'Silvio Berlusconi: real estate developer, media mogul and Italy's most eccentric prime minister.'

Silvio Berlusconi, who has passed away at the age of 86, was born into a middle-class family in Milan, a city significantly affected by World War II. He attended a private school belonging to a religious order and successfully graduated from law school in 1961, specializing in advertising contracts, a field that, of course, became extremely useful to him in the future.

When Berlusconi came of age, Italy was entering its post-war economic "miracle" period. Immediately after graduating from university, he became a businessman and successfully implemented a number of entrepreneurial initiatives in the burgeoning construction sector. When he was in his 30s, Berlusconi developed a revolutionary and innovative project''- the construction of a residential complex in the northern outskirts of Milan, called Milano 2. The idea was to offer a high level of spacious homes in new neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city for a middle class looking to get away from the city center but stay close by. The project was ahead of its time, offering "exclusive" real estate to a growing middle class looking to escape the densely built-up and polluted city center. It quickly became a significant success that took Edilnord (Berlusconi's construction company) to new heights and allowed it to diversify under the umbrella of financial holding company Fininvest.

In the 1980s, Berlusconi was awarded the Order of Labor and informally nicknamed "Il Cavaliere" (The Knight) for''your own entrepreneurship.

Building an empire

At the same time that video broadcasting was first commercialized in Italy in the mid-1970s, Berlusconi began investing in television. He created a media company that broadcast three channels throughout Italy (Canale 5, Italia 1 and Rete 4). All of this was supported by the company's aggressive advertising army, Publitalia. Berlusconi's media empire (augmented by the 1984 acquisition of Arnoldo Mondadori, the most important publishing house in the country) became the only real competitor to RAI, the state-owned television company.

Personal relations

Berlusconi's relationships with politicians and his personal charm at the time helped him become an all-encompassing figure in Italy'. 'society, but his popularity soared in the mid-1980s when he acquired the AC Milan soccer club. The move was already highly strategic in itself, given Italy's nationwide obsession with soccer, but Berlusconi instantly set about transforming Milan from a domestic team into an international brand.

In the 15 years following the successful Milano 2 project, Berlusconi built a business empire spanning construction, banking and insurance, television and advertising, publishing, sports and even supermarkets. In a couple of decades, Berlusconi turned Fininvest into Italy's eighth largest company by turnover.

From a man who was seen by the country's entrepreneurial elite as useful at best''unattainable, Berlusconi turned prime minister.

The start of his political career was in the early 1990s, when the Tangentopoli scandal was revealed.

The start of his political career was in the early 1990s, when the Tangentopoli scandal exposed the deep-rooted corruption of politicians on a national and regional scale. Individual politicians and entire political parties were hit by the investigations, and the old party system was turned upside down, leaving an institutional vacuum. Berlusconi capitalized on this by creating a new political party virtually overnight, drawing on his entrepreneurial prestige and the communications power of his media empire.

The Silvio Show

There has always been a "Silvio show." Berlusconi was recognized as a charismatic politician, and the election campaigns that brought him to power inevitably focused on him personally. However, he performed less convincingly in the role of statesman. He lacked a long-term vision for Italy, both in terms of governance and economic development. In the two decades of his rule, Italy's GDP remained on a par with the rest of Europe, but''The country's competitiveness, as measured by exports, has steadily declined. This has been accompanied by generous increases in public spending, despite the Berlusconi governments neoliberal evasions.

Berlusconi's policies have always been about personal connections rather than institutions. This approach was exacerbated by the constant conflict of interest between his role as the country's prime minister and de facto monarch running a business empire built largely on commercial television and advertising. He performed in politics as he did in his business life, running his governments with incredible energy but with an extremely low propensity to delegate.

But while Berlusconi was able to entrust his eldest sons Marina and''Piercelivio's top positions in his business empire, he has failed to find an equally charismatic successor for his political project.

And all is forgiven again and again. Italians have forgiven the dapper Berlusconi for his many antics, especially his sometimes erratic behavior in his personal life. He probably got more leniency from the public than he deserved, and certainly far more than the judicial system was willing to give him, as became clear after his conviction for tax fraud. While he was disposing of other legal cases involving allegations of sex with a minor, others were convicted of recruiting prostitutes for Berlusconi's parties. Even now,''after his death, it is difficult to come to a definite opinion about Berlusconi and his role in Italy's recent history. His own life is quite symbolic of a country blessed with many gifts - a creative place capable of sudden and unexpected rebirth. But it could be said that he has also represented Italy in a negative way, too often unable to create a vision of the future based on anything other than personal self-interest.