The controversial and colorful former prime minister of Italy – Silvio Berlusconi – has died. 

The perpetually tanned billionaire media magnate was 86 and was being treated for leukemia.

Berlusconi began building his fortune as a real estate developer and then moved on to create a highly successful television network.  At one point, he was known as Italy’s richest man. 

And then he moved into politics, an arena which scholars say he Americanized. 

The right-wing politician served as prime minister in four governments beginning in 1994. Berlusconi faced a host of political scandals during his political foray.  He was known for his bunga bunga sex parties with prostitutes and at one point faced charges of paying for sex with a teenage belly dancer. He was acquitted of those charges.

The scandals did not stop him from building a lasting political legacy, however. “He is the man who unified the Italian right,” Roberto D’Alimonte, a political-science professor at Luiss university in Rome told The Financial Times, “He made it acceptable and competitive.”
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