Mauro Morandi, whose 32-year sojourn on an uninhabited Mediterranean island led him to be known as Italy’s Robinson Crusoe, died on January 3 in Modena, Italy. He was 85 years old.
The cause was a brain hemorrhage, said Antonio Rinaldis, who wrote a A book from 2023 with Mr. Morandi about his life on the island.
Unlike the hero Daniel Defoe, who was shipwrecked and fervently hoped to be saved, Mr. Morandi chose a life of solitude.
He said he fell in love at first sight with Budelli, a pristine, undeveloped island on the northern tip of Sardinia. He came in 1989, somewhat by accident, he said in interviews. He left against his will in 2021. writing on social networks that he is tired of “fighting against those who want to send me”.
The unique choice of Mr. Morandi to live in solitude spawned at least two books, at least one songshort documentaries and countless interviews. As the world turned inward during the coronavirus pandemic, journalists searched for Mr. Morandi knowledge about isolation.
“I read and think a lot,” he told CNN in 2020. “I think a lot of people are afraid of reading because if they do, they’ll start meditating and thinking about things, and that can be dangerous. If you start looking at things in a different light and be critical, you might see what a miserable life you are leading.”
Budelli, one of the main islands that make up the Maddalena archipelago, is a slice of paradise that occupies less than two-thirds of a square mile. It is known for its pink sand beach surrounded by turquoise water. The island has no running water, is not connected to the electricity grid and is only accessible by boat.
Mr. Morandi lived in an abandoned World War II shack, setting up canvas tarps in the open space out front. He created sculptures from branches, cooked on a propane stove and read voraciously, buying books and supplies on trips to La Maddalena, the largest town on the archipelago. Visitors also brought him food and water. It used car batteries and solar energy to charge cell phones and tablets.
It was, he said, “a simple life composed of great and small pleasures.”
“The most important thing,” he added, “is that I have a peaceful relationship with time.”
For years he was the appointed caretaker of the island, hired by the Swiss-Italian real estate company that owned it.
Its main task was to protect the island’s habitat from unruly tourists, who are only allowed along designated paths, part of an effort by Italy’s environment ministry to protect the rare pink sand. He told the people about the wonders of the island and how the fragments of coral and shells colored the sand pink. He picked up trash from the beach, cleaned the island’s paths and did minor maintenance work.
Mr. Morandi initially decided to live as a hermit, he he said in an interview at the Maritime Museum in Genoa, but eventually greeted the chosen people as part of his mission to make them “understand why we should love nature”.
He said he doesn’t miss human contact. “He didn’t like what humanity had become in the 21st century – consumerist and individualistic – especially with regard to nature,” said Mr. Rinaldis. That’s why Mr. Morandi cared about protecting Budelli.
When he finally got an internet connection, he used social media to showcase the island’s untamed beauty.
In 2016, after a long legal battle over the ownership of the island, the island was handed over to the state and became part of Maddalena Archipelago National Park. Mr. Morandi was asked to leave.
The president of the park, Giuseppe Bonanno, acknowledged Mr. Morandi’s unique position. “Morandi symbolizes a man, enchanted by the elements, who decides to devote his life to contemplation and guardianship,” he told reporters. But there were other questions, including whether Mr. Morandi would be able to survive a medical emergency on his own, not to mention that his cabin didn’t meet the rules.
He retorted. He campaigned against his eviction on social media. He gave interviews to the media. Online petition collected almost 75,000 signatures.
“We don’t want Mauro to leave the island because, first of all, we think that if Budelli remains a miracle of nature, it is also thanks to him,” the petition reads. “And secondly, because we are convinced that the park has everything it can get from his presence: Mauro has lived on Budelli for a quarter of a century, knows every plant and every stone, every tree and every animal species, recognizes colors and smells with the change of wind and seasons. “
But after a five-year battle with the authorities, Mr. Morandi relented. He was 82 years old and was no longer in good health. “Part of his resignation was related to his fragility,” Mr. Rinaldis, “but he was also disappointed because the authorities forced him to leave.”
Mr. Morandi left the island for good in March 2021 and moved to a small apartment in La Maddalena. “I will leave hoping that in the future Budelli will be protected, as I have done for 32 years,” he said he said.
Mauro Morandi was born on February 12, 1939 in Modena. His father, Mario Morandi, was a gymnast who won the national championship in artistic gymnastics in 1936 and was later a school janitor. Mauro’s mother, Enia Camellini, worked for a tobacco company.
Mr. Morandi studied to be a physical education teacher and taught at Modena High School until the 1970s, when he was able to take early retirement. In a marriage that ended in divorce, he had three daughters.
They outlived him, as did his brother Renzo and six grandchildren.
ua Interview from 2016 with the Turin daily La Stampa, Mr. Morandi said that after reading Richard Bach’s 1970 bestseller, Jonathan Livingston’s Seagull, he “took flight,” discovering the sea. In 1989, he said, he decided he was “tired of society and looking for a different life.” He and his friends bought a catamaran with the idea of sailing to Polynesia.
To raise money, they scouted locations for charter cruises and came across Budelli. There they met Budelli’s babysitter, who recently decided to leave. He offered them his job and Mr. Morandi accepted it. At first he was paid, but he remained even after he was no longer paid; then he lived on a teacher’s pension. On rare occasions he returned to Modena for short holidays to visit his family.
At one point he read a study by the University of Sassari showing that Budelli’s flora and fauna were similar to those of the Polynesian islands he once hoped to reach. “It was almost as if Budelli wanted me, he made sure I came here, to the only beach in the entire Mediterranean Sea, which is almost similar in composition to the islands I wanted to go to,” he said. in a 2016 interview with photographer Claudio Muzzetta.
Following Mr Morandi’s death, Margherita Guerra, one of his thousands of followers on social media, wrote: “Safe travels. Finally, no one will ever be able to send you away from your beloved island.”
