The style that made him so successful in business may not be sowinning in politics, writes Paddy Agnew in Rome.
So, now the rest of Europe knows it too - the Berlusconi Style, that is.
When Italian Prime Minister Mr Silvio Berlusconi launched his now celebrated and infelicitous Nazi-jibe at German socialist MEP Mr Martin Schulz in the Strasbourg parliament on Wednesday, onlookers gasped in dismay at the sheer crassness of his remarks.
For the European audience, Mr Berlusconi's remarks probably came as a culture shock. For those of us familiar with his autocratic, off-the-cuff style ever since his arrival on the Italian political scene in the spring of 1994, it was a familiar sight.
As a business tycoon turned politician, Mr Berlusconi is not someone who earned his spurs in the cut and thrust of canvassing on the hustings. Nor is he someone who spent his formative years arguing his corner in the complex dialectic of party committees and congresses.
When he entered politics, he bought his way in, literally, by forming his own party, Forza Italia, a party which featured many of the protagonists (and brilliantly successful sales techniques) of his business empire.
Likewise, during his current spell in office, when he needed to resolve the complex issue of outstanding judicial problems, his response was to introduce "ad personam" legislation, as he himself admitted in Strasbourg on Wednesday.
That unfamiliarity with the normal cut and thrust of political debate first manifested itself in a memorable news conference at the foreign press club in Rome in the autumn of 1993 when, surprised by the aggressive questioning of journalists, Mr Berlusconi blew his top, shouting "Shame on you" at the gathered hacks. In a celebrated remark back in 1994, the late Indro Montanelli, a right-wing journalist who himself had been the victim of an attack by the Red Brigades, suggested that Mr Berlusconi was "totally illiterate" on the fundamental principles of democracy.
Montanelli had good reason to know his man since he worked (for a short time) as the editor of Il Giornale, after Mr Berlusconi bought that paper in the late 1980s. Montanelli resigned his editorship in protest at Mr Berlusconi's request that Il Giornale take a much more partisan, pro-Berlusconi line in the 1994 election campaign.
Montanelli's "illiterate" remark may seem harsh but it was intended to underline the fact that Mr Berlusconi comes from a background where he was not impeded by the checks and counterbalances that form an integral part of a healthy democracy. On the contrary, he comes from a background where he was the boss, the man who gave orders, took decisions and listened almost exclusively to his own council.
Even Wednesday's controversy illustrated the point. Prior to his Strasbourg speech, Mr Berlusconi had allegedly been warned by European Parliament President Mr Pat Cox, his spokesman Mr Paolo Bonaiuti and senior Italian diplomats, to be wary of reacting to "provocatory" remarks. Did he listen to the advice?
In his seemingly unstoppable rise and rise as a business tycoon, Mr Berlusconi, according to close collaborators such as Mr Fedele Confalonieri of Mediaset and Mr Adriano Galliani of his football club AC Milan, often took decisions which they considered ill-advised if not sheer folly. Nearly always, they claim, Mr Berlusconi was proved right and they wrong.
In politics that same autocratic, almost megalomaniacal approach may not, in the long run, prove so winning. It has already led to a series of gaffes that could easily have been avoided by someone with greater political experience and with a willingness to surround himself with genuine counsellors rather than with political allies who are either "Yes-Men" or cynical fellow travellers, using him as a political meal ticket.