Villa Certosa, the Sardinian summer residence of the late Silvio Berlusconi, has been sold to Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, Qatar’s former prime minister and foreign minister, for €350 million. The price, reported across Italian media, falls well short of the €500 million initially sought by Berlusconi’s heirs but still ranks among the largest private residential transactions ever recorded in Italy. The deal, routed through a Luxembourg investment company, simultaneously settles a portion of the media mogul’s estate and transfers one of the country’s most symbolically charged properties into Gulf hands.

The 126-room, 4,500-square-metre compound on 120 hectares overlooking the Gulf of Marinella served for nearly two decades as Berlusconi’s unofficial seat of power each August. It was here that he hosted world leaders—George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin—and staged the infamous “bunga bunga” parties that later fuelled criminal proceedings against him. In 2004, the Italian government classified the villa as an alternative maximum-security seat for the prime minister, and the interior ministry briefly invoked state secrecy to block judicial inspections into alleged building abuses. After Berlusconi’s death in 2023, his heirs put the estate on the market, drawing bids from ultra-high-net-worth investors.

The buyer is no newcomer to Italian trophy assets. Al Thani, whose personal fortune is estimated at $5.1 billion, previously led the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), a $450 billion sovereign fund. Under his stewardship and since, Qatari capital has acquired a string of Italian landmarks: the Valentino fashion house, the Cala di Volpe and Romazzino hotels on the Costa Smeralda, Milan’s Porta Nuova financial district, and the Mater Olbia hospital in Sardinia. Viewed from Doha, the Villa Certosa purchase consolidates a strategic cluster of luxury hospitality and real estate holdings on the island, reinforcing a pattern of patient, prestige-driven investment in southern Europe.

Italian press reports note that the final price has yet to be officially confirmed by the parties. Once formalised, the transaction will stand as a benchmark in a European luxury market that has seen a flurry of Gulf-backed acquisitions. For Berlusconi’s family, the sale releases funds to honour bequests of €100 million each to his former partner Marta Fascina and his brother Paolo. The next factual milestone is the official registration of the sale, which will lock in the precise figure and complete the transfer of a property that for years blurred the lines between private indulgence and public power.