Darebin’s Australians: Immigrants to Citizens
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Australia’s Italians are one of the largest ethnic groups in Australia after the Anglo Saxon - Celts and have been arriving here for over 200 years with a Venetian on board Captain Cooks ‘Endeavour’ in 1770 and two Sicilian cooks in Captain Phillips first fleet in 1788.

AN UNSTABLE ITALIA
By the mid 1800s Britain, Austria, Germany and France jostled for the domination of Europe. Austria and France were bitter rivals in the struggle for control of Italy. In Italy regional kings and barons also wielded power. Pro-Republican nationalists, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini led regional armies in an attempt to unify Italy. Rome became the capital of a united Italy in July 1871.
Hence war, politics and at times famine influenced Italians to migrate to ‘new countries’.

THE VICTORIAN GOLDRUSH OF THE 1850s
The Victorian goldrush of the 1850s brought the first wave of Italians with many coming from the northern Italian Lombardia and Swiss Italian regions. In 1854 Raffaelo Carboni, an Italian patriot who had joined with Garibaldi in the struggle for unification of Italy, wrote a detailed account of the now famous ‘Eureka Stockade Rebellion 1854’.
The Swiss Italians mined for gold with families like Lucini, Vanzetta,
Milesi, Pedretti and Perini amongst many others and settled in the
Hepburn Springs - Daylesford area.
Through the late 1800s Italians from other regions in Italy followed. By the 1900s village communities were making the journey ‘to the land of i kanguri’. They established themselves mainly as canecutters, market gardeners and restauranteurs.

In 1901 there were few Italians in Northcote : Sanguinetti, Olzomi, De Silviera and a Mr Biaggi who was the propietor of the Croxton Park Hotel.

ITALY’S EOLIAN ISLANDERS ON HIGH STREET
Many of the Italian fruit shops on High St were run by Italians from the Eolian Islands, 7 small volcanic islands off the north east coast of Sicily - Lipari, Salina, Vulcano, Panorea, Stromboli, Filicudi and Alicudi.

Many Eolian Islanders settled in Geelong as market gardeners and set up fruit shops in the north of Melbourne from Clifton Hill to Thornbury in the 1920s & 1930s. The proprietors of the greengrocers on High Street included Biviano,
Lo Piccolo, Natoli, Casamento, Matisi, Mastroianni, Antonello from the Veneto region & Ongarello who was a wine merchant.

‘THE CASAMENTO’S & NATOLI’S’
Northcote residents and 2nd generation desendants Maria ‘Casamento’ Ang and brother Peter Casamento recall, “the Natoli’s came from Lipari and the Casamento’s from Vulcano. My ‘Zio’ uncle Bartolo Natoli came to Australia in 1922 and went on to set up a fruit shop at 263 High Street Northcote in 1925. It was he who called for our ‘Zia’, aunty Anna in 1927 and then our mother Rosina, Zia Maria and our grandmother Maria arrived in 1931 on the Orama. Zia Anna married Frank Matisi”. There were Eolian Islander Fruiterers from Clifton Hill to Preston. The Ferlazzo’s were already established in Clifton Hill and looked after our dad when he first arrived.”

M. CASAMENTO - QUALITY AND FRIENDLY SERVICE ALWAYS
Marino Casamento arrived in 1925 on board the ‘Palermo’, and married Rosina Natoli in 1933. In 1935 Marino & Rosina Casamento took over a greengrocer’s on a thriving High St at no.237. “Fridays and Saturdays you could not move for the people.” Crowds loved the pictures at the Northcote Theatre and dancing at the Town Hall. The strip between Westbourne Gve and Hawthorn Rd had 6 fruitshops. Mrs Cain, wife of John Cain Snr, Councillor, Labor Parliamentarian and later Premier, shopped at the Casamento’s. Mr Cain once took a postal vote to Rosina while she was in hospital. Rosina and Marino had 7 children, 5 boys & 2 girls. Gatherings for Christmas, Easter, Birthdays, farewells and homecomings were all celebrated in the shop. The kids called the owner of the Chinese ‘Wing On Cafe’ nextdoor ‘Uncle’.

MARIA AS A YOUNG GIRL
The four year old sits on an upturned banana box. On her ears dangle deep red cherries. The juice from a luscious furry, pink peach dribbles down her chin. She is waiting for the shop to close and looks at the chook hanging upside down over the gully trap. Soon it will be plucked clean. Nothing is wasted - the head for soup, the skin of the neck stretched and stuffed, the giblets prepared, the body(including the feet)turned into delicious pasta sauce - simmered for hours. She looks forward to Sunday lunch - the rituals, the aromas, the taste sensations -the togetherness.
from Culinary Lane by Maria Casamento Ang©1998

“Every Sunday when Mamma made pasta and meat sauce we’d call out over the fence to ‘Mummy’ Thomsen, a family friend who did
some cleaning for us and also worked in the shop, and give her
a plate of ‘past’asciutta’.”
By 2004, 5 generations of the Natoli & Casamento family had lived and worked in Darebin.

THE MATISI FRUIT SHOP
THE LAST EOLIAN ISLANDER FRUIT SHOP ON HIGH STREET
In 1929, Frank Matisi who’d married Anna Natoli, Rosina’s sister opened a greengrocer’s shop at 597 High St. Son Bob was born at the back of the Natoli fruit shop at 263 High St in 1932. During the 2nd World War trade dropped off for the Italians. “An Australian family friend went around to many of our customers and admonished them for not shopping at our fruitshops. ‘They are still the same people,’ she said, ‘they came here to get away from the war, you should be ashamed of yourselves’,” said Bob
Bob’s uncle, Tony Matisi, who later became the 1st Italian born Mayor of Northcote, was interned. “We were not allowed to have a radio and had to inform the police if we left Northcote. We went to a school concert in Collingwood and with 2 little kids Mum had to go to the police station on the way, then at night on the way home she had to get off the tram, go to the police station and say we were back” said Bob Matisi.
“We bought most of our vegetables from the Victoria Market, but sometimes when we ran out of lettuce we would go to the
Chinese Market gardeners down by the creek. Sometimes
people wanted Chinese cabbage, they would pick everything
fresh from their market garden.”

2004 found Bob still running the Matisi greengrocer’s. The last Eolian Islander fruit shop in High St, the end of an era.

TONY MATISI - THE FIRST ITALIAN BORN COUNCILLOR
& MAYOR OF NORTHCOTE
When Tony Matisi was first elected to the Northcote City Council he had been living in Northcote for 26 years. He was the first Italian born councillor in Northcote elected by his local constituents in 1962. He served the community on council until 1985 and was 3 times Mayor.

BRANCHING OUT
A cousin Joe Natoli had a fruit shop in Reservoir and was a keen supporter of the Reservoir Lakeside Footy Club. The Bivianos opened fruitshops in Preston, Fairfield and Reservoir. Antonello from the Veneto region continues to run a fruit shop on High St.