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Wikipedia
Profile: Silvio Berlusconi, Italian prime minister
After three terms in office, Silvio Berlusconi is Italy's longest serving post-war prime minister as well as one of its richest men.
The 74-year-old and his family have built a fortune estimated at $9bn (£5.6bn) by US business magazine Forbes.
And his business acumen - with an empire spanning media, advertising, insurance, food and construction - has been sufficient evidence for many Italians of his ability to run their country too.
He owns one of Italy's most successful football clubs, AC Milan, and his investment company controls the country's three biggest private TV stations. As prime minister, his appointees control the three RAI public channels too.
Mr Berlusconi has dodged a series of political, sex and corruption scandals but the constant drip of accusations against him has seen many of his friends and allies drift away.
His second wife Veronica Lario began divorce proceedings in May 2009 and told one newspaper she could not stay with a man who "consorted with minors".
And in November 2010, his former political ally, Gianfranco Fini, called on him to resign, as revelations emerged about a teenaged Moroccan nightclub dancer named Ruby.
Ever the survivor, Mr Berlusconi then scraped through a vote of no confidence in parliament.
But on 15 February, examining judge Cristina Di Censo ordered Mr Berlusconi to stand trial on 6 April on charges of paying for sex with Ruby, named Karima El Mahroug, when she was 17.
He has also been charged with abuse of power in another case related to Ruby.
Legal battlesMr Berlusconi, a native of Milan, has frequently complained that he is being victimised by the city's legal authorities.
He has been accused of embezzlement, tax fraud and false accounting, and attempting to bribe a judge. But he has always denied wrongdoing and has never been definitively convicted.
A number of cases have come to trial. In some cases he has been acquitted. In others, he has been convicted, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. In others still, the statute of limitations has expired before the case could reach its conclusion.
In 2009, Mr Berlusconi estimated that over twenty years he had made 2,500 court appearances in 106 trials, at a legal cost of 200m euros.
His government passed reforms shortening the statute of limitations for fraud, but part of a 2010 law granting him and other senior ministers temporary immunity has been struck down by the Constitutional Court, which left the decision up to individual trial judges.
EntrepreneurBorn on 29 September 1936, Silvio Berlusconi began his career by selling vacuum cleaners and built a reputation as a crooner in nightclubs and on cruise ships.
He graduated in law in 1961 and then set up Edilnord, a construction company, establishing himself as a residential housing developer around his native Milan. Milano 2, comprising nearly 4,000 tasteful flats in a garden setting, was built on the city's eastern outskirts in the late 1960s.
Ten years later he launched a local cable-television outfit - Telemilano - which would grow into Italy's biggest media empire, Mediaset.
His huge Fininvest holding company now has Mediaset, Italy's largest publishing house Mondadori, the daily newspaper Il Giornale, AC Milan and dozens of other companies under its umbrella.
Forza ItaliaIn 1993, Mr Berlusconi founded his own political party, Forza Italia - Go Italy - named after a chant used by AC Milan fans.
The following year he became prime minister, forming a coalition with the right-wing National Alliance and Northern League.
But rivalries between the three leaders, coupled with Mr Berlusconi's indictment for alleged tax fraud by a Milan court, led to the collapse of the government just seven months later.
He lost the 1996 election to the left-wing Romano Prodi but by 2001 he was back in power, in coalition once more with his former partners.
He lost the 2006 general election, again to Romano Prodi, having headed the longest-serving Italian government since World War II.
No slowing downThe Italian leader appears younger than his 74 years, partly because of a hair transplant and plastic surgery around his eyes.
But in November 2006, after his election defeat, Mr Berlusconi collapsed at a party rally. He was later fitted with a pacemaker to regulate his heartbeat and said he needed to slow down.
But he was back in office for a third term in April 2008, having defeated centre-left leader Walter Veltroni with a new centre-right People of Freedom party (PDL), incorporating his own Forza Italia and the National Alliance.
The perma-tanned, wrinkle-free politician appeared politically stronger than ever in the early part of his third term.
His swift reaction to a deadly earthquake that struck the central region of Abruzzo in April 2009 is thought to have boosted his popularity.
And just moments after being assaulted in the street in Milan in December 2009, Mr Berlusconi got out of the car into which he had been bundled by security guards, to show the crowd he was not badly injured.
Bitter argumentBut although his opponents on the left appeared fragmented, his political allies began to fall away. In April 2010, he and his coalition partner Gianfranco Fini had a bitter argument at a live televised party congress.
Mr Berlusconi survived several confidence votes in parliament during the summer because Mr Fini and his supporters had refrained from voting against him, but by December Mr Fini's loyalists had left the government and the margin of victory was just three votes.
And his political struggles have been accompanied by a string of lascivious reports in the Italian press about his private life.
Berlusconi's womenIn May 2009, his second wife said she was divorcing him after he was photographed at the 18th birthday party of an aspiring model, Noemi Letizia. She also accused him of selecting a "shamelessly trashy" list of candidates for the European parliament.
He faced further scandal when photos were published of topless women and a naked man at his villa on Sardinia, and also of a celebrity using the prime minister's official jet to fly to the island.
In July 2009, audio recordings appeared in the Italian media which were said to be between the prime minister and an escort, Patrizia D'Addario, who said she and other women were paid to attend parties at his residence in Rome.
Further reports about young women were to come. It emerged in October 2010 that Mr Berlusconi had called a police station asking for the release of the 17-year-old Ruby, who was being held for theft and who was also said to have attended Mr Berlusconi's parties.
She denies they had sex.
Mr Berlusconi has had to bat away other allegations about parties involving young prostitutes at his own residences.
Mr Berlusconi has always maintained he is "no saint". Faced with potentially the most damaging allegations so far, he has now firmly denied ever paying for sex with a woman.
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