Exaggerated to the point of histrionics, Silvio Berlusconi did not bother to hide a luridness that for any decent human being should be reprehensible. On the contrary. He expressed it on any occasion, even before respectable people and with television cameras in front of him, like that time in the AC Milan locker room when he asked the soccer player Sulley Munari to introduce him to his wife “because she is very pretty.” ”. His biopic, Loro. Part I and Parrot. Part II, by Paolo Sorrentino, reflects the obsession with sex and amorality of the character as an immeasurable vanity, strong charisma and the way in which he exerted influence on all political, social and human spheres in Italy.

The mastery of the politician and businessman to present the defect as a virtue, of course also in politics, was worthy of a Shakespearean script. This he said about himself ten years ago: “I have endured more than 100 judicial processes, 900 magistrates have been cruel to me, 588 visits from the police, 2,600 hearings in 14 years and I have spent 400 million euros paying lawyers. I don’t have the world record, but the entire solar system.”

Although the figures were exaggerated, the message continued to permeate the electoral mass, in that ordinary citizen who forgives with a smile the excesses of a millionaire while trying to move away with a disgusted face from someone who asks for a coin from the ground. Donald Trump is the apprentice; Silvio Berlusconi was the teacher.

Returning to the matters of the fly, the core of this text, the issue of the delirious bunga-bunga parties that rocked the press and bar gatherings at the beginning of 2011, began to show signs at the end of April 2009: his wife, Verónica Lario publicly described as “shameless” the selection of attractive young women whom he had included as candidates in the Forza Italia list for the European ones. We came from the fact that the press had published days before that the tycoon had attended a party in Casoria where the young model Noemi Letizia was turning 18, an aspirant to fame whose name would later appear in the summary of bunga-bunga parties. In May of that year, Lario asked for a divorce from her.

In February 2011, the scandal broke out when it was leaked that Berlusconi organized a sort of caligulesque orgies at his summer residence in Villa Certosa (Sardinia) and Villa San Martino (Arcore). As the police investigation progressed, the bizarre was pushed aside by degeneracy: Berlusconi was accused of extorting some of his guests at those sex parties that included prostitutes, cocaine and minors. Berlusconi reported that they were elegant private dinners followed by private burlesque shows, in which attractive young women (called ‘velinas’) stripped off their costumes to the delight of solvent gentlemen.

The tycoon was sentenced in the first instance to seven years in prison and life disqualification from public office for having had sexual relations with the Moroccan Karima El Marough in exchange for jewelry and large sums of money. The young woman, who enjoyed an ephemeral fame as ‘Ruby Robacorazones’, stole 3,000 euros from a roommate, also a prostitute, and as soon as the tycoon learned that she was at the police station, he deployed all his power to have her released. The pretext was ingenious: El Marough was the niece of then Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and it was imperative to avoid a diplomatic conflict.

However, Ruby appeared before the court but denied the accusation, assuring that he had never touched her, although he gave her 7,000 euros the first time she visited Villa San Martino “so that she could pay for some good studies.” Then there were two other ‘Ruby’ whose process did lead other important men to jail, although not as much as ‘Il Cavaliere’: the reader may begin to suspect what happened if, after years of legal proceedings, Berlusconi once again presented himself as a candidate for prime minister in the last general elections in Italy. Nothing. Acquitted on appeal, a verdict upheld by the Supreme Court in 2015.

Umberto Eco, one of the most renowned Italian intellectuals of the last 50 years, defined his feeling in this way, seeing the stagnation in which his homeland has been stuck since the 1970s: “Our image abroad is disastrous, we are living in a tragic moment. When we left from Italy we are ashamed of Berlusconi, foreigners hug us and tell us: ‘Poor Italians, how are they doing?'”. Even he didn’t understand. Perhaps it was an indecipherable equation of charisma, timing, and cunning.