Maria Gravigi

Maria Gravigi (3 March 1900 - 15 August 2013) was an Italian supercentenarian whose age is officialy validated. At the time of her death, she was the second oldest living person in Italy, behind Emma Morano.

Biography
Maria Gravigi was born in Friuli-Venezia Giulia in eastern Italy on 3 March 1900, when Umberto I was king of Italy and Leo XIII was the pope in the Vatican. In 1917, Maria Gravigi and her mother, Anna Monticco, were forced to leave their house after the defeat of Caporetto and were displaced to Rome. The parenthesis in the capital was the only one in which Maria Gravigi left her beloved Udine. She worked as an employee of the Ministry of Weapons and Ammunition. After returning to Friuli, after attending her sick mother, she married Francesco De Candia, an employee of the Ferrovie, who was 10 years older than her. She became a widow in 1955 and lived in several Udinese neighborhoods such as Bartolini, Chiavris, Duodo Avenue and Battistig.

On her 113th birthday, she was the third oldest living person in Europe, behind Morano and Maria Redaelli. She had no secret for her longvevity. "My mother has never had vices. She did not smoke, did not drink, she ate a bit of everything in the regular way", Mrs. Gravigi’s daughter said at her last birthday. However, she always was a determined, combative, resolute character, a strong woman of other times.

Maria Gravigi passed away on 15 August 2013 in the town of Udine at the age of 113 years, 165 days. Following her death, Alba Bertoni from Remanzacco became the oldest living person in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, while Emma Morano remained the oldest living person in the whole of Italy.