Lucas Vianini was presenting what he described as “a very suggestive” painting of a grieving Virgin Mary on a late-night shopping channel when the art expert received a call from a keen buyer.
It was not uncommon to receive prank calls when presenting paintings during the live TV auctions. So when the channel’s telephone operator told him that the buyer was called Silvio Berlusconi, he thought it was a joke.
“Then, when the person provided Villa San Martino in Arcore as his address and the telephone number for his secretary, I understood that it really was Berlusconi,” Vianini told the Guardian.
“That night, he booked all the artworks that filled the schedule, creating an unprecedented situation: the show ended after three hours as I had no more paintings to present, so much so I had to ask the assistant to retrieve other works from the stock so I could continue the show.”
The phone call before Christmas 2018 marked the start of a friendship between Berlusconi, who died in June at the age of 86, and Vianini, who was appointed chief curator of a vast collection of art amassed by Italy’s former prime minister during the final years of his life, mostly through late-night telesales programmes.
The existence of the collection, containing an estimated 25,000 paintings and stored in a warehouse opposite Villa San Martino, Berlusconi’s main residence close to Milan, was kept mostly under wraps until after the politician’s death.
Berlusconi’s heirs inherited a vast empire including a football club, properties, yachts and his main asset, Mediaset, Italy’s largest commercial broadcaster, worth more than €6bn. The former premier also left behind artworks by Italian greats including Canaletto and Titian that hung on the walls of Villa San Martino.
But the collection in the warehouse was reportedly a burden for the Berlusconi family. Not only did the facility cost €800,000 (£700,000) a year to run, but woodworm had already destroyed some of the works, which were mocked by Vittorio Sgarbi, an art critic and close friend of Berlusconi, as being mostly “worthless”. Sgarbi said Berlusconi gathered the collection, including paintings of nude women and landscapes of his favourite cities – Venice, Naples and Paris – as a result of “sleepless nights”, with the focus being on quantity rather than quality.
Vianinirejects these claims. “Sgarbi was not very generous in his evaluation and he didn’t consider the important works among the collection,” he said. “Besides, the aim wasn’t about spending a million on a painting – Berlusconi had already done that. He chose the paintings for their beauty and pleasantness. The aim was to take a walk through many pictorial genres.”
Vianini vividly recalls the first time he met Berlusconi, when he delivered the works bought on his show to Arcore.
“I was welcomed by the butler, who took me to a room, and after a few minutes the dogs came running in and Berlusconi appeared,” he said. “He greeted me with a big smile and a firm handshake. Being passionate about art, I admired the harmony at Villa San Martino. I remember the fireplaces lit in every room, the bright colours of the enamelled walls, the creaking of the ancient parquet floors, the imposing Venetian chandeliers, the multicoloured Christmas tree and photographs of his family in beautiful silver frames.”
Vianini said Berlusconi complimented his “TV aplomb”, but also advised him: “He said I had to be more incisive and speed up on the presentation of works without dwelling too much on the non-essential details, because ultimately beauty doesn’t need many words. He also gave me tips on my looks and advised me to cut my beard.”
After a non-alcoholic aperitivo, Berlusconi took Vianini’s number and asked him to be chief curator of his collection.
Vianini was housed in the annexe of Villa Gernetto, another of Berlusconi’s homes, where he was responsible for cataloguing and dividing the artworks by genre.
“Berlusconi loved many classical genres,” he said. “But he had a particular love for mythological painting, in particular the mythical love story of Selene and Endymion. I always felt that, being a man who was so in love with life, Berlusconi loved the idea of immortality, and perhaps for this reason he preferred the myth of eternal love. He had a sensitive soul.”
Not everyone would agree with that assessment. Observers have pointed out that paintings of nude women played a significant role in the collection of a man known for his fondness for bunga bunga parties.
But Vianini insisted these paintings were mostly “mythical images”. “There has been a lot of derision about the nudes … but they were academic nudes, there was nothing erotic or pornographic about them,” he said.
Only people close to Berlusconi, or political and business associates, were privy to the warehouse collection, which included a huge self-portrait and a 3-metre marble statue of the politician – a birthday gift from an art merchant in Naples.
It is unclear what fate awaits the artworks, although it is rumoured they might be retained as a memorial.
Either way, the relationship has left a lasting impression on Vianini, who now owns a gallery by Lake Garda.
“Being close to a personality like that for a long time made me discover that everything becomes relative – friendships, promises, alliances,” he said. “I was able to glimpse what power means in various senses and the different ways in which people relate to it. I am happy to have gone through this experience without betraying any of the values I had previously acquired, while becoming enriched with new perspectives.”
