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was with a group of eight fellow villagers that Giacomo's brother Antonio emigrated
to Australia in 1861.
Bom into a farming family in 1843, Antonio had joined wdth his parents (father
Battista) and his two brothers in many of the village's centuries old rituals and
customs: he had accompanied his mother during the communal washing days dovm by
the river, helped with the seasonal plantings of the grape-vines on the steep mountain
sides and participated in the annual reUgious festivals.* Though the mgged landscape,
harsh climate, destmctive effect of avalanches and lack of work had accentuated the
difficulties of a subsistence life-style, his family had always found it within its power to
survive. But Ticino's economic and political strife of the 1850s changed this,
encouraging Antonio, like many young men in neighbouring families ~ Morganti,
Righetti, Bonetti, Caporgni, Dalidio, Griacometti, Guerra, Lanotti, Pedrina, Tognazzini,
Tognini and Pezzoni ~ to ponder a future in the Colony. Apart from his brother ~
who doubtless provided a powerfiil role-model ~ Antonio had known of a further 30
vUlagers who had departed for AustraUa between 1853 and 1854, followed by eleven
over the next six years.' In 1861, nine men and women decided to leave Someo for
Australia;* joining his companions for the overland joumey to the port, Antonio
became another of the young Ticinesi never again to step inside his native home.
Boarding the Great Britain at Liverpool on 12 Febmary, a vessel now docked
m a maritime museum at Bristol Harbour in England, Antonio was eighteen years old
and single. His ship had been built in 1843 especially for the purpose of transporting
emigrants to their destinations and now carried a total of 406; the only Ticinesi on
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