More Histories - Falling in Eden by Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti

HISTORIES

Falling Eden in

AN ANTHOLOGY OF STORIES ON CRIME IN MALTA

GIOVANNI BONELLO

Falling Eden in

GIOVANNI BONELLO

First published by Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti and Kite Group Ltd, 2024

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without prior conditions, including this condition, being imposed on any subsequent publisher.

This new series is being generously supported by the Francis Miller Memorial Fund

Creative Director

Michael Lowell

Design and Layout

Lisa Attard

Editor Giulia Privitelli

Produced by Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti

ISBN 978-9918-23-141-6

Printed in Malta Progress Press Co. Ltd in partnership with

HISTORIES

Falling Eden in

AN ANTHOLOGY OF STORIES ON CRIME IN MALTA

GIOVANNI BONELLO

The title page illustration, by Rebecca Bonaci, features uniquely designed interrelated motifs that reflect the themes of each volume of this new series, More Histories.

ABOUT THE NEW SERIES

Just over ten years ago, in 2013, Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti published the last volume of Histories of Malta, a twelve-part series which overflows from the narrowest and darkest corners into the most iconic and unforgettable aspects of the Maltese Islands’ history and heritage. Archival and visual records, literature, artefacts and artworks, hearsay, and local knowledge, passed from generation to generation to the perked ears and readied pen of the author, Giovanni Bonello. They fed and shaped that microcosmic narrative, inviting the reader down foreboding corridors and exciting and unexpected turns into, not quite the heart, but the outskirts of Malta’s labyrinthine history. There are many leading actors, both heroes and villians, in these stories, but ultimately it is the one holding the pen who also wields the sword that will deliver the final blow. With this new series, it is as though Bonello feels that time has not yet come; there is still more to discover about the monster lurking within before we even dare face it. Some steps ought to be retraced, stories revisited, and others viewed from different angles.

To help us, as if equipping us with Ariadne’s thread, stories previously published and scattered among several issues of local newspapers and periodicals have been collected, many widely reworked, and presented here thematically. Though this new series will not be as extensive as its forerunner, its content is nonetheless a potent mix of humanity, crime and creativity, and illustrates some of the most haunting (and hopeful?) questions concerning the human condition: Why do humans err? Who or what can be blamed for such error? How can it be dealt with, transformed, or even, remembered? None of these questions are addressed in a direct way, but read closely and you might catch them watching you, perhaps quietly gesticulating the way onwards. Remember where you are in this labyrinth: the periphery. But, even if against all reason, it is the heart, the centre of all things, that we desire most to reach. And so, we are compelled to thread on, guided by the author’s hand, and with uncertainty accompanied hand in hand with our curiosity.

ABOUT THE VOLUME

Faltering, with bowed heads, our altered parents Slowly descended from their holy hill, All their good fortune left behind and done with, Out through the one-way pass Into the dangerous world, these strange countries.

C.S. Lewis, from ‘The Adam Unparadised’

‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.’ Sounds familiar? This is, of course, Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), published just over 350 years after the earliest story recounted in this anthology in which such human dignity, such reason, such conscience, and such brotherhood were but forgettable and difficult concepts yet to be set in stone. That is, if we were to regard the infamous story of the new, then broken, then renewed stone tablets recounted in the Old Testament as just that: an old testament, an ageing witness to truths revealed, with an agenda to enslave those poor and believing souls for the sake of freedom, equality, dignity…

But what freedom, what equality, what dignity in the fifteenth or sixteenth or nineteenth century? Rights were for those who could pay to have them unearthed from their sleeping chamber buried deep beneath duty and responsibility, and often deemed non-existent if you simply had the misfortune of being born where and as you are. Meanwhile, dignity, like those so-called rights, was a title or a concession to be bestowed. And equality? A matter of lineage, luck, and melanin. Human beings? In most cases, as you will soon have the pleasure to discover, was

a condition some felt the need to justify or write off as simply being human. And that would include anything between love and pride, despair and hope, success and failure, rising and falling.

