Some in Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia, the right's biggest party, believe the referendums favour modernity.
Forza Italia won more seats than any other party because the competition has nothing to offer.
The chairman of the judicial-affairs committee is Gaetano Pecorella, a criminal lawyer who sits for Forza Italia.
On June 13th, his Forza Italia party lost a sixth of its voters in the European elections.
ECONOMIST: Silvio Berlusconi is cornered by his coalition allies
His new party is as undemocratic in its form as Forza Italia was.
Cesare Previti, a Forza Italia senator and business colleague of Mr Berlusconi, might also benefit from the new bill.
Mr Berlusconi said earlier his Forza Italia party had a mandate to lead until 2006 and it would do so.
In the most recent elections, for the European Parliament this summer, Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia party won and currently tops the opinion polls.
Mr Berlusconi's party, Forza Italia, has three coalition partners to appease, its own campaign promises to keep, and no money to do either.
The Northern League tends to share the enthusiasm for free-market reforms of Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, while the former neo-fascists, unsurprisingly, favour strong state intervention.
Sen Amato, of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, has accused Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli of "arrogance" over his decision to agree the painting's departure.
Forza Italia lost a sixth of its votes in Europe and did little better in the regional polls, losing even on Mr Berlusconi's home turf in Milan.
And that poses a bigger question: what is the future for Forza Italia and its leader, who will be 74 when the next general election is due?
Conservative Roman Catholics such as Marcello Pera, a member of Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia party who is speaker of the Senate, are big on defending Europe's Christian roots.
In March its two biggest components his own Forza Italia and the National Alliance, which grew out of the neo-fascist movement united in a single entity, the People of Freedom.
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Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia (Let's go, Italy) and its allies on the right also promise to spend a lot more on public works: this brings back fond memories.
After a miserable showing by Forza Italia in the European elections on June 13th, and in municipal and provincial ones two weeks later, Mr Fini felt emboldened to settle scores.
Berlusconi turned his attention to politics in 1993 when he formed the center-right Forza Italia Party and the following year, in a snap election, he won the post of prime minister.
Support for Forza Italia crumbled even in rich areas.
ECONOMIST: Silvio Berlusconi is cornered by his coalition allies
For some time, the hate-target of the second camp has been Giulio Tremonti, Forza Italia's acid-tongued finance minister, who shut them out of discussions, made policies they disliked and announced them without consultation.
In one of its last acts before the election in April, the Italian parliament has passed a bill sponsored by Gaetano Pecorella, Mr Berlusconi's lawyer, who is also a deputy for his political party, Forza Italia.
It is most unlikely to do so, since Mr Berlusconi is not only leader of the opposition but also founder-president of a party, Forza Italia (Go, Italy), that in the latest general election collected 8m votes.
Meanwhile, Silvio Berlusconi, the tycoon who leads a four-party coalition on the right, including the one-time separatists of the Northern League, the post-fascist National Alliance, his own Forza Italia and a little Christian Democratic offshoot, is grinning.
Prosecutors hope to find an answer during appeal proceedings that have just begun in Palermo, in a case involving Marcello Dell'Utri, a close associate of Mr Berlusconi and one of the founders of his Forza Italia political party.
None of the three biggest centre-right parties after Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia the National Alliance, led by Gianfranco Fini, the Union of Centre and Christian Democrats, now led by Pier Ferdinando Casini, and the Northern League, led by Umberto Bossi is a true believer in free-market liberalism.
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