The "Iron Lady", Baroness Margaret Thatcher, made an impassioned call for electoral support for Mr Berlusconi - and he was elected Prime Minister. In Britain, the question is whether she can, or will, offer the same boost to Mr Hague.
Mr Hague, floundering 20 points behind The Labour Party in opinion polls, could certainly use some help - and the 76year-old Mrs Thatcher still inspires levels of public passion many politicians would die for.
Campaigners out and about with the former Conservative prime minister in her old constituency this week wept for times past as she mingled with adoring supporters.
All her old trademarks were there - the traditional blue suit, the ever-present handbag, the heavy string of pearls. But Hague's Conservatives know passion can swing both ways.
"She's good stuff for us. She's always helpful," one of the Tories' chief campaign strategists said. "You have to remember she's getting on a bit. This is our election, and she can't be expected to fight in the way she did 20 years ago," he added.
Mrs Thatcher's private office said she would indeed be "out and about" during the campaign, despite a report in the Financial Times which claimed Mr Hague's team had decided to use this particular weapon only "sparingly".
Political analysts warn that the sighs of nostalgia echoing around Baroness Thatcher's old stamping ground of Finchley in north London and in the corridors of Conservative headquarters may not resound across the country.
"Thatcher was the most polarising politician in British political history," said Prof Patrick Dunleavy, of the politics faculty at the London School of Economics.
"Forty per cent of the country loved her, and the rest absolutely detested her, and many people outside the Conservative Party regard her as a bit batty - to put it mildly. So she is likely to be a double-edged weapon."
In her talk - and sometimes silence - about Mr Hague, Baroness Thatcher has already displayed that double edge.
On Monday she told supporters Mr Hague was an "excellent" leader of the party she led to three successive election wins.
But asked to predict a victory for Mr Hague, she succumbed to nostalgia herself, saying simply: "I never lost."
Her husband, the 86-year-old Mr Denis Thatcher, was more direct: "Bloody bad business with those polls," he told the Times. "They just won't budge."