Little Italy, Montreal

Little Italy is a neighbourhood in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is centred on Saint Laurent Boulevard between Jean Talon Street and St. Zotique Street in the borough of Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie, south of Villeray and Jarry Park.Little Italy is home to Italian Canadian-owned shops and restaurants, the Jean-Talon Market, as well as the Church of the Madonna della Difesa, built by Italian immigrants from the Campobasso area in Molise to commemorate the apparition of the Virgin Mary in La Difesa, an area of Campobasso.Montreal has the second largest Italian population in Canada after Toronto. There are 260,345 people of Italian ancestry living within the Greater Montreal Area.HistoryThe Italian presence in Quebec dates to the seventeenth century, when Italians served in the Carignan-Salières Regiment. There were also a few traders and artisans who came mainly from northern Italy. In the nineteenth century, larger scale Italian immigration began to develop. These immigrants were predominantly male farmers from the southern regions. These immigrants, mostly temporary, worked in railways, mines and lumber camps.