Matteo Renzi to the rescue: can 'Italy's Tony Blair' deliver?

He claims to be outside the establishment - so why did he hold a meeting with the dreaded Berlusconi?

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ROME - The 39-year-old mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, is poised to become Italy's youngest ever prime minister after being asked yesterday by President Napolitano to form the country's next government.

With blitzkrieg speed, Renzi has shot to the top of Italy's political heap as the latest in a series of unelected prime ministers, each with their own gaggle of gurus and grand plans that tend to make hoards of headlines but little headway.

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Andrea Vogt is an Italy correspondent for TheWeek.co.uk, based in Bologna. Her books include Common Courage, about white supremacist extremism in the US, and a collection of European true crime stories published by Rizzoli.