Visa Question:

Well this does have a specific reply, but then you can put it as "Sir, My father is working with a Italian collaborated company for the past 25 years as a Manager in XYZ department. The long reply helps over here. If your father has taken a voluntary retirement, don't mention that he has retired.
Well there are two approaches to this. One, say that your father worked with this company for the last 30 years and now has his own consultancy dealing with ( insert some financial or technical terms ).
Two, Say that your father worked as Asst Mgr./Mgr./GM with some company for the past 25 years, took a VR and now has a consultancy of his own. Never show him to be idle, because that means your income has drastically reduced and works as a negative point. Stating about the VR often helps because then you can assure him that most of the money you have shown is yours because usually people get huge amounts on taking a VR. So that does help on the financial grounds.