1. Silvio Berlusconi was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1994 to 2013; a member of the Senate of the Republic from 2022 until his death in 2023, and previously from March to November 2013; and a member of the European Parliament from 2019 to 2022, and previously from 1999 to 2001.
Silvio Berlusconi rose into the financial elite of Italy in the late 1960s.
Silvio Berlusconi was the controlling shareholder of Mediaset and owned the Italian football club AC Milan from 1986 to 2017.
Silvio Berlusconi was nicknamed Il Cavaliere for his Order of Merit for Labour; he voluntarily resigned from this order in March 2014.
Silvio Berlusconi was prime minister for nine years in total, making him the longest serving post-war prime minister of Italy, and the third-longest-serving since Italian unification, after Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Giolitti.
Silvio Berlusconi was the leader of the centre-right party from 1994 to 2009, and its successor party The People of Freedom from 2009 to 2013.
Silvio Berlusconi led the revived Forza Italia from 2013 to 2023.
Silvio Berlusconi was the senior G8 leader from 2009 until 2011, and he held the record for hosting G8 summits.
On 1 August 2013, Silvio Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud by the Supreme Court of Cassation.
Silvio Berlusconi pledged to stay leader of Forza Italia throughout his custodial sentence and public office ban.
Silvio Berlusconi returned to the Senate after winning a seat in the 2022 Italian general election, then died the following year from complications of chronic leukaemia, and was given a state funeral.
Silvio Berlusconi was known for his populist political style and brash personality.
At the height of his power, Silvio Berlusconi was the richest person in Italy, owned three of the main TV channels of the country, and indirectly controlled RAI through his own government.
Silvio Berlusconi was the owner of Italy's biggest publishing company, several newspapers and magazines, and one of the largest football clubs in Europe.
At the time of his death, The Guardian wrote that Silvio Berlusconi "gathered himself more power than was ever wielded by one individual in a Western democracy".
Silvio Berlusconi remained a controversial figure who divided public opinion and political analysts.
Silvio Berlusconi was born in 1936 in Milan, where he was raised in a middle-class family.
Silvio Berlusconi's father, Luigi Berlusconi, was a bank employee, and his mother, Rosa Bossi, a housewife.
Silvio Berlusconi was the first of three children; he had a sister, Maria Francesca Antonietta, and a brother, Paolo.
Silvio Berlusconi was not required to serve the standard one-year stint in the Italian army which was compulsory at the time.
Silvio Berlusconi was divorced from Dall'Oglio in 1985, and married Lario in 1990.
The residential centre was built by Edilnord, a Silvio Berlusconi-owned company associated with the Fininvest group.
Silvio Berlusconi first entered the media world in the 1970s, buying from Giacomo Properzj and Alceo Moretti a small cable television company, TeleMilano, to service units built on his Segrate properties.
Silvio Berlusconi was the first to successfully bypass these restrictions by distributing simultaneously pre-recorded broadcasts across multiple local stations, effectively creating the impression of a national live television network.
In 1980, Silvio Berlusconi founded Italy's first private national network, Canale 5, followed shortly thereafter by Italia 1, which was bought from the Rusconi family in 1982, and Rete 4, which was bought from Mondadori in 1984.
Silvio Berlusconi then launched three international sister networks: La Cinq, Tele 5, and Telecinco.
Silvio Berlusconi created the first and only Italian commercial TV empire.
Silvio Berlusconi was assisted by his connections to Bettino Craxi, secretary-general of the Italian Socialist Party and the prime minister of Italy at that time, whose government passed, on 20 October 1984, an emergency decree legalising the nationwide transmissions made by Berlusconi's television stations.
In 1995, Silvio Berlusconi sold a portion of his media holdings, first to the German media group Kirch Group and then by public offer.
In 1999, Silvio Berlusconi expanded his media interests by forming a partnership with Kirch called the Epsilon MediaGroup.
Silvio Berlusconi rapidly rose to the forefront of Italian politics in January 1994, forming a new party called.
Silvio Berlusconi was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time and appointed as prime minister following the 1994 Italian general election, when Forza Italia gained a majority in the Chamber of Deputies less than three months after having been launched.
