Fixed presence in Bianca Berlinguer’s programs, Mauro Corona is not only a mountaineer. Today at Verissimo, the 74-year-old comes to tell about his intense life: between books, mountains, women and pain. While waiting for the live broadcast from 4:30 p.m. on Canale 5, let’s find out a little more about him.
Mauro Corona, who is he
Born in Baselga di Piné (province of Trento) on August 9, 1950, Mauro Corona is 74 years old. Son of Domenico “Meni” Corona and Lucia “Thia” Filippin, two street sellers, he returned with his family to Erto, the original village in the Vajont valley, after spending his early years in Trentino. From a very young age, he followed his father on hunting trips as a poacher, and it was precisely on these mountains that his passion for the mountains and mountaineering was born. After the birth of the fourth child, the mother decides to abandon the family, exhausted by her husband’s beatings. “My father put my mother in a coma three times. Until she ran away from home – he tells Corriere – I was 6 years old, my brother 5, the last born four months old. I saw her again when I was thirteen.” Corona devoted himself to reading from an early age, reading Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Cervantes, and at the same time he learned the art of wood carving from his sculptor grandfather.
Verissimo, the weekend guests (Saturday October 12 and Sunday October 13): the drama of the daughter of Nadia Bengala and Barbara Palombelli with Francesco Rutelli
October 9, 1963 radically changed his life when the Vajont wave swept away the lower part of the town of Belluno, causing more than 2,000 deaths. With his first younger brother, he moved to the Don Bosco College in Pordenone: a difficult period because nostalgia, the feeling of imprisonment and the lack of the Erto woods constantly tormented him. When the two brothers returned to Erto, Corona wanted to attend the Ortisei School of Art, but lack of money forced him to attend the Marinoni Institute for Surveyors in Udine, because it was free. However, after a few years he left school and started working as a laborer in Maniago. In 1968, the first younger brother, Felice Corona, went in search of work to Germany, where he drowned three months later in a swimming pool in Paderborn. In the meantime, Corona goes to work in the marble quarry on Mount Buscada. Very hard work but softened by contact with the peaks, forests and meadows which remind him of his childhood.
Love for the mountains
Forced to suspend work in the marble quarry due to military service, Mauro Corona transferred to L’Aquila, where he joined the Alpins. From there he went to Tarvisio in the ski team, where he was released a month late because of thirty-two days in the punishment cell accumulated for his numerous intemperances while performing the service.
Mauro Corona to Verissimo-Le Storie: “After the discovery of my daughter’s tumor, I stopped dreaming. Alcoholism? We’re not getting out of it”
During this period, he continued to devote himself to climbing. In a few years, he climbed the mountains of Friuli and then traveled to Greenland and California on the walls of the Yosemite Valley. Today, several climbing routes bear his signature. In 1997, he began his career as a writer, thanks to the help of a journalist friend who managed to get him to publish a few stories in the daily Il Gazzettino. Since then he has published several books, all to moderate success. He will always continue to alternate writing with sculpture and climbing, his greatest passions.
The relationship with Bianca Berlinguer
A regular guest on “Cartabianca” from September 11, 2018 to September 23, 2020, he was dismissed after calling the host, Bianca Berlinguer, a “chicken”. In 2021, however, he was reinstated in the program and remained there until the definitive closure, on June 27, 2023, to then resume, from the following September 5, the same role by passing on Rete 4 with “È semper Cartabianca” .
Privacy
Mauro Corona is married to Francesca, with whom he has four children: Marianna, Matteo, Melissa and Martina. They all share the same passion for the mountains and for art. Marianna and son Matteo followed the same path as their father. Marianna is a yoga teacher and, when she has time, she spends her days in the mountains.
