Thursday, May 28, 2009

"BASTA! "SAYS VERONICA Lario Berlusconi.


Veronica Lario, wife of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is determined to proceed with divorce proceedings against her husband.

Her three children Luigi, Barbara and Eleanora pleaded for their mother to reconsider, but she is moving ahead with a cold and unfazed purpose.

"He frequents minors, he is not well and he is not real."

I am not aware nor do I know of any wife of any billionaire who would have the burning balls to say that publicly. My many gorgeous hats off to her.

From a purely pecuniary point of view, if Veronica had not asked for a legal separation followed by a looming battle ( hopefully behind the scenes ) for a divorce after 20 years of marriage, she would automatically under the laws of succession have a right to 25% of Silvio's patrimony. The five children, two by a first wife and three by Veronica would each get 10%. It doesn't take a genius in Physics to calculate that should Berlusconi die someday, she and her three children would have 55% of his Empire. She has decided to give up her 25%. But - she is not going to tell Silvio to stuff it. She will do battle so that her children will receive her share. Will Silvio agree? I doubt he has the stamina for a prolonged fight. This is an election year. Timing is very important. Veronica used to be an actress on the stage. No one understands timing better than an actress of her calibre.

Those who say money isn't everything are usually those who have never had it. For those who live and wallow in it, more often than not it is a curse. It takes discipline, a deep sense of spirituality and religion, culture and a well-formed childhood for a billionaire to behave in what an expert of human behavior would define as "a halfway decent attitude and comportment."

I have personally met more poor kind people than rich ones. Few of the men and women choking in money whom I have met in the course of my life were reasonably well-adjusted people nor did they even possess a smidgin of joy or even common decency. Please don't even mention Bill and Melinda Gates with their pasikat - show-off foundation. We shall tackle that one on another occasion.

When the matriarch Dona Esperanza, my grandmother was alive the members of my clan behaved in a humane, compassionate and generous manner. Everything seemed to rapidly tumble downhill after her death.

Veronica is descended from a family of fighters Her uncles, grandfather and father fought the National Socialists and the Fascists as heroic partisans. The pathetic figure of a billionaire husband ill with prostate cancer and who knows what else is not going to make her lose her famous phlegm. In a way, she cannot help feeling compassion for the sorry state her husband is in.

There is no doubt that Berlusconi changed. Billions inevitably and fatally have that power over humans. I remember him as candid, natural, kind, understanding, brilliant and quick witted. I hosted a radio and television show in Florence "Ciao Baby." He owned the radio and television station. We are talking about the early 80's. He had accumulated several millions by then. What can I say? Silvio was a delight to deal with as a person and as a boss.

What happened?????

There is a beautiful painting of Henry the VIII, the Tudor King of England. When I last saw it, the work by Holbein the Younger was in the British Museum. He was young, handsome, body beautiful, charismatic, his blue eyes limpid and his mouth sensuous. He exuded a physique du role unmatched by any other European Ruler.

What happened?????

I could go on ad infinitum.

Veronica will fight for her children. She won't accept their role in their father's Empire to be any less in percentages or in importance to the other two elder children by his first wife.

For years she has been living in a separate Villa from Silvio. The parties and the orgies became unbearable. She is a seeker of Knowledge, Beauty, Culture. I would venture to say that she has grown and developed into an intellectual. She is a sort of mother Earth to her children and to her grandchild.

When a woman like Veronica draws a line in the sand and says, "enough is enough," we had better believe her.


Author's Note: Observe the breathtaking sapphire necklace and earrings Veronica is imperiously sporting to match her blue eyes. Those sapphires must be about 15 carats each. The pendant is probably closer to thirty carats. Brava. Better to spend the lolly on gems instead of derivatives or other rubbish.

She has referred to the gals/women he was considering presenting on his party's list as candidates for the European Parliament as "Political refuse." Ciarpame politico in Italian. It's a diplomatic way of saying scum.

4 comments:

  1. Regarding that painting of Henry the Eighth when he was young, I too am familiar with it, and I've often wondered about it the same was you do.

    A corollary of this mystery is the fact that when Henry VIII was a young man - healthy and handsome as in that painting - he wrote and published a brilliant defense of the Catholic Church against Luther, and for that the Pope awarded him the title, "Defender of the Faith". Paradoxically, that title is still held by the British monarch, and it is still inscribed (as an abbreviation) on all British coins even today. The initials above the bust of the monarch on all British coins, "D.G.R.F.D" mean "By the grace of God, King/Queen and Defender of the Faith."

    Until a few decades ago the inscription included "Ind Imp", "Emperor of India". I'm not sure if, or when, the official title of the English/British monarch ceased to include "King of France" - a claim going back to the Hundred Years War in the 1300s - but it did so at least until the 1799 as I see on an antique English legal document I own ;-) King George III of Britain used the title "King of France" on all his official documents in 1799 when Napoleon was invading Egypt! HA!

