Background
Cani was born at Castel Bolognese, Province of Ravenna, Italy, and educated in his native province and at the Sapienza University of Rome, where he graduated Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Laws
Cani was born at Castel Bolognese, Province of Ravenna, Italy, and educated in his native province and at the Sapienza University of Rome, where he graduated Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Laws
He was ordained a priest in 1859, and accompanied the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Brisbane, Doctor James Quinn, to Queensland. He was appointed parish priest at Warwick, Queensland in the same year, and went to Brisbane in 1868. Ten years later Doctor Cani was made Pro-Vicar Apostolic of Northern Queensland.
On the death of Bishop Quinn, the diocese of Brisbane was divided into two and Doctor Cani was appointed, by papal brief, Bishop of Rockhampton, and was consecrated in Saint Mary"s Cathedral, Sydney, by Archbishop Roger Vaughan, on 21 May 1882.
He commenced construction of Street Josephs Cathedral in Rockhampton in 1893 but did not live to see it completed. Cani contracted dengue fever in November 1897.
While he recovered from the fever, he remained in poor health and died from heart failure at his residence in Rockhampton on Thursday 3 March 1898 aged 62. On Saturday 5 March 1898, a Solemn Requiem Mass was held at Street Joseph"s Pro-Cathedral after which he was buried in South Rockhampton Cemetery.