"I feel like a patriarch": Silvio Berlusconi had confessed it to Alfonso Signorini in an interview published in Chi for his eighty years. At the time he had five children by two wives and ten grandchildren who have now become sixteen, numbers that clarify two aspects of his character, the love for women and that for the family, which he learned from mother Rosa.
It is she who is always at his side, who advises him and who listens to him. When she fell ill, until her death in 2008, Berlusconi went to visit her in the apartment he gave her in Milan in Viale San Gimignano, taking turns with his brothers Paolo and Maria Antonietta to never leave her alone. Via San Gimignano is an important place in the life of the former premier. In 1964 he was in the church a few steps from there that he married Carla Dall'Oglio, a girl from Moglia, in Mantua, four years younger than him. Even then, among the guests, there was his lifelong friend Fedele Confalonieri. The first two children were born: in 1966 Marina (born Maria Elvira), today president of Mondadori and Fininvest, always ready to defend her father with an iron wrist, so much so that on several occasions there has been talk of her entry into politics, always denied and in 1969 Piersilvio, who became CEO and vice president of Mediaset.
Eleven years later, in 1980, he met the actress Veronica Lario at the Manzoni theater, a love at first sight. He immediately moved it to the villa in Via Rovani, then Fininvest's operational headquarters. In 1984 Barbara was born and, a few months later, the former premier divorced his first wife, without fanfare. In 1986 Eleonora arrives (the only one not to sit on the board of Fininvest) and two years later Luigi, a Bocconi graduate and now sole director of the company B Cinque S.r.l. and chairman of the Board of Directors of Holding Italiana Quattordicesima S.p.A.
And in 1990 the marriage with a civil ceremony with Lario, witnesses Bettino Craxi and his wife, again Fedele Confalonieri and Gianni Letta. In the same year Pier Silvio becomes the father of Lucrezia Vittoria, who in 2021 makes him a grandfather and the former premier great-grandfather. These are the years of the descent into the field, of the birth of Forza Italia, of the arrival at Palazzo Chigi. Meanwhile, the older children begin the journey in the family businesses until they get to the helm. Marina, who became the mother of Gabriele and Silvio, in December 2008 in Arcore married her partner Maurizio Vanadia, a former dancer and currently deputy director of the dance school of the Accademia della Scala. This is the first occasion on which Carla and Veronica meet. Only a few months later Veronica Lario lashed out against her husband and the "shameless rubbish" of the veline candidates in Forza Italia at the European elections. It is the formalization of the crisis that kicks off a long process in court, which continues while the Ruby case breaks out, for divorce, with an initial monthly check to Lario of three million, then reduced to 1.4 million, which further sentences overturn with a request for restitution of about 43 million in addition to legal costs. The affair ends with an out-of-court settlement: he no longer pays money, she does not return anything. In the background also the division between the children in the patrimony trying to keep the family always united.
Berlusconi is not alone for long after the separation. In Christmas 2011 he formalized his relationship with the then 26-year-old Francesca Pascale, in the curriculum the foundation of the club 'Silvio ci manchi', giving her a diamond ring. In 2020, after persistent rumors, it is a statement from Forza Italia to confirm that they are no longer a couple. She leaves the scene and in 2022 civilly joins Paola Turci. At the side of the president comes another blonde, Marta Fascina, born in 1990, deputy since 2018 who joins Berlusconi's now extended family. After Lucrezia Vittoria, in her early twenties, in fact, Piersilvio with the presenter Silvia Toffanin is the father of Lorenzo Mattia and Sofia Valentina. Barbara has five children (Alessandro and Edoardo by Giorgio Valaguzza; Leone, Francesco Amos and Ettore Quinto with Lorenzo Guerrieri, known after the relationship with the footballer Alexandre Pato). Eleonora three (Riccardo, Flora and Artemisia), Luigi two, Emanuele Silvio and Tommaso Fabio born last year. His is the last born, but not the last marriage celebrated which is that (without legal value) of dad Silvio who in a private ceremony on March 19, 2022, for Father's Day, exchanges promises with Fascina.