"I am embittered, and for once allow me to say also deeply indignant, for the mystification of my words on President Mattarella by the left. Evidently, the Democratic Party and its leader have no other means than to falsify reality".
Silvio Berlusconi writes it on Facebook after the controversy over presidentialism.
"It is clearly absurd to attribute to me a hostile attitude towards President Mattarella - he continues - to whom I have always expressed, in public and in private, institutional respect and personal esteem".
And he adds that he "will be the authoritative guarantor of an orderly transition".