A year ago Silvio Berlusconi left him as the sole heir of their memories, of stories that will never be history because only he will remain the custodian of them. And in fact on the eve of the first anniversary, Fedele Confalonieri chooses «silencewhich is the best way to commemorate him”: «I keep my Silvio to myself», that is, the private memories of a lifelong friend who was a public man by definition. The alpha and omega of twenty years of politics. The founder of a media empire. The most successful club president in the history of world football. “A genius”. An arch-Italian so divisive that «his adversaries struggle to recognize what he has done. Today again”. Today marks one year since his passing.
Although he was prepared for the separation, for months Confalonieri went through a very difficult emotional phase. She had stopped traveling to Rome in the middle of the week to look after the interests of the Biscione, and only recently has she started returning to the capital with short and not as regular trips as before. «Because I’m old and because Silvio is no longer here». That “Silvio” who, after having conquered Milan with TVs, championships and buildings, had also taken over in ’94 Palazzo Chigi. Dreaming until the end of furnishing even the rooms of the Quirinale. And when he said he wanted to try, Fidel took up the task: «Because he is the man of impossible missions. And I will do the impossible for him.”
It was Berlusconi’s swan song but it was not the end of Berlusconism. Because it is true that his fault was not having left “the largest moderate party in history”, as he had promised. But he left a legacy of a coalition, the centre-right which was his invention and which, despite now looking more like a right-centre, has returned to government with one of his (distant) heirs at the helm. “Which seems to me to be going very well,” Confalonieri said while reading the results of the European Championships. Pure Forza Italia has resisted the elements of politics and the absence of Berlusconi: thanks to the work of its management team and the support of his family.
«The kids are good», «Uncle Fedele» once commented when speaking of Berlusconi’s children: «They are honoring their father by respecting his wishes. With confidentiality and without arguments, as happens in other families where a fortune is involved”. These are not circumstantial phrases, because he is not an employee talking about his employers. Fidel is the person who shared his childhood and then his youth with the Knight, he was the only one who fired him because – instead of playing in the little orchestra they had set up – «Silvio lingered in public relations with the girls who were there to listen to in nightclubs and dance halls.” «He was like this…”. And it has never changed.
Just as their partnership has never changed. Despite Confalonieri always repeating that «if I am what I am I owe it to Berlusconi», it is well known that he was allowed to contradict him. In private as in public. An exclusive right, recognized not only for reasons of friendship. In fact, the corporate flair is also accompanied by the political flair that Fidel hides behind his role as a “lobbyist”. But even in the Cavaliere’s last Roman season it was he who anticipated the times, doing theendorsement in favor of Giorgia Meloni. And he had always explained to Berlusconi that «Elly Schlein will revive the left, because she says new things to her voters. When he talks about inequalities, for example.”
Always at Silvio’s side. In the season of muscular bipolarismthe one of duels with Romano Prodi. In the troubled days of the second marital relationship, when he spoke with Veronica Lario. In the period of social services in Cesano Boscone, «which was the last act of the war unleashed by the robes against him». And finally in the sad epilogue of the illness, when to preserve his friend he rebelled against the insistence of the reporters with a “don’t break your necks…”. In order to be close to him, he asked for understanding from her daughter who was waiting for him in Paris. And he stayed in Milan. Where he would then supervise the organization of the funeral ceremony in the prefecture.
“I know I’m old, but when they asked me if he was old I never answered.” It was their bond that made Berlusconi immortal. In the past he had considered him “invincible”, because of those ideas that “seemed like unattainable dreams and which he instead managed to materialise”. He was fascinated by the Knight but saw his weaknesses. And he criticized his mistakes. In his last years there was a period when he couldn’t talk to her face to face. Their dialogues, even on the telephone, were always mediated by other presences. And she regretted it. But the relationship survived that phase and was re-established as in the old days.
They had the same sympathy for Umberto Bossi, if only because Fedele felt (and feels) «a first-time Northern League supporter. Of the first, not the last.” And why Berlusconi, after the insults of «Berluskaz», established a relationship with the founder of the Northern League: «… And know that when you stop doing politics, I will too». They never stopped. And no one has managed to oust the Knight: the list of foxes that have ended up in furriers is long. On the other hand, as Confalonieri explained at the time, “in politics there is no law according to which leadership is transmitted by inheritance.” Which translated for the aspirants meant: take his power if you are capable of it.
What took it away from him – along with missteps – was time and that process of attrition of human things which in politics reveals itself with the loss of consensus. Already at the beginning Berlusconi was surprised that he did not have the trust of all Italians. Imagine when in recent years – reflected in the polls – he realized that he no longer had the trust of all those Italians who had voted for him. From the time of the “descend into the field” to the leap onto the famous “step”, he had managed to get up after every fall. When he handed over the bell of the Council of Ministers to Mario Montihe knew he would never let it play again.
But the most difficult feat of his life was putting it together eleven players on the pitch, rather than getting eleven million Italians to agree. And although he had no longer been their president for years, there were AC Milan fans in the cathedral churchyard on the day of his funeral. Berlusconi’s epic endures in the symbol of the Biscione, and even today Confalonieri is the representative of the roaring years of the challenge to state television. There is no public moment of the two that has not been told. But Fidel doesn’t want to talk about the private one: “I keep my Silvio to myself.” He is jealous of his inheritance.
