MILAN, Italy - Maria Antonietta Berlusconi Beretta, the sister of Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi died Thursday at age 65, rescue officials said.

The rescue service in the northern city of Milan said an ambulance was called to Berlusconi Beretta's house but there was nothing medics could do to save her. No cause of death was given.

Italy's 72-year-old premier also has a younger brother, businessman Paolo Berlusconi. Their mother, Rosa Bossi Berlusconi, died just over a year ago at 97. She had at times campaigned for her billionaire son, Italy's longest-serving premier since World War II.

The premier's sister largely stayed away from the limelight and Italian media remembered her as a patron of the arts and founder of a ballet school in Milan.

"I consider ballet an excellent school of life for youths, because it teaches you to learn your limits and relate to others," she wrote on the Web site of the "Principessa" school.

Information on other survivors and funeral arrangements was not immediately available.