Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister who reshaped Italy’s political and cultural landscape while fending off multiple legal and sex scandals, died yesterday aged 86.
He had been suffering from a rare type of blood cancer.
Mourners laid flowers and notes outside Villa San Martino, Berlusconi’s home near Milan, with one reading simply: “We will miss you.”
Photo: AFP
Berlusconi is to have a state funeral in Milan’s Duomo Cathedral tomorrow.
He had been in ill health for years, from heart surgery in 2016 to a 2020 hospitalization for COVID-19. Despite being re-elected to the senate last year, he was rarely seen in public.
However, he remained the official head of his right-wing Forza Italia party, a junior — and occasionally troublesome — partner in Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s coalition government.
Photo: AFP
“Berlusconi was above all a fighter,” Meloni said in a video message posted on Twitter.
“He was a man who was not afraid to defend his convictions, and it was precisely that courage and determination which made him one of the most influential men in Italy’s history,” she said.
As Berlusconi’s body was moved from the hospital to Villa San Martino, tributes flowed in from international leaders.
Russian President Vladimir Putin — whom Berlusconi controversially defended following the invasion of Ukraine — said his death was an “irreparable loss” and hailed him as a “true friend.”
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