Scalfaro, a former interior minister and speaker of the lower house of parliament, was appointed president in 1992 as the scandal was sweeping aside a party system which had run Italy since World War Two.

Both Scalfaro's own conservative Christian Democrat party and the centre-left Socialists were revealed to have been deeply corrupted by a web of bribery and illegal funding which destroyed Italians' confidence in government.

With preparations well under way for Italy to join the embryonic single European currency, Scalfaro had to defend the basic institutions of the Italian state at a time of corrosive mistrust of the political system.

"As President of the Republic, he faced some of the most difficult periods of our history firmly and steadfastly," the current president, Giorgio Napolitano, said in a statement.