The former Italian Prime Minister died on Monday at the age of 86. He had inherited his nickname from a decoration received in 1977.
A first name, a surname and a nickname. In the obituaries published after the death of Silvio Berlusconi on Monday June 12, the word rider is never very far from the surname of the former Prime Minister. And he accompanied the long and tortuous political trajectory of this media magnate, herald of the transalpine right since the 1990s. Why did he inherit this qualifier, assumed for several decades? Franceinfo looks back on the story of a nickname that marked Italian politics.
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We have to go back to the 1970s. Silvio Berlusconi was not yet a politician, but already a successful Milanese entrepreneur. In the Lombard capital, he made his fortune in real estate by building new neighborhoods in the heart of the Milanese hinterland with his company Edilnord, launched in 1963. The biggest stone of this building is the creation of the residential district Milano 2.
“Il Cavaliere” attacks the political world
This urban project earned him the title of Knight of the Order of Merit and Labor, Cavaliere del Lavoro in Italian. This distinction, which rewards citizens “who have made themselves singularly meritorious” “in agriculture, industry, commerce, crafts, credit and insurance”was awarded to him by the President of the Republic at the time, Giovanni Leone, on June 2, 1977. The rider is in the saddle.
The extension of Silvio Berlusconi’s empire continued in the 1980s, with the rise of cable television, of which he was one of the champions. Then comes the time of politics with, in January 1994, the launch of his own party, Forza Italia. In a country where leaders often inherit nicknames, that of “Il Cavaliere” everything to qualify the person who became President of the Council for the first time in May 1994. Its meaning is also political: in the early 1990s, Italy was the scene of a major legal operation, Mani pulite (“Clean Hands”), targeting Italian leaders suspected of corruption. The figure of the knight appears appropriate to turn the page of this scandal.
A title never lost
The years pass, Silvio Berlusconi remains an essential figure in Italian politics, and the nickname remains. More than its other nicknames, such as “the Cayman” or “Sua Emittenza”a play on words between “eminence” and “transmitter”, “Il Cavaliere“perfectly represents those who cling to power like a rider to his mount. But the turning point of the 2010s comes to hit the trajectory of the Milanese, more and more worried by justice. The Rubygate affair, which broke out in 2009, He was sentenced in 2013 for inciting prostitution of minors and abuse of power, a conviction overturned two years later. in 1977 he had received and left the Order of Merit and Labor.
Is this, however, the endgame for “Il Cavaliere” ? Not really. As several Italian media noted at the time, this honorary distinction can only be withdrawn by the President of the Republic. At the time, Giorgio Napolitano chose to maintain the title of the unsinkable Milanese. The latter will have marked Italian politics until the beginning of the 2020s, decked out with a nickname that has never left him.