Is this the new Berlusconi?

Rome. A summer evening at the Colosseum. Snarling traffic and noisy crowds can be heard, but inside the arena the air is cool and still. On the dais, here to formally inaugurate the site’s restoration, which he is funding with a €25 million donation, is Diego Della Valle, ‘the shoemaker’, as the snooty Romans call him. He has built a fashion empire, transforming his father’s successful shoe business into a global brand, Tod’s, which continues to expand even in the depths of recession. His has plenty of other business interests, too, from the football club Fiorentina to the Corriere della Sera, Italy’s most respected newspaper. In Italy’s most powerful boardrooms, as well as on television, where he is a guest on political chat shows, he has risen to prominence for being unafraid to spar with Berlusconi — without resorting to the mudslinging polemics and absurd demagoguery that are the sorry standard in Italian debate.