As a rule, messianic delusions are exposed by the demands of a very different vocation

Pope Benedict XVI has warned the Catholic Church to resist temptations of power, even as it emerged that ecclesiastical figures in Milan had moved to canonise Don Luigi Giussani, the founder of the Vatican’s controversial political campaigning wing.

The Last Word

End of controversial property tax breaks leaves the Pope facing €600m-a-year bill

Days of Baresi & Co long gone as financial woes mean Milan must use older players – with mixed success, says Robin Scott-Elliot

Sad way for Capello to go but an analysis of yesterday's events reveal he was seeking a way out of England job

The debt-laden Big Brother TV production company Endemol today reached a deal with a majority of its lenders about restructuring of its €2 bn (£1.67bn) of debt – despite opposition from two key players.

Mirko Tremaglia was the last remaining human link between Italy's present-day political world and the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini.

The German chancellor Angela Merkel pressed for the removal of the former premier Silvio Berlusconi “in order to save the Euro”, according to a report that has caused a political storm in Italy.

The fall of the ultimate leader of a state – his execution, conviction or simply humiliation – is a dangerous thrill. The citizens who cheered the decapitations of Charles I and Louis XVI knew all about it, the surging, anarchic sense of power and vindication. The Egyptians who this year saw a supine, inert Mubarak wheeled into court, the Libyans who saw the Brother Leader butchered in the street like a rabid dog, knew that mood of wild elation.

Struggling Italy was forced to pay through the nose to borrow €7bn (£6bn) for a year yesterday, as financial markets delivered a downbeat verdict on the Brussels summit.

Former Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell has accepted £200,000 in damages after her phone was targeted by the News of the World.

For complicated reasons, I found myself on a ferry in rural northern Italy this week. I struck up a conversation with a friendly middle-aged Italian lady who was travelling the same route as me and after small talk about the weather, the region and where we were both headed, the conversation turned to politics.

Italy's best-known anti-mafia judge yesterday declared war on corrupt state officials, politicians and even the Vatican, for allowing the country's most feared crime group to colonise the country's industrial heartland.