Silvio Berlusconi's cabinet collapsed after nine months due to internal disagreements among the coalition parties, and he was succeeded as prime minister by Lamberto Dini.
Silvio Berlusconi then formed his second and third cabinets, until 2006.
Silvio Berlusconi was the leader of the centre-right coalition in the 2006 Italian general election, which he lost by a very narrow margin, his opponent again being Prodi.
Silvio Berlusconi was re-elected in the 2008 Italian general election following the collapse of the Second Prodi government and sworn in for the third time as prime minister on 8 May 2008.
Silvio Berlusconi led the People of Freedom and its right-wing allies in the campaign for the 2013 Italian general election.
Subsequently, Silvio Berlusconi's allies supported the Letta Cabinet headed by Enrico Letta of the Democratic Party, together with the centrist Civic Choice of former prime minister Mario Monti.
Silvio Berlusconi was criticised for his electoral coalitions with right-wing populist parties and for apologetic remarks about Mussolini; he officially apologised for Italy's actions in Libya during colonial rule.
Silvio Berlusconi entered politics in 1994, reportedly admitting to Indro Montanelli and Enzo Biagi that he was forced to do so to avoid imprisonment.
Silvio Berlusconi served as prime minister of Italy from 1994 to 1995,2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011.
Silvio Berlusconi's career was racked with controversies and trials; among these was his failure to honour his promise to sell his personal assets in Mediaset, the largest television broadcaster in Italy, to dispel any perceived conflicts of interest.
Silvio Berlusconi launched a massive campaign of electoral advertisements on his three TV networks and prepared his top advertising salesmen with seminars and screen tests, of whom 50 were subsequently elected despite an absence of legislative experience.
Silvio Berlusconi was appointed prime minister in 1994, but his term in office was short because of the inherent contradictions in his coalition: the League, a regional party with a strong electoral base in northern Italy, was at that time fluctuating between federalist and separatist positions and the National Alliance was a nationalist party that had yet to renounce neo-fascism at the time.
In 1998, various articles attacking Silvio Berlusconi were published by Lega Nord's official newspaper La Padania, with titles such as "La Fininvest e nata da Cosa Nostra".
Silvio Berlusconi remained as caretaker prime minister for a little over a month until his replacement by a technocratic government headed by Lamberto Dini.
In 2001, Silvio Berlusconi ran again, as leader of the right-wing coalition House of Freedoms, which included the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats, Lega Nord, the National Alliance, and other parties.
Silvio Berlusconi committed in this contract to improving several aspects of the Italian economy and life, and promised to not stand for re-election in 2006 if he failed to honour at least four of these five promises.
Opposition parties claim Silvio Berlusconi was not able to achieve the goals he promised in his Contratto con gli Italiani.
Luca Ricolfi, an independent analyst, held that Silvio Berlusconi had managed to deliver only one promise out of five, the one concerning minimum pension rates.
Silvio Berlusconi's coalition held only two of the regions up for re-election.
On 2 December 2006, during a major demonstration of the centre-right in Rome against the Prodi II Cabinet, Silvio Berlusconi proposed the foundation of a Freedom Party, arguing that the people and voters of the different political movements aligned to the demonstration were all part of a people of freedom.
Silvio Berlusconi stated that this new political movement could include the participation of other parties.
Silvio Berlusconi capitalised on discontent over the nation's stagnating economy and the unpopularity of Prodi's government.
Silvio Berlusconi's declared top priorities were to remove piles of rubbish from the streets of Naples and to improve the state of the Italian economy, which had under-performed the rest of the eurozone for years.
Silvio Berlusconi said he was open to working with the opposition, and pledged to fight tax avoidance and tax evasion, reform the judicial system and reduce public debt.
Silvio Berlusconi intended to reduce the number of cabinet ministers to 12.
Silvio Berlusconi's criticism was aimed at the leadership style of Berlusconi, who tends to rely on his personal charisma to lead the party from the centre and supports a less structured form of party, a movement-party that organises itself only at election times.
