ITALIANS

Words By Viki Komornik Illustration by Rhiannon Poley

It won’t come as a surprise that Reservoir has a high proportion of Italian speaking residents within its borders. In 2021, 13.9% of Darebin’s population spoke Italian at home compared to 6.6% in Greater Melbourne. Even higher in the Merrilands area of Reservoir, 34.9%.

James Matra and Antonio Ponto, both of Italian descent, arrived with Captain James Cook on his voyage of discovery in 1770. Convict Giuseppe Tuzo arrived with the First Fleet, but the first large group of about 4000 Italians arrived during the 1850s Victorian gold rush era. The numbers steadily started increasing in the early 1920’s.

I have a soft spot for Italy. While living in Budapest I visited the Venice festival a few years in a row, travelling close to ten hours on the bus, and hardly sleeping on the way back so I would not ruin my amazing carnival face paint before I could show my parents. Unfortunately as Venice was built on mud and reclaimed land, it has been sinking and the Mediterranean Sea levels are rising causing the city to flood every year. By 2100 it could be underwater, however I’m hopeful the city will be saved.

The architecture is dreamy, stunning, I was taking photos of every building I passed. In the pre-digital camera era that was a lot of photos to print. I traveled extensively around Italy in my twenties, and still try to visit every time I’m back in Europe. Hey, living in Tuscany for a few months is on my bucket list. So yes, a soft spot indeed.

Based on the high number of Italian speaking residents in Reservoir, many of you will know more about Italy than I ever will, but below might be some interesting facts for everyone.

Italy is one of Europe’s youngest countries. Until 1861 it was a collection of sovereign states. You’d be easily forgiven to think Italy is an ancient country, as many believe that ancient Rome - Rome being over 2000 years oldis the same as Italy.

The colours in Italy's flag all have a meaning; Green is for hope, white denotes faith and red is the colour of charity.

When one travels in Italy it’s impossible to avoid driving through a mountain range. Alps border the north with jewellike alpine lakes and glaciers. The Apennines form the spine of the entire peninsula. Mountain ranges higher than 702 metres occupy more than one-third of Italy.

Then there is the sea or more accurately, the seas. Adriatic Sea to the West, Tyrrhenian Sea to the East and Mediterranean Sea in the South.

There are active volcanoes in the south that keep people on their toes. All three of Europe’s active volcanoes are in Italy. Etna, Vesuvius and Stromboli. Vesuvius near Naples is responsible for the destruction of Pompei.

It’s a country with a complicated history, like most countries I guess. The world’s smallest country, The Vatican is located within Italy. The towns and cities have a long history of self-sufficiency, independence and apparently mutual mistrust. Cuisine and dialect also differentiates the regions.

The Etruscans - a pre-Roman civilisation from around 900 BC - lived in Tuscany, and the Greeks in the south before the Romans latinised the country. Jews arrived during the time of the Roman Republic, Germanic tribes came across the Alps and the Byzantines in the south. Saracens invaded Sicily until the Romans arrived and stayed for a couple of hundred years until the Aragonese, then the Austrians took over. This mixed ethnic heritage explains why you’ll meet light-eyed, blond Sicilians.

There has been a predominantly female migration from the Philippines and male migration from North Africa. The breakup of the Soviet bloc allowed for an influx of Eastern Europeans. The Post-Arab Spring revolution and the violence that followed sparked the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. The total population of Italy is 62.4 million (as of midyear 2021), two and half times of Australia’s.

There are the mafia movies which rightly or wrongly give the impression of plentiful shady things happening in Italy. Searching online you’ll find endless stories with facts presented about various mafia groups - the best known is the Sicilian Mafia - and corruption. Entertaining when watching a movie but less so, no doubt, when you live under their thumb.

Now back to happier snippets of Italy.

Italy is packed with heritage sites, 55 to be specific, more than any other country. You definitely won’t run out of sites to visit once you are there. Although not on the heritage sites list, if you love wine visit Caldari di Ortona on the Italian pilgrimage route of Camino de San Tommaso. This small town has a free wine fountain, Fontana del Vino, that flows 24 hours a day with locally grown red wine.

Italians must be doing something right as Acciaronli, a village on the South coast has one of the world’s highest concentration of Centenarians. 300 of its about 2000 residents are over 100 years old and 20% of them are over 110. Definitely not the demographic the government based the pension scheme on :)

One of my family members could live on pasta. Literally. He appreciated the small fact the pasta dishes in Italy date back as far as the 400 BC. Historians found paintings in a pre-Roman Italian tomb thought to depict pasta making equipment.

Then there is the coffee. Melbournians can truly appreciate quality coffee but are unlikely to match the consumption of espressos of Italians. Fourteen billion espressos each year. Many may think of the French when thinking of quality cheese. Well, the Italians are right up there, gifting the world the highest variety of cheeses, with over 2,500 traditional cheeses.

What else has Italy given us? I’m definitely thankful for corrective eyeglasses invented in the 13th century and used mainly by monks. Santorio Dantorio invented the thermometer in 1612. Alessandro Volta invented the first batteries in 1800, ‘volts’ were named after him. Thankful or not the first bank, the Bank of San Giorgia opened in Genoa in 1149. Some things they even came up with twice. Like paving. Thanks to the Romans thousands of kilometres were paved then nothing for hundreds of years until 1339 when the city of Florence paved its street, becoming the first city in Europe to do so.

I don’t think there are enough pages in The Rezzadent to list all the art Italians have gifted to the world. Michelangelo, Botticelli, Leonardo, Vivaldi, Pavarotti, Pisano, Collodi and the list goes on. Personally I find it overwhelming how much beauty and art surrounds the visitor every time I visit Italy.

So much beauty and so little time.

HERE TO MAKE NOISE!