Italy will commemorate Silvio Berlusconi, the late property and media tycoon who faced more than 30 criminal court cases during his lifetime, in a move that has drawn condemnation from the detractors of the former three-time prime minister.
A postage stamp will be issued on June 12, the first anniversary of the death of Italy’s longest-serving prime minister, who was accused of crimes including tax fraud, under-age prostitution and mafia collusion.
The stamp was dreamt up by Paolo Emilio Russo and Licia Ronzulli, both parliamentarians in the centre-right Forza Italia party, founded by Berlusconi as a launchpad into politics in 1994. The party serves in the prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s governing coalition.
“It was important to recognise Berlusconi’s life in this way,” Russo said. “He was a leading entrepreneur for a very long time, he invented the idea of private television in Italy and across the world and he was a top ambassador for sport.”
Initially forwarded to Italy’s labour ministry, the proposal was approved by government ministers on Tuesday, paving the way for Italy’s state mint to design and print the stamps.
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Marco Travaglio, editor of the Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper, told the La7 TV channel that the initiative was “an absolute indecency”. He added: “I don’t think any serious country would dedicate a stamp to a tax fraudster.”
In February, the anti-mafia association WikiMafia wrote an open letter to President Mattarella asking him to block plans for the stamp.
Russo said the state’s mint would consult Berlusconi’s family on the stamp’s design, predicting they would settle on a “simple” image.
Italy will join a growing number of countries that have commemorated the tycoon with their own stamps, including Liberia, Sierra Leone and Mozambique.
In 2008, Berlusconi handed Libya an apology and $5 billion in compensation for crimes committed by Italian occupiers. Two years later, the country printed a stamp showing him enthusiastically shaking hands with his ally Colonel Gaddafi.
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Italy’s government announced this week that it would also print stamps honouring figures that have proved less controversial. They include Guglielmo Marconi, widely credited as the inventor of the radio, the 13th-century Dominican friar Thomas Aquinas and the opera composer Giacomo Puccini.