The conflict between Fini and Silvio Berlusconi was covered live on television.
Silvio Berlusconi asked Fini to step down, and the executive proposed the suspension from party membership of three MPs who had harshly criticised Silvio Berlusconi and accused some party members of criminal offences.
The popularity of this decision was reflected in the fact that while he was resigning crowds sang the Hallelujah Chorus of George Frideric Handel's "Messiah", complete with some vocal accompaniment; there was dancing in the streets outside the Quirinal Palace, the official residence of the President of Italy, where Silvio Berlusconi went to tender his resignation.
Silvio Berlusconi was often found guilty in lower courts, but used loopholes in Italy's legal system to evade incarceration.
Silvio Berlusconi had failed to meet some of his pre-election promises and had failed to prevent economic decline and introduce serious reforms.
Many critics of Silvio Berlusconi accused him of using his power primarily to protect his own business ventures.
On 12 November 2011, after a final meeting with his cabinet, Silvio Berlusconi met President Giorgio Napolitano at the Palazzo del Quirinale to tend his resignation.
Silvio Berlusconi accused Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, Christine Lagarde and Giorgio Napolitano, along with other global economic and financial powers, of having plotted against him and forcing him to resign, because he had refused to accept a loan from the International Monetary Fund, which according to him, would have sold the country to the IMF.
In December 2012, Silvio Berlusconi announced on television that he would run again to become prime minister of Italy.
Silvio Berlusconi said his party's platform would include opposition to Mario Monti's economic performance, which he said put Italy into a "recessive spiral without end".
On 7 January 2013, Silvio Berlusconi announced he had made a coalition agreement with Lega Nord ; as part of it, PdL would support Roberto Maroni's bid for the presidency of Lombardy, and he would run as "leader of the coalition", but suggested he could accept a role as Minister of Economy under a cabinet headed by another People of Freedom member, such as Angelino Alfano.
Later that day, LN leader Maroni confirmed his party would not support Silvio Berlusconi being appointed as prime minister in the case of an electoral win.
In June 2013, Silvio Berlusconi announced the refoundation of his first party Forza Italia.
On 1 August 2013, Silvio Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud by the court of final instance, the Supreme Court of Cassation, which confirmed his four-year prison sentence, of which three years are automatically pardoned, along with a public office ban for two years.
Silvio Berlusconi pledged to stay leader of Forza Italia throughout his custodial sentence and public office ban.
Silvio Berlusconi was not able to freely campaign for his party.
In March 2017, Silvio Berlusconi expressed his intention to run as centre-right candidate for the premiership, even if he was banned from public office until 2019; the 2018 Italian general election was his seventh one as the centre-right frontunner.
In January 2019, Silvio Berlusconi expressed his intention to run for candidacy in the 2019 European Parliament election in Italy.
Silvio Berlusconi was elected to the Parliament, becoming the oldest member of the assembly.
Silvio Berlusconi was a potential nominee in the 2022 Italian presidential election, which was ultimately won by Sergio Mattarella.
Silvio Berlusconi ran in the 2022 Italian election as the leader of Forza Italia, being elected to the Senate for the single-member constituency of Monza, returning to the Italian parliament after ten years.
Silvio Berlusconi was one of the strongest supporters of Turkey's application to accede to the European Union.
Silvio Berlusconi described Saudi Arabia as an important force for stability in the region.
On 30 January 2003, Silvio Berlusconi signed "The letter of the eight" supporting the US preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Bruno Mentasti-Granelli, a close friend of Silvio Berlusconi, owned 33 per cent of CEIGH.
The Italian parliament blocked the contract and accused Silvio Berlusconi of having a personal interest in the Eni-Gazprom agreement.
Silvio Berlusconi was among the most vocal supporters of closer ties between Russia and the European Union.
In 2015, Silvio Berlusconi visited Crimea, which had been illegally annexed by the Russian Federation one year prior: after landing in Yalta, he met with Putin in Sevastopol.
Silvio Berlusconi condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying he was deeply disappointed by the behaviour of Russian president Putin.
