BIOGRAPHY

Fatima Negrini was born in Sustinente, Lombardy, Italy on 3 June 1912. Despite being the eldest daughter in a very poor family, she was able to attend school and had a passion for studying. However, she had to leave school after third grade to help her parents—her father, a boatman, and her mother, a peasant—care for her three younger brothers. At 19, she married fellow villager Giuseppe Cabrini, and they had three children: Luigi, born in 1932, Uberto the following year, and Luciano in 1943. After World War II, her two eldest sons moved to Milan for work, and by the mid-1950s, she, her husband, and their youngest son joined them. Her husband passed away in the mid-1980s.

In 2015, at the age of 103, she moved into a nursing home following a fall. Accepting her family’s advice, she left her home for the care facility. On her 108th birthday, she was a resident of the Anni Azzurri San Faustino retirement home in Milan. Just months earlier, in April 2020 at the age of 107, she contracted the coronavirus. Ten days before her birthday, after testing negative, she was finally able to leave the facility’s Covid ward. After recovering from COVID-19, she jokingly remarked, “God forgot about me.” At the nursing home, she enjoyed playing bingo, though the pandemic limited her ability to do so in the early days of the outbreak. At 108, she was a grandmother to four and a great-grandmother to two. In January 2021, she received the COVID vaccine alongside other residents of the nursing home.

Fatima Negrini passed away in Milan, Lombardy, Italy, on 17 January 2023, at the age of 110 years, 228 days.

RECOGNITION

On 16 August 2022, following the passing of 111-year-old Luigia Gorla, she became the oldest (known) living person in Lombardy, at the age of 110 years, 74 days. Upon her own passing, she was succeeded by Ida Ortolani.

Her age has not been validated.

ATTRIBUTION

* “Fatima, guarita dal Covid a 108 anni: «Dio si è scordato di me»” – Corriere della Sera, 5 June 2020

* “Italian woman beats COVID-19 at 108” – TheCable Lifestyle, 6 June 2020

* “Covid-19. Une Italienne vaccinée à l’âge de 108 ans” – Ouest France, 18 January 2021

* “Addio a Fatima Negrini, decana dei mantovani: aveva 110 anni e 7 mesi. Due anni fa superò il Covid” – Mantovauno.it, 17 January 2023

GALLERY