriend Marta Fascina, in which he wore a white wedding dress and cut a huge wedding cake. Already a member of Parliament, she returned to represent a Sicilian city where she had never campaigned, became a gatekeeper and power broker, and for her 86th birthday organized a hot air balloon to release thousands of red balloon hearts over the garden of his villa.
Mr Berlusconi is survived by a daughter, Maria Elvira, known as Marina, who is chairman of Fininvest, the family’s holding company, and a son, Pier Silvio, who is vice-chairman and chief executive of the Berlusconi-controlled broadcasting company. Mediaset, both from his first marriage; three children, Barbara, Eleonora and Luigi, from his second marriage; a brother, Paolo; 15 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
A talent for endurance
Mr. Berlusconi managed to stay in power for so long thanks to a combination of factors, including the lack of viable alternatives to him, in the view of a cynical electorate; his gift for sale; and Italy’s penchant for “transformism”: changing political stripes with the times. And loved or hated, he was the most recognized political figure in the country.