In September 2022, Silvio Berlusconi made another statement at a Forza Italia convention in Venetia defending Putin: the statement was described by Italian media as confused and containing several factual errors, such as stating that Putin had been pressured to invade Ukraine "by his colleagues in the Communist Party".
In October 2022, leaked audio recordings revealed Silvio Berlusconi expressing dismay at Italy's military support for Ukraine, and blaming Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Silvio Berlusconi was noted for his close and friendly relationship with Israeli prime minister Netanyahu.
Silvio Berlusconi believed that Israel should be made an EU member.
Silvio Berlusconi became the first Western leader to visit Lukashenko since Lukashenko came to power in 1994.
On 5 April 2009, at the EU-US summit in Prague Silvio Berlusconi proposed an eight-point road map to accelerate the Euro-Atlantic integration of the western Balkans.
On 30 August 2008, the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Silvio Berlusconi signed a historic cooperation treaty in Benghazi.
Silvio Berlusconi apologised for Italy's actions during the Italian colonisation of Libya.
However, Silvio Berlusconi spoke out against NATO-led military intervention into Libya.
Silvio Berlusconi defined himself as moderate, liberal, and a supporter of free trade; he was often described as a populist or a conservative.
Silvio Berlusconi declared himself to be persecuted by judges, having undergone 34 trials, accusing them of being manipulated by left-wingers and comparing himself to Enzo Tortora, who was a victim of a miscarriage of justice.
Silvio Berlusconi acknowledged this but said that, by legitimising them within the centre-right coalition, they would have become an extremist right that would not have won.
Nobody who knows Silvio Berlusconi and has watched the rise and rise of Donald Trump can fail to be struck by the parallels.
Silvio Berlusconi had always been able to afford top lawyers and publicists, for example Nicolas Sarkozy was one of his French top defenders.
Silvio Berlusconi was sentenced to seven years in jail, and banned from public office for life.
Silvio Berlusconi's supporters hailed him as the "novus homo", an outsider who was going to bring a new efficiency to the public bureaucracy and reform the state from top to bottom.
Silvio Berlusconi was investigated for forty different inquests in less than two years.
Silvio Berlusconi's governments passed laws that shortened statutory terms for tax fraud.
Silvio Berlusconi said that they "use television as a criminal means of communication".
Silvio Berlusconi owned via Mediaset 3 of 7 national TV channels:.
The publishing group announced it would begin legal proceedings against Silvio Berlusconi, given the "criminal and civil relevance" of his remarks.
Silvio Berlusconi added that Italy will probably be ranked last in the European Union in the upcoming edition of the RWB press freedom index.
One of Berlusconi's strongest critics in the media outside Italy was the British weekly The Economist, which in its issue of 26 April 2001 carried a title on its front cover, 'Why Silvio Berlusconi is unfit to lead Italy'.
The magazine claimed that the documentation contained in its article proved that Silvio Berlusconi was 'unfit' for office because of his numerous conflicts of interest.
Via Fininvest, Silvio Berlusconi claimed the article contained "a series of old accusations" that was an "insult to truth and intelligence".
Lane points out that Silvio Berlusconi had not defended himself in court against the main charges, but had relied upon political and legal manipulations, most notably by changing the statute of limitation to prevent charges being completed in the first place.
Silvio Berlusconi did so, losing versus The Economist, and being charged for all the trial costs on 5 September 2008, when the Court in Milan issued a judgment rejecting all Silvio Berlusconi's claims and sentenced him to compensate for The Economists legal expenses.
In June 2011, The Economist published a strong article dealing with Silvio Berlusconi, titled "The man who screwed an entire country".
On some occasions, laws passed by the Silvio Berlusconi administration have effectively delayed ongoing trials involving him.
La Repubblica, for example, sustained that Silvio Berlusconi passed 17 different laws which have advantaged himself.
Silvio Berlusconi's administration attempted to pass a judicial reform intended to limit the flexibility of judges and magistrates in their decision-making.
Silvio Berlusconi was never tried on charges relating to the Sicilian Mafia, although several Mafia turncoats have stated that Silvio Berlusconi had connections with the Sicilian criminal association.
