Millions of travelers pass through Italian airports every year, but most probably don’t know that Rome’s airport is named for Leonardo da Vinci, Pisa’s is named for Galileo Galilei, and Palermo’s is named for Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, two prosecutors who were murdered in 1992 as payback for their anti-Mafia crusades.
But the decision this month to name Milan’s main international airport after Silvio Berlusconi, the media mogul and former Italian prime minister who died last year at age 86, did not go unnoticed.
The renaming of Milan Malpensa Airport as International Airport Milan Malpensa — Silvio Berlusconi has unleashed a maelstrom of protests from left-leaning lawmakers, a barrage of memes and an online petition to block the designation, which as of Wednesday had more than 160,000 signatures.
It also has made global headlines.
“Why not Bunga-Bunga airport,” said one, in a German-language publication, referring to the sex-fueled bacchanals at Mr. Berlusconi’s villa that he described as merely “elegant dinners.”
The polemics began immediately after the transportation minister, Matteo Salvini, the leader of the far-right League party and a political ally of Mr. Berlusconi, announced on July 5 that the country’s Civil Aviation Authority had approved a request from regional leaders to name the airport after Mr. Berlusconi. Mr. Salvini described him as “ a great businessman, great Milanese and great Italian.” The new name became official less than a week later, Mr. Salvini announced on social media.
Outrage followed.
“Airports are undoubtedly named after people who have brought prestige to Italy, and while Silvio Berlusconi was certainly a great entrepreneur and certainly a part of Italian politics, he was a divisive figure, loved by millions of Italians and opposed by as many millions of Italians who believed he used politics for personal gain,” said Silvia Roggiani, a national lawmaker with the center-left Democratic Party and the party’s regional secretary in Lombardy, where the airport is located, some 30 miles northwest of Milan.
She added in a telephone interview that Mr. Berlusconi’s multiple legal travails, as well as his treatment of women — he promoted women as showgirls on his television channels and had dalliances that caused him legal headaches — did not make him an ideal candidate.
Ms. Roggiani said that her party’s youth wing had sponsored the petition to block the naming, and on Monday the party participated in a demonstration at the headquarters of the Lombardy region, which is run by the center-right. She said that the Democrats would also support legal actions being considered by nine small towns surrounding the airport, which were upset that they had not been involved in the decision to rename it.
Mr. Berlusconi was expelled from the Senate because of a tax fraud conviction and was barred from holding public office for several years, reason enough for to disqualify the honor, his critics said.
Calling the nomination a “purely political act,” Milan’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, posted an appeal on Instagram last week to Mr. Berlusconi’s daughter, Marina. “You experienced firsthand how much your father was loved and hated. Wouldn’t it have been better to wait, to let tempers cool,” he wrote.
According to Italian law, a person has to be dead at least 10 years before a street, piazza or public building is named after him or her. Exceptions can be made, though.
Marina’s brother, Pier Silvio Berlusconi, said that the family had not been informed about the decision until the last minute.
Not everyone is against the naming. “It’s a recognition for someone who did something for Italy. He was more than just talk, like a lot of other politicians,” said Ugo Barelli, a mechanical designer from Milan who was in Malpensa Airport on Tuesday. Rosanna Filomeno, a retired office cleaner in Milan, said, “Why not,” adding, “I liked him, as a public figure.”
At Monday’s protest, feelings were less generous. Demonstrators held signs of other potential airport naming nominees, including the Nobel Prize-winning neurologist Rita Levi-Montalcini and Giacomo Matteotti, a socialist politician who was killed by fascists in 1924. A trade union posted a petition nominating Carla Fracci, the principal dancer of Milan’s La Scala opera theater, who died in 2021.
Stefano Bellaria, the center-left mayor of Somma Lombardo, one of the towns that may sue over the decision, said the airport should have been named after someone who had connections with the area and its aeronautical history.
“They day they build a heliport in Arcore, it’s right that its dedicated to Berlusconi, because he used helicopters, but he has nothing to do with here,” Mr. Bellaria said, referring to the town where Mr. Berlusconi had a villa.
It would have made more sense, he said, to select someone like Gianni Caproni, an aviation pioneer who in 1910 flew the first plane in the area. Another option, Mr. Bellaria said, was Amalia Ercoli Finzi, 87, a local and the first Italian woman to graduate with a degree in aeronautical engineering who has served as a scientific adviser for NASA and the Italian and European space agencies.
“Why not fly high and find a name that will unite?” he asked.
The post A Milan Airport Is Now Named for Berlusconi. Cue the ‘Bunga-Bunga’ Memes. appeared first on New York Times.
