Renaming an Airport After Silvio Berlusconi Divides a Region in Italy

Millions of travelers pass through Italian airports every year, but most probably don’t know that Rome’s airport is named for Leonardo da Vinci, Pisa’s is named for Galileo Galilei, and Palermo’s is named for Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, two prosecutors who were murdered in 1992 as payback for their anti-Mafia crusades.

But the decision this month to name Milan’s main international airport after Silvio Berlusconi, the media mogul and former Italian prime minister who died last year at age 86, did not go unnoticed.

The renaming of Milan Malpensa Airport as International Airport Milan Malpensa — Silvio Berlusconi has unleashed a maelstrom of protests from left-leaning lawmakers, a barrage of memes and an online petition to block the designation, which as of Wednesday had more than 160,000 signatures.

It also has made global headlines.

“Why not Bunga-Bunga airport,” said one, in a German-language publication, referring to the sex-fueled bacchanals at Mr. Berlusconi’s villa that he described as merely “elegant dinners.”

The polemics began immediately after the transportation minister, Matteo Salvini, the leader of the far-right League party and a political ally of Mr. Berlusconi, announced on July 5 that the country’s Civil Aviation Authority had approved a request from regional leaders to name the airport after Mr. Berlusconi. Mr. Salvini described him as “ a great businessman, great Milanese and great Italian.” The new name became official less than a week later, Mr. Salvini announced on social media.

Outrage followed.

“Airports are undoubtedly named after people who have brought prestige to Italy, and while Silvio Berlusconi was certainly a great entrepreneur and certainly a part of Italian politics, he was a divisive figure, loved by millions of Italians and opposed by as many millions of Italians who believed he used politics for personal gain,” said Silvia Roggiani, a national lawmaker with the center-left Democratic Party and the party’s regional secretary in Lombardy, where the airport is located, some 30 miles northwest of Milan.