From cruise ship crooner to Italian prime minister, Berlusconi's legacy is as difficult as it's divisive

International correspondent

@alexrossiSKY

Crowds of Berlusconi supporters gathered early at Milan Cathedral.

Many of them had been waving Forza Italia flags, his political celebration.

All of them had come to mourn a person they thought had been an amazing Italian and a tremendous chief of the nation.

But the person - who began as a cruise ship crooner, went on to turn into a property and media baron and thrice prime minister - was massively controversial.

Unsurprisingly, his legacy is as difficult as it's divisive.

Silvio Berlusconi was a singular political expertise and could be a forerunner for proper wing populists to come back.

He was the primary post-modern politician. He did not supply voters a boring programme of insurance policies, he supplied one thing much more mercurial - himself.

Using his ability as an orator and his media energy he created a cult of character and have become an electoral juggernaut.

Often embroiled in authorized battles he railed in opposition to elites, portraying himself as an outsider and a sufferer.

In demise although - afforded a state funeral and a nationwide day of mourning - he has cemented his place, for higher or worse, as a towering determine of the political institution.

Certainly essentially the most influential determine the nation has seen since Benito Mussolini.