The photographs show Silvio Berlusconi grinning broadly as two young women kiss in front of him at his Sardinian estate. But the same photographs threaten to embarrass the Italian prime minister on the eve of the G8 summit of leading industrialised nations that he will host this week.

After two months of allegations about his private life, including a prostitute’s claim that she spent a night at Berlusconi’s residence in Rome, he is keen to put the sleaze behind him and make a new start as a “can do” statesman.

Several European publications are bidding for photographs by Antonello Zappadu, who took 5,000 pictures of Berlusconi’s guests at Villa Certosa in Sardinia in 2007 and 2008. An informed source said the aim was to publish them just before the summit begins on Wednesday “for maximum impact”.

The images show Berlusconi, who was leader of the opposition at the time, with five young women in a gazebo. Two of them are sitting on his lap. He grins approvingly as Angela Sozio, 36, a red-headed former Big Brother contestant, sits on the knees of another young woman and kisses her on the lips.

A man tries to fondle a blonde woman’s breast but she pushes him away. The group then walk through the Villa Certosa estate and Sozio stages a fake wedding ceremony.

She gives a bouquet of flowers to a young woman with whom Berlusconi has been holding hands. Sozio and the other two women intone a wedding march.

Prosecutors in Bari, southern Italy, have questioned Patrizia D’Addario, the call girl who says she was with Berlusconi on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama’s election night. They have also questioned Sozio as part of an investigation into the alleged recruitment of female guests for parties at the prime minister’s homes.

In April 2007 Oggi magazine published part of the picture sequence in a cover story entitled Berlusconi’s Harem. It included shots of Berlusconi, slipping his hand inside the shirt of one of the women. At the time a privacy watchdog banned Oggi from publishing the rest of the photographs.

Last month a Sardinian judge ordered all 5,000 photographs to be seized on the grounds that they violated Berlusconi’s privacy, but they had already been sold to Ecoprensa, a Colombian picture agency. The Spanish newspaper El Pais has published photographs of a topless young woman by a pool and Mirek Topolanek, a former Czech prime minister, who is naked.

Also up for sale are photographs showing two topless women in thongs kissing under a shower in June 2008. The photographs were taken at another home belonging to Berlusconi.

La Repubblica newspaper yesterday identified a woman boarding Berlusconi’s plane at Sardinia’s Olbia airport in August 2008 as the former Bulgarian actress Darina Pavlova, widow of tycoon Iliya Pavlov, who was shot dead by a sniper in 2003. Bulgarian papers reported in 2007 that Berlusconi had “fallen in love” with Pavlova, 44, one of eastern Europe’s richest women.

Berlusconi said nothing last week about the scandal, which began when his wife, Veronica Lario, demanded a divorce. She alleged that he “frequents underage girls” after he attended the 18th birthday party of Noemi Letizia, a model.

Since then his popularity has fallen from 73% to 62%, according to private polls. He has told his staff that he is worried about photographs appearing before the summit in L’Aquila in central Italy, which was devastated by an earthquake in April.

Berlusconi, who was jeered with shouts of “paedophile” and “whoremonger” when he visited the scene of a train crash in Viareggio in Tuscany last week, will aim to minimise the risk of further public hostility when he escorts leaders to towns hit by the earthquake.

A residents’ association named 3.32, after the time of the tremor, intends to mount protests during the summit. Three months on, 25,000 homeless people are still living in camps and the temperature in the tents can reach 44C.

Another 35,000 people have been moved to campsites and hotels on the Adriatic. Local critics contrast this with the speed with which a road to the airport was widened for the G8 leaders. It took three weeks.

Berlusconi also risks a snub from Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the Italian-born wife of the French president. After Berlusconi joked that Obama was “always tanned”, she remarked: “Sometimes I am very happy that I have become French.”

Bruni is expected to stay in Rome during the summit and will travel to visit areas hit by the earthquake.

The first ladies of France and the United States are expected to make only brief appearances at the summit, including one at a dinner hosted by the Italian president and another at a gala concert. Their programme includes audiences with Pope Benedict XVI, tours of devastated villages and sightseeing.

American officials said Michelle Obama would stay at a hotel in the capital with her daughters Sasha and Malia; they plan to visit the Colosseum and the Forum. On Friday she will meet the Pope with her husband.

An aide quoted Berlusconi as saying: “If all goes well (at the G8), we’ll make changes in the party and in the government.” Worried by his declining popularity among female voters, the prime minister is considering a reshuffle to bring more women into his government.

Berlusconi has already decided to stay away from his Sardinian villa this summer as it is judged too vulnerable to the paparazzi. Instead he will holiday at his villa in Paraggi near the Riviera resort of Portofino.

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