Similarly, a two-year investigation, launched on evidence from Cancemi, into Silvio Berlusconi's alleged association with the Mafia was closed in 1996.
Giuffre said that Silvio Berlusconi himself used to be in touch with Stefano Bontade, a top Mafia boss, in the mid-1970s.
Silvio Berlusconi's lawyer dismissed Giuffre's testimony as "false" and an attempt to discredit Silvio Berlusconi and his party.
Giuffre said that other Mafia representatives who were in contact with Silvio Berlusconi included the Palermo Mafia bosses Filippo Graviano and Giuseppe Graviano.
Spatuzza testified that his boss Giuseppe Graviano had told him in 1994, that Silvio Berlusconi was bargaining with the Mafia, concerning a political-electoral agreement between Cosa Nostra and Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia.
On 2 July 2003, Silvio Berlusconi suggested that German Social democratic MEP Martin Schulz, who had criticised his domestic policies, should play a Nazi concentration camp guard in a film.
Silvio Berlusconi insisted that he was joking, but accused Schulz and others of being "bad-willing tourists of democracy".
In 2003, during an interview with Nicholas Farrell, then editor of The Spectator, Silvio Berlusconi claimed that Mussolini "had been a benign dictator who did not murder opponents but sent them 'on holiday".
Silvio Berlusconi had made disparaging remarks about Finnish cuisine during negotiations to decide on the location of the European Food Safety Authority in 2001.
Silvio Berlusconi caused further offence in 2005 when he claimed that during the negotiations he had had to "dust off his playboy charms" to persuade the Finnish president, Tarja Halonen, to concede that the EFSA should be based in Parma instead of Finland, and compared Finnish smoked reindeer unfavourably to culatello.
Halonen took the incident in good humour, retorting that Silvio Berlusconi had "overestimated his persuasion skills".
In March 2006, Silvio Berlusconi alleged that Chinese communists under Mao Zedong had "boiled [children] to fertilise the fields".
In 2008 Silvio Berlusconi criticised the composition of the Council of Ministers of the Spanish Government as being too 'pink' by virtue of the fact that it had an equal number of men and women.
Silvio Berlusconi stated that he doubted that such a composition would be possible in Italy given the "prevalence of men" in Italian politics.
Also in 2008, Silvio Berlusconi caused controversy at a joint press conference with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
On 24 January 2009, Silvio Berlusconi announced his aim to increase the number of military patrolling the Italian cities from 3,000 to 30,000 to crack down on what he called an "evil army" of criminals.
Silvio Berlusconi retorted that he had merely wanted to compliment Italian women.
Two days after the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake, Silvio Berlusconi suggested that people left homeless should view their experience as a camping weekend.
In October 2010, Silvio Berlusconi was chastised by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano after he was filmed telling "offensive and deplorable jokes", including one whose punchline was similar to one of the gravest blasphemies in the Italian language.
Silvio Berlusconi responded to the allegations by saying the jokes were "neither an offence nor a sin, but merely a laugh".
On 27 January 2013, on the occasion of the Holocaust Remembrance Day, Silvio Berlusconi said the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, except for passing anti-Jewish laws in 1938, only had done "good things" for Italy; and said Mussolini from a strategic point of view did the right thing in siding with Adolf Hitler during World War II, because Hitler at the point of time when the alliance was made had appeared to be winning the war.
The wiretap was part of an investigation by the Public Prosecutor Office of Naples, where Silvio Berlusconi was investigated for corruption.
Silvio Berlusconi urges Sacca to broadcast a telefilm series which was strongly advocated by his ally Umberto Bossi.
Silvio Berlusconi demanded a public apology, claiming that for the third time, his wife had "done this to me in the middle of an election campaign", and stated that there was little prospect of his marriage continuing.
Silvio Berlusconi claimed that Berlusconi had not attended his own sons' 18th birthday parties, and that she "cannot remain with a man who consorts with minors" and "is not well".
Silvio Berlusconi claimed that he knew Letizia only through her father and that he never met her alone without her parents.
