Farewell to Mauro Morandi, the hermit “guardian” of the island of Budelli

Mauro Morandi, a former physical education teacher originally from Modena who lived on the island of Budelli, Sardinia, for 32 years in complete solitude like a modern-day Robinson Crusoe, has passed away at the age of 85.

Mauro Morandi, the lone janitor of the small island of Budelli, Sardinia, has died at 85. The man, a former physical education teacher originally from Modena, passed away on Friday, Jan. 3. He had been experiencing health problems lately, including a bad fall with injuries to his vertebrae that forced him to leave Sardinia last fall and return to his hometown. He had written this himself on his Facebook profile, where he continued to keep his many friends updated. In one of his last posts he reported that he was hospitalized in an Rsa in the Reggio Emilia area.

To many he was a hero, to others a mere “squatter”

He was certainly no ordinary person Mauro. A dreamer, a man of other times, intelligent and combative, Mauro Morandi for 32 years (from 1989 to 2021) lived alone on the small island of Budelli in the Maddalena archipelago in Sardinia, becoming its janitor and living as a hermit. A sort of contemporary Robinson Crusoe, a bitter defender of an unspoiled paradise and a source of inspiration for so many of his supporters. But Mauro Morandi was also a divisive character. Not everyone loved him and indeed criticized his choice, arbitrary and outside the rules. Starting with the Sardinians themselves, particularly the residents of La Maddalena, but especially the leaders of the Archipelago Park Authority who, after years of pressure and complaints, finally succeeded in getting him to leave the island. They appealed to the need to reclaim the island’s land, including the “janitor’s house” where Morandi lived, which the Park said had undergone over the decades modifications and transformations made without any permit.

The long judicial dispute with the Park Authority.

In that long tug-of-war with the Park Authority, Morandi claimed his work as a volunteer and unpaid janitor with which he jealously defended the beauty of that natural paradise from the assaults of mass tourism and vandals. Several times he had made himself available to the Park to also “reinvent” himself as a guide to an island that no one like him knew. But there had been no way. His story, in addition to being recounted in many news reports and documentaries, was also the subject of a book entitled “The Guardian of Budelli – A Long Love Story Between a Man and His Deserted Island,” written by Antonio Rinaldis and Morandi himself. We at the Giornale della Vela had also delved into Mauro Morandi’s story, starting in 1989, when together with two friends he had refurbished a sailing catamaran with the dream of crossing oceans and instead had landed on Budelli, an island famous worldwide for its rose-colored sand, and there he decided to stay. The news of Mauro Morandi’s passing immediately made the rounds of the web where many expressed words of condolence and emotion. Many are now asking to remember him in some way, perhaps with a statue on the island. Among the many messages one stands out: “Your ashes will rest on your beloved island, cradled by the delicate reflections of the pink beach and caressed by the majestic junipers shaped by the west winds. And this time, Mauro, no one will be able to snatch you from your island. You won in the end.”