'I felt true emptiness': A hidden loneliness crisis is haunting Italy

In 2019, Marinella Beretta, 70, was living by herself in a quaint villa wedged between the foothills of northern Italy’s bucolic pre-Alps and Lake Como’s shores.

Having no family other than a few cousins in a neighbouring region, she had recently sold her property to a Swiss entrepreneur. Her friends were few and far between, and acquaintances with whom she’d only had perfunctory interactions thought she seemed increasingly reserved.

One autumn day that year, Beretta suddenly felt unwell. A chronic sufferer of hypertension, she sat by her kitchen table and died. No one was there to witness her death or make any calls. She was simply left by herself, perched on her chair.

Days, weeks, months, and eventually years, passed.

The pandemic struck. Letters arrived. Payments from the Swiss buyer were deposited in her bank account. Hedges, left untrimmed, grew into an unsightly mess.

It was only when neighbours complained the overgrown vegetation had become unsafe that firefighters finally discovered her mummified body on 6 February 2022, more than two years after her death.

The story of Beretta’s unnoticed death sent shockwaves across Italy and the world. The country’s family and equal opportunities minister, Elena Bonetti, called her death an injury “to our conscience”. Como’s mayor promised a public funeral and urged for a “moment of reflection”.

A columnist for the Corriere della Sera, Italy’s biggest daily newspaper, lamented the lack of care of those around her and labelled Beretta “loneliness personified”. And countless others were left aghast at how society could leave one of its members so desperately behind.

Yet Beretta’s predicament is far from an isolated case. Rather, it represents the tip of a crisis that is hidden deep