Girl’s cancer
Marianna, when she was 38 – she is now 44 – discovered that she had colon cancer. Initially, the discovery of the illness destabilized her, but then she learned to face it, fight it and overcome it. Thanks also to the teachings of his father. “Cancer had created an inner unease for me. I came out of it little by little, starting to reconsider the body that I felt distant, almost repugnant – the woman confided to Corriere della Sera -. We mountain people grow up with the teaching that we must always be tough and strong. Like the mountain. It’s an imagination that builds. Before the illness, I felt strong. A strength that came to me from this paradigm. But I was fragile. I tiptoed into illness, starting from the bottom up without looking at the top. “Never look at her, because little by little, you will get there” my father always told me. The man who passed on to me a passion for the great outdoors and sport.”
Mauro Corona: “My father put my mother in a coma 3 times, then she ran away. The argument with Bianca Berlinguer? I had been drinking”
“After my pathology in 2017 – Marianna Corona told Bianca Berlinguer – now I am doing well, the colon and intestinal cancer was removed and I did six months of chemotherapy, after which I entered surveillance and I do the normal checks that are done for these pathologies, but I am fine “. Mauro Corona at Verissimo said: ” It’s not just a girl’s illness. I also have another with the same pathology. Maybe life gave me too much, so it started taking things away from me. But not in the economy. She took away my children’s souls. There, everything fell apart for me. But from every tragedy a little light can emerge. Reading Marianna’s book, I understood a lot of things. I felt his fear, his terror. It left a very deep mark on me. I no longer have dreams. I start again every morning from what’s left”
The books
He also published a book, “Flowering Between the Rocks”. Mauro’s only male son graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice and is an illustrator. He also spends a lot of time in the mountains and is passionate about writing, in fact, he published the book, “In the Hands of the Raven Man”. As for Melissa and Martina, we don’t have much information. However, they too, when they can, accompany their father for walks in the mountains or even on a few excursions.
Free marriage
Francesca is the ex-wife of Mauro Corona. The two haven’t officially split, but the writer and climber revealed their romance is over. “If I’m separated?” No. We live close by, but each on our own. We have a few drinks together. But marriages are like the scythes that fight for the grass, strike and strike, take the stone, you must sharpen them when they wear out. In a love that wears out, there must remain respect and affection,” he said last December in an interview with Oggi. Their marriage, moreover, was an open marriage. The climber said he had not been faithful, but always sincere. “I’m cheating on my wife, yes. But loyalty is an outdated thing, if I find it with someone else, I buy them a beer. There is no need to commit murder, let her go with whoever she wants: there is no jealousy. Rather than fixed lovers, mine are occasional. I have sex twice a month, say 24 times a year. With different people, because with the same one, it would be impossible. I’m not interesting, I’m not good-looking, but being famous, I can ‘take’ more. These are the last shots, I’m having fun. I have never conquered, I don’t flirt, I don’t give flowers, I wait for women’s gestures.” But he always said it to her.
Alcoholism
Mauro Corona at Verissimo also spoke about his problems with alcoholism: “I’ve had problems since I was little. In the village, if you didn’t drink grappa as a child at 9-10 years old, it didn’t go well. My grandfather gave me bowls of wine. It’s not a justification or an excuse, but you also had to show that you were macho, that you were a man, that you were a lumberjack, that you were strong. I’ve always had this problem with wine. Now, for two months, I have tried to regulate the bottle, but the demon is still there, waiting for you around the corner. I did it for my kids too, but I’m not sure. We don’t get out of alcohol. This poison is still there. My problem with alcohol is that I don’t feel bad. I get up in the morning, I go climbing and I have no after-effects, I have nothing. I am here at almost 74 years old and I have had genetic-biological luck that my children did not have. I should thank someone because drinking like that is like an insult to the one who gave you health and strength.”
Where he lives
Mauro Corona’s house is located in Erto, a tiny village lost in the mountains of Friuli Venezia Giulia. On social media, no photos of his house, but from TV connections we understand that his favorite room is the office. From the way the office is arranged, we can deduce that Corona’s house is furnished with a simple and essential style, with many photos from his many travels on display and many books in the living room, given that he is a writer (he has published more than 30 books), but also a great lover of reading.
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