UK media site iNews features a profile of Pietro Anastasi. The feature title is: “I’ve lived on this remote Italian isle for half a century. I love my hermit life.” The byline reads: “Pietro Anastasi, 89, is the only year-round resident of the island of Filicudi, off Sicily’s northern coast, having moved there in the 60s.” The website requires a subscription, otherwise allowing the article to be visible about 20 seconds.
INews of the UK includes this update on Mauro Morandi, recently evicted from his island eremitism. Article title: ‘People can be overwhelming’: Hermit’s misery after he was kicked off Italian paradise isle”. Article byline: “Mauro Morandi, 84, says he misses the silence after 33 years as the sole occupant of an island off Sardinia.” First lines of the article:
“For 33 years, Mauro Morandi lived the life of a hermit on the Italian paradise island of Budelli, off the north coast of Sardinia popular for its pink coral beach.
“As the island’s caretaker, he lived alone in a ramshackle hut in the company of birds, and found it blissful. Three years ago, the marine park authorities of La Maddalena archipelago kicked him off the isle, with plans to build a museum.
“Morandi crashed back down to earth. He went from a life of freedom on the sand, surrounded by nature and the sea breeze, to sleeping in a small apartment on the nearby island of La Maddalena, a tourist hotspot with 15,000 residents.”
Check the category “Italy” for more entries on Morandi.
Il Fatto Quotidiano (Italy) offers a report on painter-artist Gabriele, who was a “rising artist.” The article summarizes his artistic life:
“In 2006 Gabriele won the ManinFesto competition at the Villa Manin Contemporary Art Center. In 2008 he was among the seven winners of the Terna 01 award and in 2009 he qualified among the finalists of the second round. Thanks to this recognition he exhibited at the Chelsea Art Museum in New York. He has participated in art fairs in Bologna, Verona, Turin (Artissima), Karlsruhe, and the Pulse in Miami. A canvas of Gabriele appears in the Oscar-winning film La Grande Bellezza by Paolo Sorrentino. His works are part of important public and private collections .”
Then, one day, Gabriele gave it all up — and became a hermit. He became Friar Gabriele (Fra Gabriele) and moved to Romita di Cesi, in the province ofTerni in central Italy. Romita di Cesi was originally a medieval Franciscan hermitage, since long abandoned, only refurbished in 1991 by by its only resident, 83-year old Fra Bernardino. The hermitage today serves as a retreat house. Fra Gagriele lives an eremitic life there but regularlyvhelps Fra Bernardino with chores inthe garden and preparing firewood.
Aleteia notes that the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life announces a new document regulating canonical and other Catholic hermits. The document titled “Ponam in Deserto Viam” was issued in September 2021 but is announced now in February 2022.
The document is not so much regulation as guidelines. It emphasizes the psychological status of the hermit, assuming the hermit’s religious motives. It counsels an organization of daily life, recommends work, regularity to food (versus extremes), and cautions that a life of solitude should not be “too isolated” from others. The hermitage should provide subsistance, and approximation to medical and other resources. The life of the hermit represents a radical vision, states the document, but one that silently demonstrates to others “that it is beautiful to dwell in God alone.”
From CNN, an update (if not the last word) about Mauro Morandi, long-standing Italian hermit, mentioned several times in this blog:
“For nearly 33 years he lived a hermit life on a beautiful island in the Mediterranean, where he was the sole inhabitant. Mauro Morandi, known as Italy’s Robinson Crusoe after developing a loyal online following, was caretaker of the Sardinian island of Budelli, embracing silence, solitude, and the peacefulness of nature while living in an old beach stone hut.There was no social buzz, no fancy food, no friends — his only companions were birds and cats. He slept on a cot and had few clothes. Forsaking all comforts, he preached a monastic existence of self-reflection and meditation on Budelli’s pink beach dotted with coral dust. Then his blissful world came to an end. After years of struggling with marine park authorities that wanted to evict him to turn the isle into an environmental observatory, in May Morandi accepted his fate. After posting a pithy message of resignation — “My balls are broken” (slang for “I’m fed up”) — he left. Moving home and starting a new life can be tough for anyone. Even more so for an 82-year-old who has spent three decades living a solitary existence on a paradise island. Is it possible to move on and readjust? Says Morandi, the answer is an emphatic ‘yes!'”
