Silvio Berlusconi died on Monday at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan, his doctors said in a statement. The former Italian Prime Minister was readmitted last Friday for planned medical checks related to his chronic leukemia. The 86-year-old had recently spent 45 days in the same hospital being treated for a lung infection and chronic leukaemia, before being discharged exactly three weeks ago. The three-time premier was one of Italy's most successful businessmen and an influential, yet controversial and divisive, politician. He was a dominant force in Italian politics for the last 30 years and still headed his center-right party, Forza Italia, despite suffering several health issues since 2016. Last year, his party entered the right-wing coalition currently in government, with Berlusconi returning to parliament as an elected senator after a nine-year-long hiatus. But many now agree that Berlusconi had been progressively marginalized and isolated within the context of Italian politics, and had lost the role of leader of the country's right-wing coalition. Berlusconi's death is "the end of an"era" for Italy, according to the country's Repubblica newspaper. It is the final line closing a 30-year-long chapter of Italian history that has been marked by major cultural changes, political scandals and international gaffes. Il Cavaliere (the knight), as he was nicknamed, was born in Milan in 1936 to a middle-class family. He began his business career in property development before founding Mediaset, Italy's largest private broadcaster, having once sung on cruise ships and nightclubs as a young man. Berlusconi rose to the top of Italian politics despite his lack of experience, pushed forward by his success as an entrepreneur. He was elected prime minister for the first time in 1994, and then again in 2001 and 2008. In 2011, he was forced to resign by an acute debt crisis. In late 2012 he was convicted of tax fraud, for which he served a year-long sentence doing part-time community service at a residential home in Milan. — Euronews
