This Europe: Silvio's musical delights await Putin

When Vladimir Putin visits Sardinia at the end of next week, as the guest of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, at his magnificent villa, he has a treat in store.

Disregard the 400 exotic cacti Mr Berlusconi has ordered from the world's best garden centres, now being dug in by crews of sweating gardeners to form a natural amphitheatre, and the 500-year-old carob tree he bought last year in Cagliari and replanted here, and the artificial lake, specially widened for the Russian President's visit.

No, the high point of the "diplomacy of friendship" Mr Berlusconi is preparing will be the concert of self-penned love songs to which he is devoting his holiday mornings.

Mr Berlusconi has never made any bones about his love of music: as is well known, he paid his way through law school by working as a crooner on cruise ships. But despite the cares of office, his passion for song took a surprising turn two years ago when he first heard a Neapolitan singer and guitarist called Mariano Apicella play in Naples.

"Please allow me to introduce myself," he said to the stunned musician after the show. "At heart you and me are partners." Since then, Apicella has been at the Prime Minister's beck and call.

According to Marcello Dell'Utri, one of Mr Berlusconi's oldest colleagues (now on trial in Sicily for association with the Mafia), "Apicella is practically kept prisoner for the whole weekend like a bird in a cage, which is fed so it will sing."

With Italy holding the rotating EU presidency, Mr Berlusconi has a lot on his mind this summer, and has brought three huge boxes of documents to La Certosa. But entry to the villa is barred, even to his closest advisers, before 3pm. Only two people are excepted: his cook, Michele Persechino, and Mariano Apicella. "My working day begins at three," he says. "In the morning I am on holiday" - writing songs with his court musician.

They have recorded one CD already, and after the summer's efforts another cannot be far behind. The number they are working on at present is titled "E io penso sempre a te" - "And I think always of you".

Dedicated to his wife, Veronica, perhaps, taking her holidays elsewhere with their children? No, the one person he cannot shake from his thoughts is said to be Ilda Boccassini, the fearless public prosecutor of Milan, who has harried Mr Berlusconi through the courts on corruption charges.