Rome Letter: In the week before Christmas your correspondent was one of about 20 resident foreign correspondents invited to lunch with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
The lunch, in Palazzo Chigi, the government house, was a cordial, relatively informal affair at which some delicious pennette tricolore (three types of pennette pasta to reflect the colours of the Italian tricolour) were cheerfully washed down with Capichera Vermentino 2004.
The ebullient, energetic Mr Berlusconi ate sparingly, since he was too busy answering a succession of questions from the journalists.
On a couple of occasions, the prime minister expressed his satisfaction at being able to express his opinions directly to the foreign correspondents, unfiltered by Italian domestic media "analysis". No mention was made of previous Berlusconi scepticism about the reliability of the resident foreign media in Italy, in the past referred to as a "den of communists".
Just a week ago, however, the prime minister was back at his old tricks, defending himself against foreign media criticism of, among other things, his judicial track record, the conflict of interests posed by his ownership of three commercial TV channels and the introduction of a series of "ad personam" laws during his term of government, by telling a morning TV show: "The international dailies do not send their best journalists to Italy, let's be clear about that . . ."
Before we get too upset about Mr Berlusconi's observations, let us point out that we are now in the middle of an election campaign in which his centre-right coalition will be opposed by a centre-left "union" led by former European Commission president Romano Prodi.
Officially, the election campaign kicked off last Saturday with the dissolution of parliament by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. In reality, however, Mr Berlusconi has been out on the hustings (of the televisual and radio variety) for some weeks now.
Since the beginning of the new year, the Great Communicator has been on about every radio and TV chat show in the land (including the traffic report channel), talking himself up and talking up the achievements of his government over the past five years and the reasons why, despite opinion polls to the contrary, he believes he will win when Italians go to the polls on April 9th and 10th.
To some extent, Mr Berlusconi had to get his retaliation in first, since legislation relative to the "official campaign" means that broadcasters have to give equal time to both the centre-right and the centre-left. And "retaliation" he has got in. Foreign correspondents, frankly, came off lightly.
Speaking to followers from his Forza Italia party in Modena 10 days ago, the prime minister launched into one of his habitual attacks on the politically-motivated "red" magistrates who have hounded him during the past 10 years. When a member of the audience shouted that he should send them to Cuba, the prime minister had an immediate riposte: "Even if you sent them [ magistrates] to Cuba, all they would do would be sex-tourism, and they would come home having learned nothing."
His critics on the left, and their newspapers, he suggested on the same evening in Modena, always seemed "pissed off", perhaps because they had to "start off the day looking at themselves in the mirror as they shaved".
In recent days the prime minister has described Mr Prodi as "pathetic and banal" while downplaying a recent, much-publicised marathon run by the former commissioner by saying that the centre-left leader had "jumped in and out of the course".
As always, however, when he is out on the campaign trail, Mr Berlusconi concentrates his best shot on selling himself. On Saturday, he declared that an opinion poll, commissioned by his own people from an unnamed "serious American firm" (Italian opinion pollsters are suspect), showed that he was now leading the election contest. In contrast, most Italian polls show the centre-right trailing the centre-left by four to five points.
Nor were seasoned Berlusconi-watchers surprised to hear him compare himself to Napoleon last weekend, saying that, in European history, "only Napoleon did more than me", adding: "I am taller, however".
At a dinner with businessmen last Saturday night, however, Mr Berlusconi possibly surprised commentators, political rivals and allies alike when he jokingly notched up the self-promotional drive several degrees by declaring: "I am the Jesus Christ of politics, a patient victim. I put up with everything. I sacrifice myself for everyone. You entrepreneurs must do the same."
Who wants to bet against the "Jesus Christ" of Italian politics pulling off a miracle next April?