Download (14Mb) - VUIR - Victoria University

Aquilino Tinetti had arrived in Australia in 1860, built himself a stone cottage and set
to farming the land. He had retumed to his home village of Biasca to marry Maria
Virgmia Capriroli and bring her back to Australia, By 1891, two years after Isidoro's
arrival in AustraUa, the Tinettis had produced twelve of their thirteen children, two of
whom later married into the Milesi clan. Nor was the marriage between Isidoro and
Caterina the first to urute the Rodoni and Tinetti clans: in Ticino a number of
marriages had taken place in different branches of the family, including that of
Aquilino's brother Andrea with Maria Caterina Rodoni in 1856 and Pietro Rodoni
(see above) with Eufemia Tinetti (Andrea and Maria Caterina's daughter) in Australia
in 1873,* The marriage between Isidoro and Caterina might, therefore, have been
arranged and one of the reasons for his transfer from England. The second eldest child
in her family, Caterina was eighteen years old at the time of her marriage to 27 year old
Isidoro.
In what was an unusual arrangement among peasant folk, Aquilino Tinetti and
his family vacated their stone cottage at Shepherds Flat to make way for the
newly-weds. Moving to a house a short distance away, they left the Rodonis to
occupy their stone and clay home with bam, dairy and well. The home had originally
been buih on the banks of the Jim Crow Creek but, after the waterway had been
diverted to one side during the mining years, it was reached by crossing a bridge over
the creek,* A facUity with stone (Biasca being noted for its indestmctible buUding
materials of gneiss and granite) was evident in Aquilino's stonework at Shepherds Flat,
the home's original section ~ a single room with cellar ~ being a random-mbble
assemblage of large sandstones and riverstone. Though dry-stoning was the method
411