Just months after the left seemed poised for a historic breakthrough, a shock national vote brought a dangerous reactionary to power. Smashing open the old party of the Right, the billionaire tycoon’s populism surfed a wave of anger against the corrupt elite that had long controlled the political center. Making government the stage for a permanent public performance, this curiously wealthy popular champion radically reshaped the country’s political life.

Such was the scene in Italy in 1994 as Silvio Berlusconi took power amid the ruins of Christian Democracy, the Catholic conservative party which had long dominated national government. In power since World War II, the Christian Democrats collapsed together with their Communist rivals at the end of the Cold War, and it was Berlusconi’s Forza Italia that filled the void. But Italy’s new right was no mere rebranding of the traditional conservative party — it was a novel coalition stretching from the tycoon’s business associates to populists and ex-fascists.

Since November many have suggested that the nine years of Berlusconi rule scattered between 1994 and 2011 were Rome’s own “Trump moment.” Italians often rue their record in “exporting” such lamentable phenomena as 1920s fascism and 1990s Berlusconism, and indeed there is much to learn from what this new right achieved in its homeland before spreading abroad. This is all the more important when we consider that Berlusconi was not, as his opponents expected in 1994, simply exposed as a charlatan upon reaching high office. Rather, he succeeded in making lasting changes to Italian political life, including the near destruction of the Left.