Emma Martina Luigia Morano (29 November 1899 – 15 April 2017) was an Italian

supercentenarian A supercentenarian, sometimes hyphenated as super-centenarian, is a person who is 110 or older. This age is achieved by about one in 1,000 centenarians. Supercentenarians typically live a life free of significant age-related diseases until short ...

. She was the world's oldest living person from 13 May 2016 until her death on 15 April 2017, aged 117 years and 137 days. Until her death, she was also the last living person verified to have been born in the 1800s. She remains the oldest Italian person ever to be documented and the fourth-oldest European ever.

Early life

Emma Martina Luigia Morano was born on 29 November 1899 in Civiasco,

Vercelli Vercelli (; ) is a city and ''comune'' of 46,552 inhabitants (January 1, 2017) in the Province of Vercelli, Piedmont, northern Italy. One of the oldest urban sites in northern Italy, it was founded, according to most historians, around 600 BC. ...

Piedmont Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...

, to Giovanni Morano and Matilde Bresciani, the eldest of eight children (five daughters and three sons). She had a long-lived family: her mother, an aunt and some of her siblings turned 90, and one of her sisters, Angela Morano (1908–2011), died at age 102. When she was a child she moved from the Sesia Valley to

Ossola The Ossola (; ), also Valle Ossola or Val d'Ossola (; ), is an area of Northwest Italy situated to the north of Lago Maggiore. It lies within the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola. Its principal river is the Toce, and its most important town Do ...

for her father's job, but the climate was so unhealthy there that a physician advised her family to live somewhere with more moderate weather, so she moved to Pallanza (later merged into

Verbania Verbania (, , ) is the most populous ''comune'' (municipality) and the capital city of the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy. It is situated on the shore of Lake Maggiore, about north-west of Milan and ab ...

), on

Lake Maggiore Lake Maggiore (, ; ; ; ; literally 'greater lake') or Verbano (; ) is a large lake located on the south side of the Alps. It is the second largest lake in Italy and the largest in southern Switzerland. The lake and its shoreline are divided be ...

, where she lived the rest of her life. In October 1926, she married Giovanni Martinuzzi (1901–1978), and her only child was born in 1937, but died when he was only six months old. The marriage was not a happy one, so in 1938, Morano separated from her husband, driving him out of the house.

Later life

Until 1954, Morano worked at Maioni Industry, a

jute Jute ( ) is a long, rough, shiny bast fibre that can be Spinning (textiles), spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from flowering plants in the genus ''Corchorus'', of the mallow family Malvaceae. The primary source of the fiber is ...

factory in her town. She subsequently worked in the kitchen of Collegio Santa Maria, a Marianist boarding school in Verbania, until her retirement at the age of 75. In December 2011, she was awarded the honour of Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by President

Giorgio Napolitano Giorgio Napolitano (; 29 June 1925 – 22 September 2023) was an Italian politician who served as President of Italy from 2006 to 2015, the first to be re-elected to the office. In office for 8 years and 244 days, he was the longest-serving pre ...

. In 2013, when asked about the secret of her longevity, she said that she ate three

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...

s a day, occasionally drank a glass of homemade

grappa Grappa is an alcoholic beverage: a fragrant, grape-based pomace brandy of Italian origin that contains 35 to 60 percent alcohol by volume (70 to 120 Alcohol proof, US proof). Grappa is a protected name in the European Union. Grappa is made by ...

, and enjoyed a

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cocoa beans that can be a liquid, solid, or paste, either by itself or to flavoring, flavor other foods. Cocoa beans are the processed seeds of the cacao tree (''Theobroma cacao''); unprocesse ...

sometimes, but, above all, she thought positively about the future. She was still living alone in her home on her 115th birthday. In 2016, she credited her long life to her diet of raw eggs and to staying single. Morano commented "I eat two eggs a day, and that's it. And cookies. But I do not eat much because I have no teeth". Morano became the oldest living person in Italy and Europe after the death of Maria Redaelli on 2 April 2013. On her 114th birthday, she gave a short live TV interview to a

RAI (), commercially styled as since 2000 and known until 1954 as (RAI), is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many terrestrial and subscription television channels a ...

show. On her 116th birthday, Morano received congratulations from

Pope Francis Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 13 March 2013 until Death and funeral of Pope Francis, his death in 2025. He was the fi ...

. She surpassed the age of Venere Pizzinato in August 2014 and Dina Manfredini (who died in the United States) in August 2015, to become the oldest Italian person ever. On 13 May 2016, upon the death of American woman Susannah Mushatt Jones, Morano became the world's oldest living person and also the last living person verified to have been born before 1900. On 29 July 2016, she was presented with a certificate from ''

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, list ...

'' recognising her as the oldest person alive. Festivities celebrating her 117th birthday on 29 November 2016 were broadcast live in Italy.

Death

Morano died at her home in

, Italy, on 15 April 2017, at the age of 117. At the time of her death, she was the fourth-oldest person in recorded history. Upon her death, Violet Brown became the world's oldest living person.

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