In this anthology there is much to be said about ‘falling’. What is it that drives a human being over the edge, to think the unthinkable, to carry out the undoable, to record the unsayable? There is not much that the records can, in fact, reveal; much is left up to your own discernment, dear reader. But whatever could be patched up together in some form of coherent narrative, Giovanni Bonello did, with a distinctive wit that makes his storytelling light, shocking, forgiving, and hilarious, all at the same time. And who better qualified, too? With at least twelve years of experience as a Judge at the European Court of Human Rights, and around 170 defended human rights lawsuits in domestic and international courts under his belt, who could have a better vantage point to review and retell such episodes which, more often than not, are relegated to the margins of our history books or, a fate worse still, reduced to a footnote?

Here, then, is the result, albeit a selection of it, with slightly different versions of these anecdotes, perhaps, being told elsewhere. Thread and read with care, mindful that these stories are just a part, a dark mirror reflecting what might have happened. Observe and consider all you can but please, I beg, leave judgement aside. For there is, indeed, something that unites and ‘humanises’ all human beings through their waking, breathing lives: the predisposition to err, even if with all good intentions. Falling is as much of mankind’s journey on earth and is, if for no other reason, worth recalling.

Giulia Privitelli Editor

A 1588 Homicide by a Knight of Malta

Lawyers and Lawyering in Malta before 1600

A 1636 Murder in Birgu … and its Fall-Out

Mischievous Books in the Times of the Order

Thefts from Churches in Malta

Tragic Tales of Slaves in Malta

Caterina Scappi Revisited

The 1832 Beheading of a Young Woman in Senglea

The Tragic Prince of Abyssinia in Malta

Mankind in the Red-Light District

(More of) Mankind in the Red-Light District

Counting on Dishonour among Thieves during Early British Rule

How Early British Rule Affected the Legal Profession in Malta

A 1588 Homocide by a Knight of Malta

‘For what difference is there between provoker and provoked, except that the former is detected as prior in evil-doing, but the latter as posterior?’

Tertullian

The luxuriant criminal energies prevalent in Malta during the first century of the rule by the Order of St John have not been properly studied so far. Many reasons account for this information blackout—mostly the poor documentation available. The Order of Malta generally suffered from compulsive record-keeping manias during its stay on the islands, and most of its written data have been preserved. Not so those of the two major systems of criminal justice: the one of the Knights for the knights, and that of the Prince for the rest of the population.

These were two completely autonomous and independent organisations— the Castellania criminal justice for the people, while the Sguardio system regulated exclusively crimes committed by knights or those committed against knights. The first was left almost entirely in the hands of the natives: Maltese judges, lawyers, prosecutors, registrars, jailers, and executioners. The second remained the jealously guarded preserve of the Order. In 1781, the internationally famed jurist Giandonato Rogadeo, invited to Malta to reform the laws and the court system, confessed he had never seen anything as appallingly corrupt and inept as the Maltese administering justice.

The written records of the Order’s criminal trials have disappeared. Virtually nothing is left of the thousands of fat files that documented in clinical, but often gory, detail the reports of criminal offences committed by knights or against knights, the investigations, the evidence, the statements of witnesses, the pleadings by the lawyers, the final judgements. Nobody seems to know when or why this mountain of history was wasted, or by who, when most of the other records were, more or less conscientiously, preserved. The fact remains that today we can only attempt to reconstruct the criminal scene through the flimsiest of evidence, the most evanescent of documentation.

All that remains, and because they were recorded in a different set of volumes, are the skeletal minutes of final deliberations by the adjudicating council. The precious Libri Conciliarum, which register the decisions of the Council of the Knights, have thankfully survived. But these only contain the skimpiest and most economical annotations imaginable: today Fra XY was condemned to prison for

theft; today Fra AB was found guilty of the homicide of CD and sent to the guva. In the otherwise bleak circumstances, thanks providence for little mercies. These records are the equivalent of what we still today refer to in old Italian legal jargon as prime note. Nothing else. The full criminal files have vanished.

