Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who faces charges of corruption, edged away today from his assertion that Italy's magistrates were mentally disturbed.
Mr Berlusconi, under pressure after his comments drew a rare retort from President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, issued a carefully worded statement saying there was no disagreement between him and the head of state.
"Respect for the work of magistrates cannot be called into question, even though certain public prosecutors have shown clearly biased behaviour," he said in the statement, issued from his villa in Sardinia.
"There does not exist, therefore, and there cannot exist, a different view on the role of the legislative, executive and judiciary powers between the head of state and the prime minister."
Mr Ciampi had said on yesterday that Italians had full confidence in their magistrates, sounding a stern note of rebuke after Berlusconi's comments in a British magazine that they were mad and not like other humans.
Mr Berlusconi, a billionaire media mogul who turned to politics a decade ago, is under investigation on charges of bribing judges in a 1980s takeover battle. He denies the charges.
In June, parliament passed a law granting legal immunity to Italy's top five officials, freezing all court cases against the prime minister, although investigations can continue.
In recent months the conservative prime minister has waged an increasingly public campaign against magistrates and judges, who he says are part of a left-wing witch-hunt against him and his business associates.
"To do that job you need to be mentally disturbed, you need psychic disturbances," Mr Berlusconi had said in the interview. "If they do that job it is because they are anthropologically different from the rest of the human race."