Interview with John Kinder - The Canon of Ancona

John Kinder is Emeritus Professor of Italian Studies at University of Western Australia. He taught at UWA for 33 years.

In his academic life, John published on the Italian language among migrants in Australia and New Zealand, on Italian grammar and authored a multimedia history of the Italian language. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, a Corresponding Fellow of the Accademia della Crusca, and a Grand Ufficiale of the Order of the Star of Italy.

Now he’s also the author of a new biography just published by UWA Publishing, The Canon of Ancona, which carries the subtitle Raffaele Martelli, Missionary in Western Australia.

Born in Ancona, Italy, Raffaele Martelli was headed for a brilliant career as a priest and professor but his passion for Italian unification and civil rights put him at odds with the church establishment. After a chance encounter with Rosendo Salvado, founder of the New Norcia Mission, he sailed to Fremantle in 1853, at the age of 42.

Directed by church authorities to work among the white population, his passion for social justice led him to build churches and schools, work side by side with Protestant pastors, and look out for the downtrodden. When he finally managed to work with Aboriginal people, the worsening nature of the colonial frontier presented challenges he felt unable to meet. As the publisher rightly claims, The Canon of Ancona captures a unique voice in early Western Australia – the voice of an outsider.

The biography of Martelli reflects extensive research, both in the New Norcia archives and in Italy by John Kinder. In the course of telling Martelli’s story, Kinder presents a compelling account of the heady revolutionary unification times in Italy in the early and mid 19th century, followed by an account of the struggles of European Settlers in Western Australia, from the focal point of those associated with the Catholic Church, as they attempted to establish themselves in a place that was new to them but already populated by Indigenous peoples with an ancient culture.

Our editor, Michael Barker, was pleased to catch up with John Kinder to make the podcast you’ll find below, and to ask him what he thinks possessed the 42 year old Martelli to leave Italy for the 24 year old British Swan River Colony in 1853, what might his ambitions have been, what were his connections with Fremantle and other parts of the Colony during his next 27 years in it, and does John think did it all worked out as Martelli may have imagined when he arrived in 1853?

The podcast is just over an hour long, but there was so much to discuss in relation to the life and times of this diminutive but much loved Italian Australian priest both before and after he arrived in Fremantle, we have posted the full interview.

Here’s a rare photograph of the Canon of Ancona, Raffaele Martelli.