She is nubile, blonde and Italian . . . and, no, this is not another story about Silvio Berlusconi.

Gianna — named after the singer Gianna Nannini — is being lined up to be the playmate of Knut, the celebrity polar bear, whose heartrending biography and love of human applause have earned millions of euros for Berlin zoo. Both bears are two years old so there is still time — serious mating begins in another two years or so — before the world is presented with mini-Knuts.

The zoo, however, seems to be setting the stage for an elaborate courtship. The first step will be to build a “canoodling fence” between Knut’s enclosure and that of Gianna. This will give Knut time to sniff her and get used to the idea of female company before they share a compound. Gianna and two other adult bears, Yoghi, 10, and 32-year-old Lisa, are ordinarily resident in Hellabrunn zoo in Munich, but Berlin has agreed to take on all three while Munich extends its bearpit.

It seems that Yoghi and Lisa will eventually go back, but Gianna is likely to stay on and become the mother of Knut’s brood. “Negotiations are still under way but it looks like being Berlin,” Henning Wiesner, the head of Hellabrunn zoo, said.

“This is really good news for Knut,” said Doris Webb, of the Knut Forever in Berlin association. “He needs the company of bears of his own age.”

The world of captive polar bears is almost always a family affair. Lisa happens to be Knut’s grandmother, the mother of Lars, who has already tried to attack his famous son a few times. Knut leapt to fame when his mother, the former East German circus bear Tosca, left him out on a rock to die. He was taken out of the compound by keepers who reared him until he reached early adulthood.

The late keeper Thomas Dörflein, in particular, played him Elvis Presley songs to send the cub to sleep, allowed him to chew human boots to ease teething pain, taught him to swim and (a dubious life skill for a polar bear) play football. The rights and wrongs of humans interfering with the natural process of maternal rejection stirred a debate well beyond the world of zoologists and animal rights campaigners.

The marketing of the bear — photographs by Annie Leibovitz, posing sessions with Leonardo di Caprio and Tom Cruise’s daughter, a dozen dedicated pop songs, an unauthorised biography, a film and huge Knut merchandising — have boosted the coffers of Berlin zoo. So much so that Knut’s original zoo, Neumünster, sued Berlin for a slice of Knut’s earnings.

Neumünster has now been paid off — it refused to accept Berlin’s offer of a few penguins — with €430,000 (£365,000), allowing the Berliners to invest in a specially built bear area. This is important because most of the extended clan of Knut are at loggerheads: Lars apparently wants to eat his son; Yoghi shows every sign of wanting to kill Gianna.

The plan now is to dedicate about 570sq m (6,000sq ft) to Knut and Gianna; under German animal protection laws each bear should be allocated at least 200sq m of roaming space.

Gianna, born in a zoo in the Tuscan province of Pistoia, is being hailed by German tabloids as “a racy Italian”. Her name was inspired by a Nannini song, Meravigliosa Creatura (Marvellous Creature). One refrain runs: “Wonderful Creature, you are unique in the world/ Wonderful Fear, to have you near me/ Eyes from the sun burns me in the head/ I love this wonderful life.” That, German commentators say, should do the trick for Knut.