The Council of the Order met regularly and frequently in the Grand Master’s Palace in Valletta, and generally it had a very loaded agenda to go through—administrative and diplomatic matters, promotions, supplies and services, commissioning and examination of reports—and criminal proceedings. Strangely and quite unusually, for the meeting of 12 July 1588, the Council placed only one item on its agenda: the trial of the knight Fra Andrea de Chiambaly, accused of homicide. Usually, these criminal trials did not take up a lot of the time of the Grand Master’s counsellors: they examined the report drawn up by the two commissioners delegated to compile the evidence and draw their conclusions, and then they took a secret vote on its contents—guilty or not guilty (called lo scrutinio delle palle). In the former case, the Grand Master in Council also deliberated on the punishment to be awarded.

Fra Andrea’s real family name was Ciambanin, not Chiambaly, but scribes, in those days, jotted down proper names quite approximately, not according to any strict protocol but just as they believed they sounded phonetically. The fact that the clerk recorded him as ‘de Chiambaly’ possibly indicates that the delinquent was believed to be of French origin.

Fra Andrea stood charged with the wilful homicide of a Maltese subject, Nicola Borg, known as Cola. The Council found him guilty and condemned him to a five-year term of imprisonment. Quite likely, the Counsellors could not reach a unanimous verdict as the minutes would otherwise have recorded nemine discrepante—no one disagreeing. That is all the surviving records state—the name of the accused, that of the victim, the nature of the crime charged, and the sentence passed. Nothing about the date and the circumstance of the crime, its motive, in what way it was carried out, the weapons used, the defence of the accused, the details of the penalty.1

A 1588 HOMICIDE BY A KNIGHT OF MALTA

This bleak dearth of information has, in this particular instance, been somehow relieved by a fortuitous find in the Notarial Archives. Among the thousands of loose papers, unclassified documents, and what-is-this-doing-here bric-a-brac, the staff working there under Dr Joan Abela spotted a cinquecento petition connected with a murder investigation, which she kindly drew my attention to.

I instantly recognised this was linked to the Cola Borg homicide. It is the original of a petition filed by Pietro Ciambanin, the grieved father of the accused knight, to Grand Master Hughes de Loubenx de Verdalle. The supplica does not have a date, but the deliberations which follow it on 20 January 1588, allow us to establish the temporal sequence. The petitioner wrote quite legibly, though the subsequent annotations by the Grand Master’s bureaucrats prove more difficult to decipher.

The father of the knight accused of murder, himself a member of the lower ranks of the Order (a Fra donato, not professed with solemn vows, and only authorised to wear a six-pointed cross, not the full eight-pointed one) wanted the Grand Master to be aware that ‘the wife, the mother, sons and relatives of [the late] Cola Borg, not satisfied with having accused and proceeded with the alleged homicide of the said Cola, against Fra Andrea Ciambanin, servant at arms, his son, who, in fact had been provoked, insulted and ill-treated (maltrattato) suffering wounds; but to inflict further pain on the petitioner’, pressed their criminal charges not only in front of the Grand Master’s tribunal in the Castellania, but also in front of the tribunal of the Order of St John, to show how he has been unjustly accused and prove his innocence. The father humbly petitioned the Grand Master to instruct two impartial (non suspetti) knight Commissioners to compile the evidence to establish the true facts of the case and refer to the Council in order that justice be done.

The Ciambanins had already left faint, unremarkable footprints of their presence in Malta. In 1575, Pirro Ciambanin had put his name down as a founder of the Corpus Christi confraternity in the parish church of Porto Salvo, St Dominic, Valletta.2 Pirro, as a Christian name, is an old Italianate variant of Piero, Pietro.

