Franca Pilla

Franca Ciampi (; born 18 December 1920) is an Italian teacher who served as the first lady of Italy from 1999 to 2006, as the wife of president of Italy Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

At 105 years old, she is currently the oldest living former first lady in the world.

Biography Franca Pilla was born in Reggio Emilia on 18 December 1920. At the age of 18, she met her future husband, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. They met at a "dancing tea" which at the time was a respectable way for youth to meet. The tea was organised by mothers, and boys and girls would be allowed to practise dancing with each other.

Following one year of engagement since the end of World War II, in which Ciampi had been a soldier and then a resistance fighter, Pilla married him in Bologna in 1946. They spent over seventy years together during which time her husband was prime minister, director and governor of Italy's central bank, minister of finance, and other positions, and later president; he died on 16 September 2016.

During a tour of Naples, in the south of Italy, she was quoted as saying that the Italians in the South were kinder and more intelligent. at the age of 105, she is the oldest living former first lady in the world, following the death of Catherine M'ba, widow of Léon M'ba of Gabon, in November 2025.