Drafted 23 August 2024, updated 4 June 2026
‘No one else (…) will get such explicit support from Bernardo as Silvio Berlusconi. In the autumn of 2000, in the midst of the election campaign that would bring the leader of Forza Italia back into government the following year, our father was actively involved in channelling funds and financing to his side. (…) . His efforts also landed him in the newspapers, when in January 2001 he was among the major sponsors of a dinner with 150 guests organised (…) in a palace of family friends, the Brivio Sforza counts, in the centre of Milan. From the first report on the event, the ‘Corriere della Sera’ reveals that it was Bernardo who was one of the most active in identifying the participants [many were Esselunga suppliers] and then convincing them to put their hands in their pockets. The dinner ended with the Cavaliere, as the would-be premier was called at the time, singing in French on stage.” (…). (p. 160).
The person who wrote the article was Lina Sotis, journalist, writer, protagonist and narrator of Milanese society, a close friend of my mother Giorgina and who also knew the Caprotti family well. According to her, the evening at the magnificent Palazzo Brivio seems to have been organised thanks to the old, great friendship between my grandmother Marianne Maire Caprotti, ‘who held a whole generation of relatives to the ropes’, and the equally severe Marquise Marianna Brivio Sforza, grandmother of the current Marquis Hannibal. Berlusconi spoke to the select few present, then it was the turn of Marianne’s ‘son, that Bernardo Caprotti who had organised everything. Harsh and lapidary. The synthesis of his words was: many, blessed and immediately, of course money (…)’.
Grandma Marianne had nothing to do with it. And Dad did not like the article at all. Some time later, I witnessed a chance meeting between Bernardo and Lina during an event organised in Florence, at Palazzo Antinori: Bernardo attacked from his side, but the opponent was not the type to be intimidated and a loud, public quarrel ensued on the staircase during which my father, with his shouting, gave ‘his best’, to the total embarrassment of those present.
The first photograph comes from a series taken at Lina’s second bachelorette party, in November 1993, on the eve of her wedding to Marco Romano, an event that Sotis herself also recalled with nostalgia in an interview for ‘il Giornale’ in April 2015: ‘Yes, it was nice. Readings, music, beautiful. There was Natalia Aspesi, Inge Feltrinelli, Rosellina Archinto, Stella Pende, Gioia Marchi Falck , Mita De Benedetti, Antonella Camerana, Giorgina Venosta…’.
Here the bride-to-be is affectionately portrayed with another protagonist of ‘Milano bene’, Silvia Tofanelli, also a friend of many friends and very much Giorgina’s, often her guest at the villa on Lake Monate. She had always known the Somarè family, talented painters, and certainly followed Giorgina’s long affair with one of them, Guido.
When her grandmother Luisa, Giorgina’s mother, died, she wrote her an affectionate letter in which she remembered her ‘on the beach at the Fortress, beautiful, vital, an irresistible smile’, and very kind to the young girls who were not intimidated by her: after all, a young girl’s spirit like theirs.
According to Lina Sotis, Silvia Tofanelli was the protagonist of ‘the most beautiful city love story of the late 20th century’. She, whom Goffredo Parise described as the most beautiful girl in Italy, met Filippo Rusca, “the most straganzo of the times when ganzi went”, a great friend of Parise (who called Silvia and Filippo the protagonists of one of his novels), married him, and when he died last June, dedicated an obituary to him worthy of their story (L. SOTIS, M. PROIETTI, Palo and “friendzone”; L. DEL CASTILLO, “Goffredo Parise”, p. 114 n. 24).
My mother, Silvia, Lina, Claudio Caprotti and Dado Ulrich were close friends from the ‘Forte days’ (1950s).
On their friendships you can also read this article.
Unpublished texts:
Letter of condolence from Silvia Tofanelli Rusca to Giorgina Venosta Bassetti on the death of her mother Luisa Quintavalle, Milan, 12 May [2009], Villa San Valerio, Caprotti Archives, Giorgina Venosta Archives.
Bibliography:
L. SOTIS, Silvio returns singer and gathers support for election dinner, in ‘Corriere della Sera’, 21 January 2001.
V. BRAGHIERI, “I salotti sono scomparsi e chi ti faori più?”, in “il Giornale”, 20 April 2015.
L. DEL CASTILLO, “Goffredo Parise: una questione di vita”, in “il verri”, no. 64, June 2017, pp. 108-121.
L. SOTIS, M. PROIETTI, ‘Pole and “friendzone”, but are these men or narcissists? Quando del ganzo (vero) hanno buttato lo stampino’, article in the ‘Attente a noi due’ column, ‘Corriere della Sera’, 23 June 2024.