Parts of the rest of the texts following the supplica appear rather illegible to me, both because the ink has faded and because it has seeped onto the other face of the paper, interfering with the writing’s legibility. The Council appointed the two investigating Commissioners, the senior knights Commendatore Nicola Sciortino from Noto, who had joined the Order immediately after the Great Siege, and Fra Antonio Caccialepre, who I have been unable to trace. The only Antonio Caccialepre I know of was one of the two brothers of Greek descent who established in Malta the devotion of the Risen Christ by erecting the chapel of the Annunciation, Rabat, and endowing it with an image of the Resurrection. But this Antonio does not seem to have been a Knight of Malta.3 Were two Antonio Caccialepre concurrently in Malta when the homicide took place? Possibly but unlikely. These notes also mention the relatives of the murder victim: Pauluccia his widow, and Mario and Martino Borg his sons.

The name of the priest Giuseppe Famigliomeno appears in the records too, though the poor condition of the petition does not make it easy to establish why.4 Quite possibly, this document includes his name as the Council had, in 1587, appointed him acting Vice-Chancellor of the Order during the absence in Rome of the incumbent Vice-Chancellor, Fra Didaco de Ovando.5

Fr Famigliomeno happened to find himself at the centre of another unruly brawl at exactly the same time as the homicide of Cola Borg, though the two episodes do not seem to be connected. He got involved in an argument during which the young troublemaker Fra Cassano Bernizzone6 from Genova slapped him soundly across the face. After a full trial, Bernizzone first ended in jail, and later lost his seniority, and Fra Giulio Cesare Raspa from Vercelli was defrocked; the Council also expelled the nobleman de Gabot from the Order for having perjured himself when giving evidence at their trial.7

This was neither Bernizzone’s first nor his last brush with the criminal law. In 1587, the Council had tried him for wounding grievously Fra Filippo Cesarino ‘with copious shedding of blood’. Condemned to jail, he escaped and had to face a second trial for absconding from prison. Shortly later, the Council

charged him with the murder of Fra Giuseppe d’Aragon and, having served his sentence, he resolved his criminal record needed further embellishment and he added a duel against Fra Filippo la Surda.

Despite Bernizzone’s familiarity with the insides of prisons, the Grand Master selected him as special envoy with a delicate mission for the Pope and the King of Spain.8 And, to confirm his rather unsteady piety, in the 1590s he built from his own purse the chapel of Our Lady of Graces in the new church of Porto Salvo, St Dominic, Valletta, and also pledged to endow it with an artistic altarpiece. That he failed to maintain this last promise is quite beside the point.9

This supplica allows us to reconstruct some clues of how the trial proceeded: who the Commissioners investigating the crime were, the fact that the victim’s family took an active part in the prosecution, and what defence the accused pleaded: extreme provocation and self-defence. Still, plenty of questions remain unanswered. One is: why and how did this supplica find itself in the Notarial Archives when, apparently, it has no connection with anything notarial?

The usual penalty for wilful homicide committed by a knight was expulsion from the ranks of the Order, as this then enabled the culprit to be handed over to the lay criminal courts and condemned to death (the statutes and custom exempted those who were still knights from the death penalty). The fact that the Council only inflicted a five-year term of imprisonment on Fra Andrea Ciambanin confirms that his judges accepted his pleas of provocation and selfdefence in mitigation.

The year of the homicide, 1588, was not a particularly spectacular or turbulent one for Malta. Pope Sixtus V had promoted Grand Master Verdalle to the rank of Cardinal Deacon of the Holy Roman Church and he had been lavishly welcomed in Rome when he travelled there to receive the princely hat. Not everyone, however, approved of that promotion: Cardinal Ascanio Colonna openly slighted and ridiculed the new Cardinal Deacon during an official banquet given in Verdalle’s honour in the Pope’s city, because he made no secret of considering Verdalle unworthy of becoming a Cardinal.