Ten days later, Letizia's ex-boyfriend, Luigi Flaminio, claimed that Silvio Berlusconi had contacted Letizia personally in October 2008 and said she had spent a week without her parents at Silvio Berlusconi's Sardinian villa around New Year's Eve 2009, a fact confirmed later by her mother.
On 28 May 2009, Silvio Berlusconi said that he had never had "spicy" relations with Letizia, and said that if any such thing had occurred, he would have resigned immediately.
On 26 June 2009, the "ten questions" to Silvio Berlusconi were reformulated by, and subsequently republished multiple times.
On 28 August 2009, Silvio Berlusconi sued, the owner company of the newspaper, and classified the ten questions as "defamatory" and "rhetorical".
Silvio Berlusconi's lifestyle raised eyebrows in Catholic circles, with vigorous criticism being expressed in particular by Avvenire, owned by the Episcopal Conference of Italy.
D'Addario stated that Silvio Berlusconi knew that she was a paid escort.
Minetti was known for previous associations with Silvio Berlusconi, having danced for Colorado Cafe, a show on one of Silvio Berlusconi's TV channels, and on Scorie, an Italian version of Candid Camera.
The Guardian reported that according to a series of media reports in October 2010, Silvio Berlusconi had met El Mahroug, then 17, through Nicole Minetti.
Silvio Berlusconi told Italian newspapers that she merely attended dinner at his mansion near Milan.
On 15 February 2011, a judge indicted Silvio Berlusconi to stand trial on charges carrying up to 15 years in prison.
Silvio Berlusconi was sentenced to seven years in prison, one more year than had been requested by the prosecution, and banned from public office for life.
Silvio Berlusconi appealed the sentence and his conviction was quashed a year later, on 18 July 2014.
In 2020, Wondery released a podcast about Silvio Berlusconi's rise and fall entitled Bunga Bunga and hosted by comedienne Whitney Cummings.
Silvio Berlusconi was cited in the list, along with his long-time partner at AC Milan, Adriano Galliani.
On 13 December 2009, Silvio Berlusconi was hit in the face with a statuette of Milan Cathedral after a rally in Milan's Piazza del Duomo.
Silvio Berlusconi suffered facial injuries, a broken nose and two broken teeth; he was hospitalised.
Silvio Berlusconi was discharged from the hospital on 17 December 2009.
On 7 June 2016, after the campaign for the 2016 Italian local elections, Silvio Berlusconi was hospitalised at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan because of heart problems.
On 2 September 2020, amid the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, Silvio Berlusconi tested positive for COVID-19.
Silvio Berlusconi had had contact with businessman Flavio Briatore, who had been hospitalised after contracting the virus, and with his daughter Barbara and his son Luigi, who had tested positive.
Alberto Zangrillo, head of intensive care at San Raffaele Hospital, said on 11 September 2020 that Silvio Berlusconi was admitted with a very high viral load, but that he was improving and his response to the disease had been "optimal".
Silvio Berlusconi described COVID-19 as "the most dangerous and frightening experience" of his life.
In January 2022 Silvio Berlusconi was hospitalised for eight days to treat a severe urinary infection with strong antibiotic therapy.
On 27 March 2023, Silvio Berlusconi was admitted to San Raffaele Hospital for three days after suffering pains.
In May 2023, a video of Silvio Berlusconi was played at the Forza Italia party reassuring his supporters at the party's convention in Milan.
Silvio Berlusconi's ashes were buried in the Chapel of Saint Martin in the mansion, next to the tomb of his parents Luigi and Rosa, and his sister Maria Antonietta.
Silvio Berlusconi held significant assets in television, newspapers, publishing, cinema, finance, banking, insurance, and sports.
Silvio Berlusconi owned a controlling stake in Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, the largest Italian publishing house.
Silvio Berlusconi founded and was the major shareholder of Fininvest, which is among the largest private companies in Italy.
Silvio Berlusconi had interests in cinema and home video distribution.
Silvio Berlusconi owned the football club AC Milan from 1986 to 2017, and owned AC Monza since 2018.