Who they are, what they do and what role Berlusconi’s children have in the company

“I feel like a patriarch”: Silvio Berlusconi confessed this to Alfonso Signorini in an interview published in Chi for his eightieth birthday. At the time he had five children from two wives and ten grandchildren who have now become sixteen, numbers that clarify two aspects of his character, his love for women and for the family, which he learned from his mother Rosa. It is she who is always by her side, who advises him and who listens to him. When she falls ill, until her death in 2008, Berlusconi goes to visit her in the apartment he gave her in Milan in Viale San Gimignano, taking turns with her brothers Paolo and Maria Antonietta so as never to leave her alone. Via San Gimignano is an important place in the life of the former premier. In 1964 it was in the church a few steps from there that he married Carla Dall’Oglio, a girl from Moglia, in the Mantua area, four years his junior. Even then, his lifelong friend Fedele Confalonieri was among the guests.

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The first births
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 hand, so much so that several times there was talk of her entering politics, always denied and in 1969 Piersilvio, became managing director and vice president of Mediaset. Eleven years later, in 1980, the meeting at the Manzoni theater owned by him with the actress Veronica Lario, love at first sight. He immediately had it transferred to the villa in via Rovani, then the operational headquarters of Fininvest. Barbara was born in 1984 and, a few months later, the former prime minister 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 Srl and chairman of the board of holding Italiana Quattordicesima SpA. And the marriage in a civil ceremony dates back to 1990 with Lario, witnesses Bettino Craxi and his wife, again Fedele Confalonieri and Gianni Letta. In the same year Pier Silvio became the father of Lucrezia Vittoria, who in 2021 made him a grandfather and the former prime minister 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 their journey in the family businesses until they get to lead them. Marina, who became the mother of Gabriele and Silvio, married her partner Maurizio Vanadia in Arcore in December 2008, a former dancer and currently deputy director of the dance school of the Accademia della Scala. This is the first occasion in which Carla and Veronica meet. Only a few months later Veronica Lario lashes out at her husband and the “shameless junk” of the veline candidates in Forza Italia for 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 complete with a request for the restitution of approximately 43 million in addition to legal costs.

The out-of-court settlement

The story ends with an out-of-court settlement: he doesn’t pay any more money, she doesn’t return anything. In the background also the division between the children in the patrimony trying to always keep the family together. Berlusconi after the separation does not remain alone for long. In Christmas 2011 he formalized his relationship with the then 26-year-old Francesca Pascale, in her curriculum the foundation of the ‘Silvio we miss you’ club, giving her a diamond ring. In 2020, after persistent rumors, it is a press release from Forza Italia that confirms that they are no longer a couple. She leaves the scene and in 2022 civilly joins Paola Turci.

The Age of Fascina

Alongside the president comes another blonde, Marta Fascina, born in 1990, a deputy since 2018 who joins Berlusconi’s now extended family. After Lucrezia Vittoria, who was 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 from Giorgio Valaguzza; Leone, Francesco Amos and Ettore Quinto with Lorenzo Guerrieri, known after her 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.