Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi on Sunday boasted that his grasp of Latin was good enough to hold a lunchtime conversation with Julius Caesar.

The 71-year-old former prime minister, who is renowned for his high opinion of himself, told an Italian radio interviewer he had been a brilliant Latin student at school and was often chosen to speak with "illustrious guests, including cardinals".

"My Latin is good enough that I believe I could even have a lunch with Julius Caesar," he said in answer to a question about which figure in history he would most like to meet.

Berlusconi, who is leading the Italian conservatives into the country's legislative election on April 13-14, said he hesitated between Caesar and Britain's World War II statesman Winston Churchill whom he "very much admired".