Silvio Berlusconi's Top 10 Controversial Women

Faced with the thorny problem of having no "First Lady" to look after the G8 leaders' spouses on their three day trip to Italy, Silvio Berlusconi has come up with a solution in keeping with his reputation.

1. Veronica Lario, 52, Berlusconi’s long suffering wife of 20 years and mother of his three children. They started an affair while he was still married to first wife and he saw her topless on stage.

2.Noemi Letitzia, 18, schoolgirl who calls Berlusconi ’Papi’ and who has been the subject of media spotlight after it emerged he had visited her coming of age party and gave her a 6000 euro gold and diamond necklace.

3. Barbara Matera, 28, science graduate and the only succesful one of the original four showgirl candidates to be put forward as MEP. But she is better known for her appearance in Miss Italia and her TV career where she has appeared as an announcer and in several soaps.

4. Camilla Ferranti, 30, actress named on the MEP list but failed to make the cut. She has posed semi-naked for a variety of calendars and magazines and has also appeared in several Italian soap operas. Camilla hit the headlines last year after it emerged that Berlusconi had rung the head of the state television company RAI and ’suggested’ she be given a role in a top TV series. The part went to another actress.

5. Angela Sozio, 31, Flame-haired Angela has appeared on Grande Fratello - Italy’s Big Brother - and was famously snapped sitting on Berlusconi’s knee two years ago at a weekend break with four other women at his luxury villa in Sardinia.

6. Eleonora Gaggioli, 29. She also has a glittering past as a TV star and a search on the internet for her throws up several photographs of her posing in her underwear on a leopard print sofa. Like Camilla, Eleonora was also named in the so-called Silvio tapes last summer.

7. Mara Carfagna, 33, former model, Miss Italy contestant and calendar girl but never "anything erotic" now Equal Opportunities Minister in Berlusconi’s cabinet. At an awards dinner two years ago year Berlusconi told Miss Carfagna, who is single, that if he wasn’t married he would “gladly marry” her. His wife Veronica sent a letter to a national newspaper demanding he apologise for embarrassing her - which he duly did.

8 and 9 Eleonora (student) and Imma De Vivo, (surgeon’s assistant) both 27, and twins who sprung to fame after appearing on L’Isola dei Famosi (I’m a Survivor Get Me Out of Here) The twins from Naples were eliminated from the show but were hugely popular and were then
given jobs as weathergirls.

10. Elena Russo, 35, again one of five women mentioned on he so called Silvio tapes where Berlusconi calls a TV produer friend asking him to find jobs for the women he later calls his ”little butterflies.” She is now the ’face’ of the cleaned up Naples TV advert which praises Berlusconi’s government for resolving the city’s rubbish crisis.