Mauro Morandi, whose 32-year stay on an uninhabited Mediterranean island led to him being known as Italy’s Robinson Crusoe, died on Jan. 3 in Modena, Italy. He was 85 years old.
The cause was a brain hemorrhage, said Antonio Rinaldis, who wrote the 2023 book with Mr. Morandi about his life on the island.
Unlike Daniel Defoe’s hero, who is shipwrecked and desperately hopes to be saved, Mr. Morandi chose his life alone.
He said he fell in love with Budelli, a pristine, undeveloped island off the northern tip of Sardinia. He arrived in 1989, somewhat by chance, he said in interviews. He left – unwillingly – in 2021, writing on social media that he was tired of “fighting those who want to expel me.”
One choice of Mr. Morandi’s solitude has produced at least two books, at least one song, short films and many interviews. As the world turns inward during the coronavirus crisis, journalists sought Mr. Morandi for isolation.
“I read a lot, and I think,” he told CNN in 2020. “I think a lot of people are afraid to read because if they do, they will start to think and think about things, and that can be dangerous. If you start to see things differently and criticize, you can finally see what kind of life you are living.”
Budelli, one of the main islands that make up the Maddalena Archipelago, is a dab of paradise that takes up 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, no electricity and is only accessible by boat.
Mr. Morandi lived in a derelict World War II hut, picking up canvas from the open front. He made sculptures from branches, cooked on a propane stove and read voraciously, buying books and supplies on trips to La Maddalena, the largest town in the archipelago. The guests also brought him food and water. He used car batteries and solar power to charge his cell phone and tablet.
He said, “it was a simple life that included great and small pleasures.”
“The most important thing,” he added, “is that I have a calm relationship with time.”
For many years he was the appointed caretaker of the island, employed by the Swiss-Italian real estate company that owned it.
His main task was to protect the island’s habitat from unruly tourists, who are only allowed on certain routes, which is part of the Italian Ministry of Environment’s effort to protect the rare pink sand. He told people about the wonders of this island, and how pieces of coral and shells turned the sand pink. He picked up trash from the beach, cleared the island’s paths and made small repairs.
Mr. Morandi initially chose to live like a queen, she said in an interview with a maritime museum in Genoa, but eventually accepted the chosen people as part of her mission to make them “understand why we need to love nature.”
He said he never missed connecting with people. “He didn’t like what humanity was in the 21st century – shopping and individualism – especially in relation to nature,” said Mr. Rinaldis. That’s why Mr. Morandi was concerned about protecting Budelli.
When he finally got an internet connection, he used social media to showcase the island’s unspoiled beauty.
In 2016, after a long legal dispute over the ownership of the island, it was transferred to the government and became part of the Maddalena Archipelago National Park. Mr. Morandi was asked to leave.
The president of this park, Giuseppe Bonanno, accepted the position of Mr. A unique cranberry. “Morandi represents a man, enchanted by the situation, who decides to dedicate his life to thinking and saving,” he told reporters. But there were other problems, including Mr. Will Morandi be able to survive an emergency on his own, let alone his shack’s failure to meet code.
He fought back. He campaigned for his dismissal on social media. He did interviews with the media. An online petition attracted nearly 75,000 signatures.
“We do not want Mauro to leave the island because we think first that if Budelli remains a miracle of nature it is because of him,” said the request. Secondly, because we are sure that this park has everything to gain from his presence: Mauro has lived in Budelli for a quarter of a century, he knows all the plants and all the rocks, all the trees and all the species of animals, he sees the colors. and a pleasant fragrance with the changing of the wind and the seasons.”
But after fighting the authorities for five years, Mr. Morandi withdrew. He was 82 years old and in poor health. “Part of his resignation had to do with being fragile,” said Mr. Rinaldis, “but he was also disappointed because he was forced by the authorities to leave.
Mr. Morandi left the island permanently 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 been doing it for 32 years,” he said.
Mauro Morandi was born on February 12, 1939, in Modena. His father, Mario Morandi, was a gymnast who won the national artistic gymnastics championship in 1936 and later became a school custodian. Mauro’s mother, Enia Camellini, worked for a tobacco company.
Mr. Morandi studied to become a physical education teacher and taught at a middle school in Modena during the 1970s, when he was able to retire early. He had three daughters from a marriage that ended in divorce.
She is survived by her brother, Renzo, and six grandchildren.
In a 2016 interview with the Turin newspaper La Stampa, Mr. Morandi said that after reading Richard Bach’s 1970 bestseller, “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” he “ran away,” finding the sea. In 1989, he said, he decided he was “tired of society and wanted a different life.” He bought a catamaran with his friends, with the idea of going to Polynesia.
To get money, they looked for cruise ships and found Budelli. There, they met Budelli’s caretaker, who had just decided to leave. He gave them his work, and Mr. Morandi took it. He was paid in the beginning, but he continued even after he stopped receiving a salary; 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 University of Sassari study showing that Budelli’s flora and fauna were similar to those of the Polynesian islands he hoped to reach. “It was as if Budelli was looking for me, he made sure I got here, to the only beach in the entire Mediterranean Sea, which is almost the same as the islands I wanted to go to,” he said in an interview in 2016. photographer Claudio Muzzetto.
After the death of Mr. Morandi, Margherita Guerra, one of his thousands of followers on social media, wrote: “Safe journey. In the end, no one will be able to drive you away from your beloved island.”
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