As Silvio Berlusconi began his attempt to become the Prime Minister of Italy for the third time, his long-suffering wife emerged from the shadows yesterday to deliver what many regarded as a subtle blow to his image as a macho self-made billionaire.

In an article reprinted on Valentine's Day in Corriere della Sera, Veronica Lario attacked men who think only of “success, power, money and career” and urged women not to emulate them.

The former actress did not mention her husband, who is Italy's richest man and leading media tycoon, but said that many men did not value women's contribution as “moral angels” whose “female qualities” kept families and society together.

Mrs Berlusconi, widely admired for her intelligence and discretion as well as her beauty, keeps out of the spotlight and is rarely seen at her husband's side. Her public utterances are therefore closely examined for their impact and timing.

A year ago she lambasted her husband in La Repubblica for paying excessive attention to other women including television showgirls. She demanded - and received - a public apology from him. Yesterday she urged Italian men to “think of women as special beings” and to stop regarding money and technology rather than human relations as the key to their identity.

Mr Berlusconi has promised to bring more women into his next Cabinet in an apparent pitch for women's votes. Opinion polls show the Left is starting to catch up on his apparently unassailable lead as Walter Veltroni, 52, the new leader of the Centre Left, seeks to appeal to disillusioned younger voters with a message of hope and change. Mr Veltroni, who stepped down as Mayor of Rome this week after seven years in office before the elections in April, is mocked by Mr Berlusconi and the Centre Right for comparing himself to Barack Obama, even adopting an Italian version of his slogan, “Yes, we can” (“Sì, si può fare”). Mr Veltroni, a movie buff and novelist who founded the Rome Film Festival, also models himself on the Kennedys.

Mr Berlusconi, who started his television campaign with an appearance on the main Italian political chatshow in a double-breasted suit, said: “I may be 71 but I feel and act as if I'm 35 ... It seems that Silvio Berlusconi is indispensable.”

Mr Veltroni, who appeared on the same television show the next night in a shirt with a button-down collar, told viewers: “Italy must leave the last 15 years behind and enter a new phase.” The Right retorted that Mr Veltroni was not “new” but had been in politics since he joined the Communist Party as a teenager.

One opinion poll yesterday indicated that 47 per cent of Italians say that they “know Berlusconi and have a positive opinion of him”, whereas only 32 per cent say the same of Mr Veltroni. He has only nine weeks to build a national profile and disassociate himself from the unpopular 20-month Government led by Romano Prodi that collapsed last month. A poll in La Repubblica gave the Centre Left between 45.5 and 46 per cent and the Centre Right between 49.5 and 51.5 per cent.

Mr Veltroni claims that whereas his Democratic Party, formed last October, is a genuine fusion of the former Communist Social Democrats and the liberal Margherita faction, Mr Berlusconi's new People of Freedom Party is merely an old-style electoral alliance grouping his own Forza Italia and the right-wing National Alliance, led by Gianfranco Fini.

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