In search of kings: what became of the passengers of the Re D’Italia. Tony De Bolfo. 2002.

In 1994, Melbourne journalist Tony De Bolfo began to wonder what had prompted his grandfather and two great uncles to leave heir homeland in northern Italy for a new life in Australia. He turned to his great-uncle Igino-the only surviving member of the original trio who undertook that arduous forty-six day voyage aboard the steamship Re d’Italia (King of Italy) in 1937.

But what began as simple curiosity became an overwhelming obsession for Tony, which led him on his own voyage of discovery. Working from the original passenger list, he set out to reconstruct the life stories of the 105 men, women and children who accompanied his forebears down the gangway, into the unknown.

After years of painstaking research, he has unearthed extraordinary tales of murder, suicide, brushes with the Mafia and illicit love. Far more common though are the ‘ordinary’ lives-the lives of a generation of Italian immigrants who survived the First World War and Fascism in their homeland, only to face the Great Depression then internment during the Second World War, as well as the ongoing barriers of language and culture. They endured incredible hardships to forge successful lives from nothing.