Mauro Morandi lived on a pristine, undeveloped island off the northern tip of Sardinia for many years. Morandi died in Modena on January 3, 2025. He was 85. Photo / Michele Ardu via The New York Times
Mauro Morandi lived on a pristine, undeveloped island off the northern tip of Sardinia for many years. Morandi died in Modena on January 3, 2025. He was 85. Photo / Michele Ardu via The New York Times
Mauro Morandi, whose 32-year sojourn on an uninhabited Mediterranean island led to him being known as Italy’s Robinson Crusoe, died January 3 in Modena, Italy. He was 85.
The cause was a brain haemorrhage, said Antonio Rinaldis, who wrote a 2023 book with Morandi about his life on the island.
Unlike Daniel Defoe’s hero, who was shipwrecked and fervently hoped to be rescued, Morandi chose his life of solitude.
He said he had fallen in love at first sight 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 – against his will – in 2021, writing on social media that he was tired of “fighting against those who want to send me away”.
Morandi’s singular choice to live in solitude spawned at least two books and one song, short documentaries and countless interviews. As the world turned inward during the coronavirus pandemic, reporters sought Morandi’s insights on isolation.
“I read a lot, and think,” he told CNN in 2020. “I think many people are scared of reading because if they do, they’ll start meditating and thinking about stuff, and that can be dangerous. If you start seeing things under a different light and [are] critical, you could end up seeing what a miserable life you lead.”
Mauro Morandi, who lived for 32 years on a pristine, undeveloped island off the northern tip of Sardinia, has died at the age of 85. Photo / Michele Ardu via The New York Times
Budelli, one of the main islands that make up the Maddalena Archipelago, is a dab of paradise occupying 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 an electrical grid and is accessible only by boat.
Morandi lived in an abandoned World War II-era hut, tacking up canvas tarps in an open area in 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. He used car batteries and solar power to charge his cellphone and his tablet.
It was, he said, “a simple life made up of big and small pleasures”.
“The most important thing,” he added, “is that I have a serene relationship with time.”
For years, he was the island’s designated guardian, hired 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 allowed only on certain paths, part of an effort by Italy’s environment ministry to protect the rare pink sand. He told people about the marvels of the island, and how fragments of coral and shells had turned the sand pink. He picked up trash from the beach, cleared the island’s paths and carried out light maintenance.
He initially chose to live as a hermit, he said in an interview at Genoa’s maritime museum, but ultimately welcomed select people as part of his mission to make them “understand why we need to love nature”.
He said he did not miss human contact. “He didn’t like what humanity had become in the 21st century, consumeristic and individualistic, especially with regard to nature,” Rinaldis said. That was why he 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 protracted legal battle over the island’s ownership, it was turned over to the state and became part of Maddalena Archipelago National Park. Morandi was asked to leave.
The park’s president, Giuseppe Bonanno, acknowledged Morandi’s unique position. “Morandi symbolises a man, enchanted by the elements, who decides to devote his life to contemplation and custody,” he told reporters. But there were other issues, including whether Morandi would be able to survive a medical emergency alone, not to mention his shack’s failure to meet building codes.
Morandi fought back. He campaigned against his eviction on social media. He gave interviews to the news media. An online petition drew nearly 75,000 signatures.
“We do not want Mauro to leave the island because we think first of all that if Budelli has remained a wonder of nature, it is also thanks to him,” the petition said. “And second, because we are convinced that the park has everything to gain from his presence: Mauro has lived on Budelli for a quarter of a century, he knows every plant and every rock, every tree and every animal species, he recognises the colours and scents with the changing of the wind and the seasons.”
But after battling authorities for five years, Morandi relented. He was 82 and no longer in good health. “Part of his resignation was tied to his fragility,” Rinaldis said, “but he was also disappointed because he had been forced to leave by the authorities.”
In March 2021, Morandi left the island for good and moved to a small apartment in La Maddalena. “I’ll leave hoping that in the future Budelli will be safeguarded [in the manner in which] I’ve been doing it for 32 years,” he said.
Mauro Morandi was born February 12, 1939, in Modena. His father, Mario Morandi, was a gymnast who won the national championship for artistic gymnastics in 1936, and was later the caretaker of a school. His mother, Enia Camellini, worked for a tobacco company.
Morandi studied to become a physical education teacher and taught at a middle school in Modena through the 1970s, when he was able to retire early. He had three daughters during a marriage that ended in divorce.
They survive him, as does a brother, Renzo, and six grandchildren.
In a 2016 interview with the Turin daily La Stampa, he said after reading Richard Bach’s 1970 best-seller Jonathan Livingston Seagull he “took flight”, discovering the sea. In 1989, he said, he decided he was “tired of society, and seeking a different life”. He bought a catamaran with some friends, 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 caretaker, who had recently decided to leave. He offered them his job and Morandi took it. He was paid at first, but he stayed on even after he was no longer receiving a salary; he then lived off his 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 Budelli’s flora and fauna were similar to those of the Polynesian islands he had once hoped to reach. “It was almost as though Budelli wanted me, made sure I got here, to the only beach in the whole Mediterranean Sea which is almost similar in composition to the islands where I wanted to go,” he said in a 2016 interview with photographer Claudio Muzzetto.
After Morandi’s death, Margherita Guerra, one of his many thousands of followers on social media, wrote, “Safe travels. Finally, no one will ever be able to send you away from your beloved island.”
