The Bond between Silvio Berlusconi and his Mother
When Rosa Bossi turned 70, her son Silvio Berlusconi was in Paris, but he had a bouquet of roses delivered to her, as many as her years and as tall as she was. Then, at midnight, mother Rosa heard the doorbell ringing: it was Silvio, who brought her his gift: a bas-relief by Pietro Canonica depicting a Virgin with a child offering her a rose. “He filled me with kisses and brought me this Madonna into the house with the help of the driver. It was sculpted in 1936, the year he was born. That’s why he gave it to me”. The bond between Silvio Berlusconi and his mother has always been deep and celebrated.
Rosa Bossi Berlusconi’s Life Story
Rosa Bossi Berlusconi was born in Milan on January 25, 1911 and worked as an employee of the Pirelli group. From her marriage to Luigi Berlusconi she had three children: eldest son Silvio, eldest daughter Maria Antonietta, class 1943, and Paolo, in 1949. Widow since 1989, Rosa Berlusconi has always had her son in her business and political career.
Silvio Berlusconi’s Admiration for his Mother
This is how her son remembered her, full of pride: “She took hours of public transport to work at Pirelli where she was the general manager’s secretary. When I was a child, the family was the most important value, there were no entertainments outside. She did a lot, at 16 she was orphaned and had to raise two younger siblings; then in her late years she always tried to help others by visiting nursing homes and needy people”. Silvio Berlusconi received only one slap from her in his whole childhood: “I had gone to put up posters for the DC in ’48. Five young men from the other political party beat me up. She saw me come back bleeding and thought I had fallen off my bike. She has apologized to me for life”. Mother Rosa was very much against her son’s descent into politics. “I gathered relatives, friends and leaders. Everyone warned me. At 3 in the morning I went to bed but I couldn’t sleep. My mother, who had returned to Milan, was taken back to Arcore in the middle of the night to tell me she was still very much against it. But she added: “I came back to tell you that my husband and I would not recognize the man we wanted to educate you to be, if you, feeling so strongly the duty to do it for your country, did not also find the courage to do it”“. Every Monday, for years, Silvio Berlusconi had a regular appointment at his mother’s house, for lunch, at the house on Viale San Gimignano in Milan. During the summer, on the other hand, the woman reached her son in his villa in Sardinia: she did so until 2006. Mother Rosa passed away on February 3, 2008 at the age of 97: she had been ill for some time. But her son continued to remember her and to be moved when he spoke of her. In 2017, on the occasion of Mother’s Day, he wrote on his Facebook profile: “Mom is the first word we learn to say. Mom is the one who never leaves us, for life, not even when life takes her away. For me, mom was a rock, a guide, a constant and loving presence. It is a presence that still accompanies me today”.
