Three times prime minister, senator, MEP, successful businessman, media mogul, president of two Italian first division soccer teams, father of five children by two different women, singer on Mediterranean cruises… but also accused in more than thirty legal proceedings, convicted of tax fraud and suspected of having made part of his fortune thanks to his rackets with some ‘capos’ of the Mafia. All that and much more was Silvio Berlusconi. il Cavaliere, who died Monday of leukemia, was fired yesterday with honors at a solemn state funeral at the Duomo in Milan, his hometown.
The ‘Sultan’, as his ex-wife defined him in 2009 in a letter published in the media, in which he questioned the mental health of the then prime minister, had many lives throughout his 86 years and none of them passed unnoticed; nor the day of his funeral.
Thousands of people began to gather early in the morning on the esplanade of the cathedral, where several screens were installed to be able to follow the funeral from the outside. The organizers had estimated an influx of about 15,000 people, but the attendance was lower. Most were supporters of the tycoon, ‘tifosi’ from his football club, AC Milan (which he sold in 2017) and admirers of a man who marked, for better or worse, the last 40 years of Italy’s history. .
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“More than 30 judicial processes against him and there he was still. He was the president of Italy, the only one, ”said Luigi, unable to contain his tears, a 45-year-old man who confessed to having worked in one of the il Cavaliere companies and personally knowing his son.
Beside him, Verónica nodded. “I am here because he has given a lot to Italy, although like any man he also had his defects. The problem is that Justice turned it into a political objective”lamented this 29-year-old engineering from Milan, who kissed the AC Milan flag while staring at the screen.
Inside the temple, the cameras collected the sorrowful faces of his five children during the homily. And next to him, in the front row, his latest girlfriend, martha fascinateswho was very complicit with Marinethe eldest daughter of the tycoon, who is emerging as the new point of reference for the clan after the death of the patriarch.
Right behind them, her face impassive throughout the homily, was his second ex-wife, Veronica Lario, with whom Berlusconi had a divorce war that lasted for years and ended with a multimillion-dollar out-of-court settlement. The ceremony was also attended Francesca Pascale, former president of her fan club and partner of il Cavaliere until three years ago. “With Silvio my old life dies,” she declared.
The first attendees at the ceremony began to arrive two hours before the funeral procession did. In addition to the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloniand its two vice-presidents, Matteo Salvini and Antonio Tajaninumber two of Forza Italia, Berlusconi’s party, were the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarellaand the former head of government, Mario Draghias well as other authorities and political representatives.
Among the foreign leaders who attended were the Hungarian Prime Minister, Victor Orbánthe European Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloniand the president of the European People’s Party, Manfred Weber. On behalf of Spain, the ambassador in Rome did it, Miguel Angel Fernandez Palacios.
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But in the case of the man who invented, among other things, private television in Italy, in his last goodbye, representatives of the world of entertainment, sports and the small screen could not be missing. Actors, presenters, ex-footballers, velinas…
“He was a man who always surprised you,” he told reporters excitedly. Lele Morathe representative of celebrities convicted of pimping in the process that saw Silvio Berlusconi charged with incitement to prostitution for his parties ‘bunga bunga‘. Also surprising was the presence of Denis Verdinithe former coordinator of Forza Italia and father of Matteo Salvini’s girlfriend, who is serving a sentence for house arrest fraud.
Thousands of people flocked to the Duomo square to follow the funeral.
Reuters
“When a man is political, he seeks to win. He has supporters and opponents. Some take it to the highest, others can’t stand it, ”said the Archbishop of Milan in his homily, Mario Delpini, who knew how to interpret better than anyone the gap that the disappearance of the tycoon has opened in Italian society, divided between those who defend his political and business legacy above his personal vicissitudes; and those who do not forgive his attacks on the opposition, on the press, his sexual scandals, his laws ad personamhis dangerous friendships with international leaders such as Vladimir Putin or the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi… without forgetting the jokes in dubious taste and outbursts that he starred in when he was prime minister, and which sank the country’s international reputation.
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“I have never appreciated him as a person, as a businessman, or as a politician. But, For better or worse, Italy has changed. And that cannot be denied to him”, says Alberto, while he tries to cross the square quickly after leaving work. “I’m not in mourning”, could be read on the shirt of several Italians who came to the Duomo to show his indignation at the honors with which Berlusconi was fired.
The problem for many was not holding a State funeral, which is provided for by the protocol for ministers in the exercise of their functions or personalities who have offered high services to the country, but the Government decision to suspend parliamentary activity for a week and declare a day of official mourning on the day of the obsequies, something unprecedented until now. More than 10,000 people signed a petition in support of the rector of the University for Foreigners of Siena, who refused to fly the flag at half mast.
A portrait of Silvio Berlusconi before his coffin during the state funeral at the Duomo in Milan.
“The state funeral is fair, but national mourning for a divisive person like Silvio Berlusconi seems to me an untimely decision,” he denounced. rosy bindiformer Social Democratic minister in the second government of Romano Prodi.
The last goodbye to Berlusconi managed to divide even the opposition. A circumstance that surely would have amused the tycoon. While the secretary of the Democratic Party (PD), Elly Schleinwas one of the first to arrive at the cathedral, the former prime minister Giuseppe Conteleader of the Five Star Movement, did not participate in the ceremony out of “respect” for the party’s history, “but also for Berlusconi as a political antagonist, removing any hypocritical veil,” he explained.
Among the most notable absences are that of the former progressive prime minister Massimo D’Alemahistorical enemy of il Cavaliere, and Pier Luigi Bersani, ex-secretary of the PD. “The funeral is something intimate. I will say goodbye from afar, ”he indicated. The former progressive Prime Minister Romano Prodi was not present either, but in this case because the day before his wife died unexpectedly.
Thank you Silvio. We will not forget you”, Meloni wrote on social networks after leaving the cathedral, accompanying the text with a video that reviewed some moments in Berlusconi’s life. His mortal remains will be cremated and will rest forever in the mausoleum that he had built in his mansion at the gates of Milan.
