A string of luxury mansions owned by Silvio Berlusconi and used to host the likes of Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin, have been put on sale months after his death.
The properties, believed to be valued at between €700m (£600m) and €800m (£685m), have been put on the market by the former Italian prime minister and media tycoon’s five children.
Mr Berlusconi died on 12 June after battling leukaemia, aged 86; he was a four-time populist prime minister of Italy, forged one of the country’s biggest TV networks and turned AC Milan into one of the best football clubs in the world.
However, he was also involved in dozens of court cases on charges including money laundering, mafia collusion and underage prostitution. The most notorious was the “bunga bunga” sex parties at his Villa San Martino in Arcore, near Milan, which eventually led to his 2013 conviction, later overturned, for paying Moroccan-born Karima El Mahroug for sex when she was 17.
Berlusconi with Tony Blair and his wife Cherie, in Porto Cervo, Sardinia, in 2004— (EPA)
That property is not up for sale, but included is Villa Certosa, located on the northwestern coast of Sardinia, on what is known as the Emerald Coast, for around €250m (£214m).
It is there that Mr Berlusconi hosted Mr Blair and his wife, Cherie, in 2004. The Italian leader put on a £50,000 firework display to welcome the Blairs, which culminated in rockets spelling out “Viva Tony” in the Mediterranean sky.
In an interview with an Italian magazine a few years later, Cherie Blair said she “never had such a night as the one we spent with [Berlusconi] in Sardinia”.
Downing Street defended the meeting at the time, claiming Mr Blair and Mr Berlusconi were discussing the Iraq War, as well as other business deals.
A year earlier, Mr Putin had been pictured at the same property, where he and Mr Berlusconi allegedly discussed deals between Gazprom, the Russian energy company, and Eni, an Italian energy company. Putin and his family were regular guests at Mr Berlusconi’s properties.
The 170-acre Sardinia estate boasts 25 bedrooms, five swimming pools, a golf course and a 300-seater faux ancient Greek amphitheatre, as well as a fake volcano.
Other homes believed to be up for sale include mansions in Cannes, Antigua and on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa.
Berlusconi talks to Vladimir Putin while talking a walk at the Italian’s villa La Certosa in Sardinia, in 2003— (Reuters)
Villa Campari, a 19th-century mansion on Lake Como, is on the same lake as a residence owned by George Clooney; the actor was also a guest of Mr Berlusconi.
Villa Gernetto, a vast residence in the Brianza area near Milan, could also be sold along with as many as 150 apartments near Milan, and Mr Berlusconi’s two favourite yachts, Morning Glory and Sweet Dragon.
However, one property won’t be changing hands, according to his daughter Marina, 57.
Villa San Martino, where the tycoon’s ashes were scattered, will “remain … as a meeting point for our family”, she said last month.
“Villa San Martino must stay alive. We want it to remain the venue for business meetings, as well as, of course, the meeting point for our family. It is what [my father] would have wished.”
However, it is reportedly still occupied by Berlusconi’s last known lover, Marta Fascina, a politician who was 53 years his junior.