On his return to Malta in 1588, the freshly promoted Cardinal Grand Master built Verdala Palace in the Boschetto, limits of Rabat, but he also needed to settle scores with Cardinal Colonna, whose coat of arms was an upright column. Verdalle’s escutcheon showed a wolf. A malicious sense of humour inspired his vendetta. He ordered that Palace Square be embellished with a column, on which a wolf squatted, defecating. Verdalle wanted his revenge on Cardinal Colonna to last through the centuries and in his will he even established a substantial legacy for the maintenance and repair of his wolf crapping on Colonna.10

We know that after the trial, the Ciambanins remained in Malta, occasionally aspiring to some degrees of fame or notoriety. An entry in the Udienze records of 1609 shows that a certain Signor Ciambanin had erected a building on his own land but had, no doubt absent-mindedly, nicked a large tract of public land, incorporating it stealthily in his property.11 In 1619, Caterina Ciambanin married Pietro Caxaro, descendant of the Cantilena poet. Pietro Ciambanin bought the vineyard ‘tas-Sinjur’ in St Julians, and in 1634 he petitioned the Grand Master to allow him to enlarge it by encroaching on public land.12 Trophimo Deodato Ciambanin (1631–1658), son of Pietro and Argenta, took holy orders. Though baptised in St Paul’s church, Valletta, he was buried in Porto Salvo, St Dominic’s, when he died only twenty-seven years old.13

In 1679, another Pietro Ciambanin (Pietro must have been a distinctive name in the Ciambanin family) married the noblewomen Agostina Perdicomati—a family related to the ancestors of the former Prime Minister of Malta Sir Gerald Strickland. One of their daughters, Maria Teresa Ciambanin, strayed from the straight and narrow. She became the long-term mistress of a leading knight of Malta, the Balì Louis-Alphonse de Lorraine-Armagnac. I dare anyone to find a more supremely rarefied lineage than that. The Lorraine-Armagnacs counted as one of the most aristocratic and well-connected families in Europe, related by marriage alliances to half the sovereigns of the continent.

Maria Teresa Ciambanin never married Louis-Alphonse, but she, rather carelessly, bore him at least three daughters, informally known as d’Armagnac.

The eldest, Anna d’Armagnac, married Gio Nicolὸ Baldacchino in 1715; the middle one, Teresa d’Armagnac, that same year married Francesco La Speranza, while Pietro Galea took the younger one, Giovanna Maria d’Armagnac, as his spouse the following year. Miss Ciambanin, with her three illustrious bâtardes, must have magnetised the combined frowns of the rest of the God-fearing Maltese community. The target of blithe and rather jealous gossip, no doubt.14

Though by nobility of birth Balì Louis-Alphonse Lorraine-Armagnac ranked among the highest possible dignitaries of the Order, he never seems to have distinguished himself in anything at all, good, bad or indifferent, except for his commitment to flouting his solemn vow of chastity and providing tangible evidence to anyone who doubted his dedication. He died in Malaga on his twentyninth birthday, on 24 August 1704. His father was the brother of Philippe de Lorraine-Armagnac, also a knight of Malta, but better known for his legendary beauty and for having been the lifelong gay lover of Philippe d’Orleans, the transvestite younger brother of Louis XIV, King of France.

Hints of Ciambanin DNA and of the dazzlingly blue blood of the Lorraine-Armagnacs must still lurk discreetly in the crannies of Maltese arteries and veins.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My heartfelt thanks to Dr Joan Abela who put me on the right track, to Maroma Camilleri, who just cannot help being helpful, and to Dr Theresa Vella who introduced me to the Udienze reference.

