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houses in Ticino and northern Italy had been made from a plentiful supply of local
stone. Despite being well adapted to the needs of their peasant owners, they had,
however, been squalid, cold and uncomfortable, a central fireplace giving off more
smoke than heat and families sleeping several to a bed or in the hayloft to receive the
warmth from the stables below. The close proximity of the animals and the lack of
ventilation had made the homes putrid and unhygienic. The bedclothes were rags and
the windows little more than small holes covered in paper. It was, nevertheless, in a
similar material and style that many Italian speakers chose to build their homes in
Australia, since it allowed them to draw upon traditional building skills and create a
familiar domestic environment. The main difference between these homes and those of
their past was that the new dwellings were bigger, more comfortable and more like
those of the rich. According to Gentilli:
The great achievement [of the Italian speakers] was to build a
two-storey stone house with wine cellar and cheese store room just as
the better-off folks were able to afford back home.*
Many of the Italian-speaking immigrants were skilled stonemasons whose very
survival, at times, would have had relied upon an ability to make and repair their own
homes from local resources.
These skills extended to both the Ticinese and the Lombards. Around the
shores of Lombardy's lakes region, stuccoists such as the Maestri Comacini from
Como (cf above Morganti section p. 75) had been renowned for their ability for
centuries' and the Ticinesi, working alongside them during their annual excursions into
northern Italy in search of work, had absorbed many of their skills. Returning to their
Ticinese villages, they had introduced the Lombard building styles of stuccoed houses
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