Bunga bunga and bling aside, Berlusconi’s legacy is a loss of faith in Italy’s political elite

One of European politics' most controversial figures, his career was marked by tawdry sex and corruption scandals

• Silvio Berlusconi, former Italian prime minister, dies aged 86

Best known for his perma-tan, gaffes, bunga bunga" parties and outsized ego, Silvio Berlusconi was a proto-Trumpian populist, the man to beat in Rome for more than two decades, and one of European politics' most controversial figures.

Italy's longest-serving postwar prime minister, Berlusconi, who has died aged 86 according to Italian media, held the job on three occasions, amassing along the way a fortune ranked by Forbes magazine last year as the country's fourth-biggest.