CAPTIONS

P.x Engraving after Cavalier d’Arpino showing knights imprisoned in the Castellania with the Conventual Church of St John the Baptist in the background, from Grand Master Verdalle’s Statuta Hospitalis Hierusalem, chapter 18 ‘De Prohibitionibus Et’ (Rome: Titi & Pauli de Dianis, 1588). (Courtesy of the National Library of Malta)

P.4 Supplica by Pietro Ciambanin, 1588, from the loose-leaf collection at the Notarial Archives in Valletta. (Courtesy of the Notarial Archives Foundation)

P.8 Engraving after Cavalier d’Arpino showing a criminal trial of a knight of Malta, from Grand Master Verdalle’s Statuta Hospitalis Hierusalem, chapter 7 ‘De Concilio et Iudiciis’ (Rome: Titi & Pauli de Dianis, 1588). (Courtesy of the National Library of Malta)

ENDNOTES

1 AOM 97, f. 139.

2 George Aquilina and Stanley Fiorini, Documentary Sources of Maltese History. Visita Apostolica Pietro Dusina, 1575, Part IV, No. 1 (Malta: Malta University Press, 2001), 16.

3 Mikiel Fsadni, Qlubija, Twegħir u Faraġ f’Sekli Mqallba (Malta: Pubblikazzjoni Dumnikana, 1997), 74.

4 NAV [Notarial Archives, Valletta], sixteenthcentury loose-leaf collection, 1588 supplica by Pietro Ciambanin.

5 AOM 97, f. 109v.

6 Also Bernissone.

7 AOM 97, ff. 127-128, 131v.

8 Giovanni Bonello, Histories of Malta, Vol. 10 (Malta: Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, 2009), 54.

9 Mikiel Fsadni, Id-Dumnikani fil-Belt (Malta: Veritas Press, 1971), 24-25, 48-49.

10 Victor Mallia-Milanes, Descrittione di Malta. Anno 1716: A Venetian Account (Malta: Bugelli Publications, 1988), 103.

11 AOM 663, f. 126v. The text says Chamberlain, but the phonetic French pronunciation of Ciambanin would be Ciambanin.

12 AOM 1184, f. 91.

13 Vincent Borg, Melita Sacra, Vol. 3 (Malta, 2015), 273.

14 See, www.maltagenealogy.com—‘Ciambanin’.

Lawyers and Lawyering in Malta before 1600

‘Formerly we suffered from crimes; now we suffer from laws.’

Tacitus

Let’s face it: so far, we know virtually nothing about the origins of the legal profession in Malta or what it was like when the Order of St John of Jerusalem received the islands from the King of Sicily, the Emperor Charles V, in 1530. We take it for granted that lawyers were present and practised their profession on these islands. Yes, but who were they? Where did they study and graduate? How were they regulated? What was their career path?

Albert Ganado’s invaluable book—half biography of his father Judge Robert Ganado and half chronicle of the Maltese civil service from 1815 and of the legal profession from 1666—has fleshed out lists of lawyers who exercised their profession in Malta. The first name on these lists is that of Dr Gio Andrea Cangialanza, but he is only recorded as active as late as 1666.1 I sought to find out if I could push that date further back and fill in some gaps.

The vast Malta documentation of the Castellania Regia of the Court of Palermo, brilliantly and meticulously transcribed by Stanley Fiorini, repeatedly has mentions of advocates (jurisperitus, legum doctor, Doctor Utriusque Juris, IUD) present and working in Malta, many mentioned by name. These sources range all the way between 1259–1500. Many of these Doctors of Laws were obviously not Maltese, but (mostly Sicilian) lawyers who dealt with Maltese controversies in Sicily, or were specifically sent over to Malta to resolve complex legal issues. Most delegations from the Court of Sicily to Malta included advocates.

