It was an ignominious end to Mr. Silvio Berlusconi's term as Italy's prime minister. The besieged leader slipped out a back door of his office to jeers and cries of "buffoon," as Handel's Hallelujah chorus was sung and thousands of others popped sparkling wine, dancing in a conga line shouting "we're free."

It was a long fall for the man who was once seen as the savior of Italy, a new force that was supposed to revitalize a moribund country and remake it in his own energetic image.

Seventeen years ago, Mr. Berlusconi first took the prime minister's office, the embodiment of Italy's "new order" — a self-made man who became head of a multibillion dollar media empire and dreamed of remaking Italian politics in his own image.