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uilding strength, and cemented together with a mud and lime or clay mortar.
(Extemal rendering was a later addition, with carefully incised lines giving the
impression of even sized blocks.) The house was also given a cantilever balcony which
was later removed. The front door, like that of the Morganti home, (cf earlier section)
had a transom window to provide additional light and the interior walls were thickly
constmcted to help support the roof The stone-Uned cellar, where the family kept its
food suppUes and wine, was entered via an extemal staircase to the left of the house
and lit by a small window; two 2,700-litre and several smaller wine barrels were stored
on elevated sections to one side of the small room. The cellar floor sloped down to a
central hole where rain water could collect and be pumped away. Also similar to the
Morganti home, protmding building blocks at the rear of the house allowed for future
extension work should the family grow, thus translating Lombard peasant building
practice^* (ref figure 14). The cooking area was extemal to the house where, on an
open fire, food was prepared and then carried inside; such kitchens were common in
the nineteenth century and avoided the risk of damage to the house by fire. A dairy
made from saplings and mud lay to the rear of the home in a style of building then
common in Europe; it was similar to but stronger than the 'wattle-and-daub'
constmctions which had become popular among the early settlers. Striving to make
the property self-sufficient, other buUdings which served the family's needs included
several timber workshops and a piggery.
Also important to their aim of self-sufficiency was a large and fit work-force
which, in the tradition of their peasant ancestors, was provided by the children.
Maddalena gave birth to her first child Mary the year after her marriage. A second
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