Eglise montreal mussolini biography

Like many churches in Italy, its ceiling is painted with a colourful fresco. Familiar figures populate the image — Jesus, church officials, angels. But on the right side of the enormous fresco, there appears an unfamiliar man in military dress, sitting straight-backed on a horse. The man who painted him is Guido Nincheri, a celebrated Italian-Canadian artist.

The explanation for this curious sight in Little Italy is, as one might expect, intertwined with the story of the artist. However, it also has a great deal to do with 20th century Italian politics, and the history of the Italian immigrant community.

History of little italy montreal

Professor Salvatore began by describing the difficult conditions Italians found when they first immigrated to Canada around the turn of the 20th century. Canadian immigration policy favoured Protestant northern Europeans, who were seen as racially and culturally preferable to the Slavs, Jews, and Southern Europeans who were attempting to immigrate to Canada in great numbers.

As both southern Europeans and Catholics, Italians were doubly undesirable. As a result of this isolation, Italian labourers found themselves cut off from nearly every higher authority except for the Catholic Church. Indeed, Protestant Italians were not only preferred by local authorities, but also served as the link between the entire community and the Italian government, who had poor relations with the Catholic Church since the appropriation of Papal lands by Giuseppe Garibaldi in the 19th Century.