by EDOARDO CAMPANELLA
Italy has always had a weakness for authoritarian figures. Emperors, kings, princes, or despots have held power one after another since the time of the Roman Empire. The last dominant personality, Silvio Berlusconi, deserted by his supporters under the pressure of global financial markets, is out as prime minister. Political fragmentation, age constraints, and emotional exhaustion have induced him to promise that he will not seek office again.
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Whatever one’s view, the story of Berlusconi’s rise and fall was written long ago, during the Renaissance, in Niccolò Machiavelli’s classic work The Prince. Berlusconi carefully followed all of Machiavelli’s teachings on how to obtain and maintain power – all but one, and that lapse sealed his fate.
According to Machiavelli, a leading citizen is chosen as prince by the favor of his fellow citizens if his authority is perceived as arising from his ability to defend them from the elite (at that time, the nobility). When Berlusconi started his political adventure in 1994, Italians wanted protection from a ruling class that had been revealed to be utterly corrupt. He presented himself as a self-made billionaire, willing to enter politics for the good of the country. His huge wealth was the collateral for his honesty.
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When he was in power, Berlusconi was a master at maintaining it. According to Machiavelli, a prince is praised for the illusion of keeping his word. Owning the main Italian TV channels and much of the popular press simplified this for Berlusconi, and he sometimes resorted to censorship of the state-owned television channels as well. His media reported half-truths, depicting a country with a sound economy and a good reputation abroad. In fact, languishing economic growth, legal scandals, and the absence of long-term goals were leading Italy toward a precipitous decline.
Machiavelli argues that a prince ought to be well armed to take action against external powers. In Berlusconi’s case, these powers were actually internal but out of his control. His archenemy was the justice system. He faced 16 trials for various offenses alleged to have been committed prior to his political career. The army at his disposal was the strongest a democracy has: the law. He passed several measures to safeguard himself and his entourage against prosecution, arguing all the while that communists were conspiring to bring him down.
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