by For the correspondent in Rome who wants to understand the inner workings of Italian politics, relief is now at hand – the prospect of a warm bath.
The bathhouse happens to be where Silvio Berlusconi indulged in some of his more raucous “bunga bunga” shenanigans, where he cavorted with young women less than a third of his age.
On Monday, the foreign press corps moved into a large palazzo in Rome owned by the former prime minister known as “Il Cavaliere“ (The Knight).
The water to the bath was still running when one of the 300 or so international correspondents who make up the Foreign Press Association tried the taps.
The last home of the press corps, a building around the corner from the famous Trevi Fountain, has been sold to become a five-star hotel.
After an intensive search for a new location, the 16th century Palazzo Grazioli was chosen.
It was Berlusconi’s home for many years, when he was prime minister and then when he was forced to resign in 2011 amid a debt crisis.
Apart from the sunken bath, perhaps the most striking feature is the secret door hidden behind a wooden bookcase in one of the rooms where journalists will be finessing their copy.
With a hidden handle the bookcase can be opened with a rattle, revealing a dark space and an old wooden door.
The door leads to a back staircase that spills out into the courtyard of the Palazzo – the perfect escape, perhaps, for a hard-pressed correspondent whose foreign editor is on the prowl after missing a deadline.
Another wide staircase is overlooked by the stuffed head of a Javanese rhinoceros, shot in 1879 by an Italian duke, ancestor of the aristocratic Grazioli family that still owns the building.
The foreign press association took over the entire first floor of the palazzo – in Italian known as the “piano nobile” – literally, the noble floor, where bedrooms and reception rooms are traditionally found.
George Clooney once passed through here, hoping to speak to the prime minister about aid efforts in Darfur. Berlusconi had other ideas.
“It turned out to be a very different evening than anyone thought,” the Hollywood actor later recalled. “I was like ‘I’ve got to go’ and he was saying ‘No, where are you going? There’s going to be a party’, and I was like, ‘I don’t have to go – I really do’.”
Much of the original decoration and furnishings remained. There are huge tapestries and oil paintings on the walls, alongside finely etched mirrors and chandeliers. Frescoes on the ceilings depict muscular classical warriors, plump cherubs and scantily clad nymphs.
‘How beautiful’
“Che bello – how beautiful,” said Alina Trabattoni, a member of the foreign press club. “It’s almost too much.”
The Italian state pays the major cost of renting the property.
The arrangement has its origins in the Fascist era; Mussolini was keen to gather all the foreign journalists together in one place so he could keep tabs on them.
Rome correspondents are a privileged team. There are a handful of other foreign correspondent clubs around the world, in places like Hong Kong, Bangkok and Tokyo, but they rarely offer the sumptuous facilities like the one in Rome.
There was a buzz when journalists from many different nationalities, from Canadian and Iranian to British, French, German and Turkish, arrived for work on Monday and admired the beautiful decoration.
“It’s like the first day at school. You half expect to see everyone setting out their pencils and pencil cases,” said a British colleague.
The toilets have remained as they were when Berlusconi lived here, complete with baths and brass taps. Water still flows from the taps, promising a long soak in the tub.
‘suffocated with kisses’
The Telegraph’s assigned desk space is in Berlusconi’s old bedroom – unfortunately, the double bed said to be a gift to him from Vladimir Putin has been removed.
It was here that he invited a prostitute named Patrizia D’Addario to spend the night. She wrote a very detailed account of the encounter in a book entitled, Prime Minister, Take Your Please.
“He told me he wanted to touch my skin, he held me tight, he took my breath away … he smothered me with kisses,” Ms. D’Addario wrote. “We kissed an infinite number of times, with him most of all kissing my private parts.”
His stamina was so great “that he could enter the Guinness Book of Records”. He kept her up all night, she said. “There were times when I was afraid I would not withstand his attacks. Does it take something? I have asked myself many times.” She said his energy may have come from the “sweet” herbal tea he drank.
The prime minister invited her back to the palazzo and then she was not the only woman in his sights. “As an escort, I thought I had seen it all – but 20 women for one man was a new experience.”
Journalists can now wander down a long corridor where Berlusconi and Putin were photographed beaming as they threw a ball for one of the Italian premier’s white poodles, called Dudu.
A libidinous era
At the height of the bunga bunga scandals, when the prime minister was being entertained by young models and actresses, a pair of them wearing little black dresses took photographs of each other standing in front of the mirror, holding a hairdryer like a pistol if they were Bond girls.
Undoubtedly, the photos were leaked and are now one of the enduring images of Berlusconi’s libidinous era. Correspondents joked about finding G-strings and pairs of knickers in the bathroom cupboard.
Berlusconi, a three-time prime minister and billionaire businessman, died last year.
There is a bar with, as a central part, an arrangement of Campari bottles – the drinks maker is one of the sponsors of the place, along with Barilla, a pasta company, and the chocolate company Ferrero.
“I think with our last place, we probably had the best foreign press club in the world,” said Philip Willan, a British journalist who has lived in Italy for many years and writes occasionally for the Times.
“With this new place, there can be no doubt.”
