Anyone queueing for the Uffizi this month, sipping Brunello on a Chiantishire veranda or trying to spot George Clooney around Lake Como may notice that Italy is having another of its periodic political crises. There have been many, but this one, observers are saying, could signal the end of the extraordinary political career of Silvio Berlusconi.
Last week, the Italian prime minister survived an effective confidence vote in parliament only because rebels in his coalition chose to abstain rather than vote against him. The 73-year-old lothario and billionaire is, as usual, also at the centre of a circus of sex scandals and investigating magistrates. His popularity ratings are plunging and he is in the midst of a messy divorce from a second wife 19 years his junior.
