Italy's oldest woman has died at the age of 109 in central Sardinia, an area being studied for its remarkable longevity rates.
Raffaella Monni lived and worked all her life in the central Sardinian uplands, starting as a farm-hand at the age of 10.
Until a few years ago she was still sprightly enough to flit up a tree outside her small dry-stone home to pluck its hazelnuts.
Asked recently for the secret of her long and healthy life, she replied "half a glass of grappa before bedtime".
The area around Nuoro boasts hundreds of people in their 80s, scores in their 90s and more than a dozen over 100.
One of its other celebrated inhabitants was Antonio Todde, a 112-year-old honoured as the 'oldest man in the world' by the Guinness Book of Records until his death in 2002.
The retired shepherd put the secret of his record-breaking longevity down to a glass of red wine every day and a simple diet based on cheese and lamb.
Another Sardinian farmer, 110-year-old Pasquale Frasconi, told reporters his recipe was "never taking medicine and sticking to my daily dose of myrtle liqueur".
Frasconi was Italy's oldest man till his death in 2004.
Unusually spry old-timers are not confined to the Nuoro region, however.
Overall, Sardinia has some 150 inhabitants over the age of a hundred, the highest ratio in the world.
Researchers at the University of Sassari have been studying Sardinian lifestyles in the hope of finding keys to longevity.
Genetic studies are also under way to see whether the local DNA will reveal some reason for the islanders' long live spans.
