A supercentenarian who was among the oldest people to recover from Covid-19 has died at 111 – just two months short of her 112th birthday.
Lucia Clementa Ronda passed away on Sunday (15 Feb) in her bed at the care home she had been living in for some time.
Born on 22 April 1914 in Casalmaggiore, in the province of Cremona, she was the fourth-oldest woman in Italy and the oldest in the Lombardy region.
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Her age was validated by the Gerontology Research Group in 2024.
During the Second World War, authorities in Casalmaggiore tasked her with drawing up maps of the town’s air-raid shelters.
In the 1950s, she became one of the first women to enrol at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan.
At the request of the then Archbishop of Milan, Giovanni Battista Montini – who later became Pope Paul VI – she worked alongside renowned sculptor Luciano Minguzzi on one of the entrance doors of the world-famous Milan Cathedral.
Over the years, Lucia devoted herself to teaching art. She lived in various parts of Italy, including Abruzzo, Liguria and Molise, before eventually returning to her hometown.
Having survived both world wars, fears were ignited when she contracted Covid-19 in early 2020 at the age of 106, as reported by Need To Know.
But she made a full recovery that May, after a month of treatment, becoming the oldest person in Italy – and one of the oldest in the world – to survive the virus.
An article published the following April said she “refuses to dwell on her age”, describing this as her “secret” to longevity.
At the time, a care worker noted that she was “very well, perfectly clear-minded”.
Lucia married but had no children. However, she was frequently visited at the care home in Marcignago, in Pavia province, by her three nephews.
One of them, Paolo Zani, told local media: “My aunt lived for art and culture and, right up until the pandemic, was still asking for charcoal and sheets of paper to draw and sketch architectural outlines.”
The supercentenarian’s funeral will be held on Tuesday (17 Feb) in Casalmaggiore, where she will be laid to rest.
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