ROME - Emma Morano, at 117 the world's oldest person who is also believed to have been the last surviving person born in the 1800s, died on Saturday at her home in northern Italy, her physician said.

Dr. Carlo Bava told The Associated Press by phone that Morano's caretaker had called him to say she had stopped breathing in the afternoon while sitting in an armchair at her home in Verbania, a town on Italy's Lake Maggiore.

Bava said he had last seen his patient on Friday when "she thanked me and held my hand", as she did every time he called on her.

A woman in Jamaica, Violet Brown, who was born in that Caribbean island on March 10, 1900, is now considered the oldest known person in the world, according to a list kept by the Gerontology Research Group.

Morano's doctor, who lives a few blocks away from his patient, had been her physician for nearly a quarter of a century.

Morano, born on Nov 29, 1899, had been living in a tidy, one-room apartment, where she was kept company by her caregiver and two elderly nieces.