Off the North Coast of Sardinia

Mauro Morandi, the custodean of Budelli Island near Sardinia, has died, aged 85.

“I was quite fed up,” he once said, “with many things about our society. Consumerism and the political situation […] I decided to move to a deserted island […] far from all civilization. I wanted to start a new life close to nature.”

It sounds like he had a terrific life on the island:

Food is delivered to him by boat from the main island of Maddalena, and a homemade solar system powers his lights, fridge and internet connection.

During winter, when there are no visitors, he spends his days collecting firewood, reading and sleeping.

It was idyllic until almost the end:

His home on Budelli was a former second world war shelter until 2021, when he was evicted after a lengthy tussle with La Maddalena national park authorities, who had planned to transform the island into a hub for environmental education.

Morandi moved into a one-bedroom apartment on La Maddalena, the largest of the archipelago of seven islands off the north coast of Sardinia.

He spent some time in a care home in Sassari last summer after a fall, and is reported to have died at the weekend in Modena, northern Italy, where he was originally from, after his health deteriorated.

Morandi said he was struggling to adapt to life after Budelli. “I became so used to the silence. Now it’s continuous noise,” he said.

Why can’t people just be allowed to live (and die) how they want to? What is it about a simple live like Morandi’s that is so offensive to modernity? How could the development — which never even happened — have been inconvenienced by an elderly man living roughly in a war shelter?

When he resisted eviction, the authorities complained that “the property has been developed without permission.” Developed! The property! Look at it (above)! It’s an improvised wooden lean-to, hundreds of miles from the nearest pair of human eyes.

“I hope to die here and be cremated and have my ashes scattered in the wind,” he said at 81.

“I’m so used to living in the middle of nature,” he told the Guardian by phone. “What would I do back in Modena? Play cards and go to bars like other people in their 80s? Give over!”

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