According to a report in The Guardian, Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi has been dealing with Libya on a major scale. He was licensed to do $156 million in business with the country, mostly dealing in with military aircraft. This may seem surprising now that Europe is trying to stop Col. Gadhafi, but the two countries have a long and tangled relationships. Libya is a former Italian colony and the two countries still have very close ties. Rachel Donadio, Rome bureau chief for The New York Times looks back at the relationship between the two countries.