    Our Australian coins simply say, "Elizabeth II...Australia". I'm a monarchist and I approve of that simple inscription. But for her official title to include "Defender of the Faith" is just bloody illogical, considering how her ancestor Henry became an enemy of the very same Catholic Church which granted him that title.

    And as a Catholic - even more so as an ENGLISH Catholic - it has never made any sense to me that King Edward VIII's marriage to a divorcee barred him from the throne, considering how the Anglican Church was founded precisely FOR the sake of a King's divorce.

    Anglicans: The Court Jesters of the Catholic Church. :-) The Anglican Church is not evil, but it's preternaturally foolish.

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  2. Another thought about Henry the Eighth and his divorce and his consequent repudiation of the Catholic Church:

    Well as I assume Isabel probably knows, in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance it was very common and easy for Catholics to get "annulments" of marriage, in other words de facto divorces, as long as they paid enough money and/or had political reasons acceptable to the Bishops and/or the Pope.

    This even goes on today. I've known several nominally "Catholic" Americans who very easily procured Catholic Church annulments (de facto divorces) of their prior marriages so that they could remarry again in the Catholic Church.

    So now this makes me wonder if King Henry the 8th might have had better and easier options available to him, other than totally cutting England off from the Catholic Church, when he simply wanted an annulment of his marriage. In those days it was even EASIER to get an annulment than it is today, if you had enough money and power to bribe the Pope.

    Now, the reason why the Pope refused to give Henry an annulment of his marriage to first wife, his Spanish wife Catherine, was because the Pope was politically beholden to - and related by family to - the King of Spain. And yes, King Henry AND the English people (my ancestors) truly DID have good reasons to be aggrieved by the Pope's interference in England's internal political affairs! And therefore I'm proud of how my English ancestors defied and defeated the bloody Spanish Armada in 1588, when the Pope and his cousin/ally the King of Spain attempted to conquer England for venal reasons having nothing to do with the Gospel.

    Ah, but THEN I still wonder, did King Henry have NO OTHER CHOICE but to cut England off from the Catholic Church, just so that he could get an annulment?

    I think not. Come on, King Henry COULD have BRIBED the Pope to give him an annulment! He could have wheeled and dealed with the Pope and the King of Spain, along the lines of:

    "Okay, if the Pope grants me an annulment and permits me to marry a younger woman so that I can have a male heir to the throne of England for the sake of England's stability, then I will order (through Parliament which I control) a "special annuity" of five percent of all income of all English monasteries to be given to the Vatican for the next 100 years, as a gesture of England's gratitude to the Vatican for supporting the stability and continuation of England as a Catholic country in these perilous times of Protestant heresy. And another five percent of the income of all English monasteries will be sent to the Treasury of my cousin the King of Spain for the next 100 years, in thanks for his support and alliance with me as we defend and maintain the Catholic Church in these times of rampant heresies, PROVIDED THAT the Pope and the King of Spain will acknowledge any heir that I choose - from any wife I choose - as the true heir of the Throne of England."

    If Henry had had the calm presence of mind - and the lack of hubris - to negotiate with the Pope and the King of Spain like THAT, then in the LONG run he would have SAVED England's treasury a lot MORE money than England ended up spending in the consequent wars against Spain!

    Hmmm...now this reminds me of the stupidities of ALL nations who started WW I and WW II... hmmm....

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  3. Veronica comes across as molto furba e simpatica, and poor Silvio on the road to emotional and physical ruin, despite his billions. Is he in any shape to perform the duties his office demands, or has failing health claimed the faculties he once possessed? I didn't realize he was so ill until I read your analysis, Isabel. Here's hoping Veronica succeeds in securing her 25% for Luigi, Barbara and Eleanora. Forza, Veronica!

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  4. Your comparison with Henry VIII rings true, I wonder if there is any particular Anne Boleyn in this case? There was an interview with the Italian prime minister on Russian TV, as I heard him speak of his childhood, his rise on the political ladder, his dreams and aspirations for days to come, your post kept coming to mind and I also asked myself what on earth happened to this excellent, respectable gentleman? Yes, power ruined many a man and since you started that thought, let me bring up another Henry, the French king Henry IV, also known as Henry of Navarre. The crown certainly changed him for the worse…

    As for the thought expressed here regarding the establishment of the Anglican Church, I must respectfully disagree. Henry had long been pondering on separating from Rome and making himself the only undisputed authority in the Kingdom. Henry’s love of power was much greater than his love of women, in my humble opinion. That divorce was used to aggravate the pope and the Catholic princes, Henry had more than one reason to break free from the Pope and Anne Boleyn, however pretty she may have been, was not the only, nor the most important reason for his actions.

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Isabel Van Fechtmann

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