Canon Raffaele Marelli in Western Australia, 1853 - 1864

Raffaele Martelli arrived in Fremantle in 1853 and spent the rest of his life in Western Australia where he died in 1880. He was born on 11 March 1811 in the city of Ancona, on Italy's Adriatic coast, where he was known to the local police as one of the ""most ardent and brazen enemies of the government"", a reference to the Papal States. He took part in the 1848 Veneto campaign of Italy's First War of Independence and later distinguished himself for his humanitarian work during the Austrian siege of Ancona.

Martelli was a Canon of the Cathedral of Ancona and a professor of rhetoric in the city's seminary. In 1851 Martelli had an encounter that was to change the course of his life for, on 15 October 1851, Rosendo Salvado arrived at Monte Cassino accompanied by Venancio Garrido. The encounter with these two men and the experience of seeing at first hand the work being done at the Abbey to prepare monks for the Western Australian mission clearly moved Martelli to the point that he too volunteered. Martelli left Subiaco in February 1853 for Cadiz, where he sailed with Salvado and Garrido and forty postulants on the John Panter, arriving at Fremantle on 15 August.

The authors have studied the nearly two hundred letters in the Archives from Martelli to his great friend, Bishop Salvado. From the letters the reader gains an insight into Catholic and colonial life in 19th century Western Australia and, more particularly, into the importance of the letters in fostering and maintaining a friendship whilst overcoming isolation and distance.


John J. Kinder is Associate Professor of Italian and Head of the Department of European Languages and Studies at the University of Western Australia. After studying the language of Italian migrants and their families, he co-wrote a grammar of Italian (Using Italian: A Guide to Contemporary Usage) and a multi-media history of the Italian language (Culture and Language of Italy). A series of chance encounters led to a new interest, the presence of the Italian language in Western Australia in the century before post-World War II mass migration.

Joshua Brown teaches Italian at the University of Western Australia. His research interests include the language history of Italy, particularly northern vernaculars in the Middle Ages, as well as socio-linguistics of contemporary Italy. He has previously published on the spread of Tuscan in northern Italy during the 1400s in Italica as well as the social variation of Milanese vernacular in merchant texts in Italian Studies. Joshua was New Norcia's Abbot Placid Spearritt Memorial Scholar for 2012-2013.