One of the most telling anecdotes from Silvio Berlusconi's long career is to be found in a book published in 1994 by a journalist and a sociologist, just as the former Italian leader was entering politics.

The writers' aim was to observe him "in his natural habitat", and they tracked him to a training session for sales reps of the advertising subsidiary of his TV empire.

Every morning, Berlusconi told them, he stood in front of a mirror and repeated: "I like myself. I like myself."

..."Berlusconi believes that the world revolves around him - the ultimate narcissistic fantasy," his American biographer, Alexander Stille, observed. "But he has bent reality to fit his fantasy, so that much of life in Italy does indeed revolve around him."

As he stood in front of his mirror on Thursday morning, however, even Berlusconi must have realised this was suddenly no longer true: for the first time in almost 20 years, he is no longer the undisputed master of his party, and for the first time since 2001, he neither leads the government of Italy nor has any credible prospect of destroying it if it fails to do his bidding.