Muammer Gaddafi yesterday launched a shopping spree in Rome on his fence-mending visit to Libya's former colonial ruler.
The Libyan leader investigated further stakes in Italian industry and infrastructure via his $70bn (€50bn, £43bn) sovereign wealth fund.
Despite a few political protests by opposition parliamentarians, students and members of the Jewish community driven out of Libya in the 1970s, Italy's centre-right government celebrated Mr Gaddafi's red carpet visit - his first since taking power in 1969 - as a welcome boost for a struggling Italian economy.
How the world is changing was not lost on Franco Frattini, Italy's foreign minister, who at the same time was hosting a meeting of G8 development ministers focused on improving aid to Africa and examining the impact of the global financial crisis.
Libya had emerged as an important donor in sub-Saharan Africa, Mr Frattini said, even as Italy's "financial constraints" had forced it to curtail - but, it insists, not abandon - the ambitious aid goals it set out at the Group of Eight summit at Gleneagles in 2005.
"Libya at an international level is taking on a more co-operative role," Mr Frattini told the Financial Times. He disclosed that Mr Gaddafi had agreed to work with Italy in trying to stabilise Somalia, where the embattled government was fighting militant Islamists.
Mr Gaddafi, who renounced weapons of mass destruction in 2003, will mark another milestone in his international rehabilitation by attending the G8 summit in Italy next month as president of the African Union.
Among Mr Gaddafi's 200-strong entourage in Rome was Abdulhafid Zlitni, chairman of the Libyan Investment Authority, who said Libya was looking at investing in Italian industry. He named Enel - Europe's second largest power utility - and Impregilo, a construction company. Libya was also "following the value of Telecom Italia stock".
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