But some of those mentioned might perhaps have been Maltese, like Raimondo Implomaceri, legum doctori, appointed in 1409 to take over all civil and criminal lawsuits in Malta and Gozo, and determine them without right of appeal, except directly to Queen Bianca of Sicily.2 Again, Leonardo Bartolo, legum doctorem, is tasked in 1434 with certifying the ability of Andrea de Beniamino from Gozo to exercise the profession of notary.3 In 1456, the Court of Palermo overrides the Maltese Universitas and appoints officials in Malta directly, among them Pietro di Modica, legum doctorem, as appeals judge, and Lanza Dasti, Nicola Raficano, and Nicola de Zarlo as judges of the civil court. Were these lawyers Maltese?4

There are two Doctors of Laws, Geraldo Aglata and Mariano Aglata, both chief notaries (protonotari), who appear repeatedly in the records, particularly in the examination and approval of Maltese and Gozitans to exercise the notarial profession, and other public offices, from 1462 to 1487. Were they established in Malta? Did the candidates travel to Sicily for these exams?5 One thing seems certain: Doctors of Laws repeatedly appear in Maltese controversies. Whether they were Maltese or Sicilian is often quite difficult to establish.

The records of the Maltese notary Giacomo Zabbara also glimpse at the working of the legal profession. In 1488, Imperia Ziguchi, who owed money to Notary Lorenzo Falzon, entered into an agreement with him in Zabbara’s acts: Falzon would be her advocatus in a lawsuit for the recovery of a house she claimed as hers. The contract also included the stipulation that she would only pay her advocatus his professional fees if he succeeded in winning her court case.6 In another claim which Bartolomeo de Astis had won in 1494 in the Maltese courts, he had been assisted by two lawyers, Giovanni di Bonaiuto and Jacobo de Basilico, Utriusque Juris Doctorum (UJD). The lawyer Bonaiuto had already been mentioned earlier as a commercial partner in the export of barley and other merchandise from Malta to North Africa.7

The Mdina Cathedral Archives house the documents of the Universitas of Malta (roughly the local government in the pre-Knights’ period). These are not very lavish with information about Maltese lawyers but do at times let slip some data. When in 1482 a court case came about between the bishop and the Universitas regarding an inheritance, each party appointed a notary to collect and record the evidence—Pietro Caxaro and Andrea Falzon. The two parties objected to their adversary’s choice on the ground of partiality as both notaries had previously acted as advocates for the party now appointing them. The Viceroy of Sicily cut the bickering short: the two notaries must carry out the task jointly.8

The ambassador of the Universitas to the Court of Sicily in 1526 was the lawyer Antonio Bonello UJD. He carried back an order to the Maltese authorities to stop delaying merchants from leaving the harbours immediately

when the weather turned favourable as this caused damage to the merchants and to the wellbeing of the island. 9 Dr Bonello was kept very busy by the Universitas, as lawyer and as ambassador.10

The Universitas functioned also by means of capitula, written queries to the sovereign in Sicily for guidance in anything which fell outside its jurisdiction, and these occasionally referred to Maltese lawyers, like one in 1494. The jurats told the Viceroy that Lorenzo Falzon and Giovanni Ciantar ‘were well versed in the law (curiali docti) but are not avvocati. They could however well serve the people, as very often lawsuits are lost due to the dearth of lawyers, and the population therefore suffers’. Sicily refused, almost indignantly.11

There are other sporadic mentions of Maltese lawyers much earlier than the 1530 watershed. Godfrey Wettinger reported ‘four or five Christian lawyers’ practising in Malta in the 1480s. One he mentions by name: Leonardo de Calavà, who acted as defence counsel of some Jews who allegedly had been, rather forcibly, baptised and had later returned to their Jewish faith, thus committing the capital crime of apostasy. In their 1486 trial, Calavà displayed creative forensic skills. He mostly attacked the credibility of prosecution witnesses, one with a formidable argument: how can the court give credibility to a witness known to fart shamelessly in the public street? The Calavà pleadings are the very first instances of a Maltese lawyer’s skills known to have survived in their entirety.12 It is rather sad that Maltese legal oratory starts with flatulence.

The final period of the Universitas, before the Order of St John took over in 1530, proves rather rich in Doctors of Laws working in Malta. There is the ubiquitous Dr Antonio Bonello, but also many other UJDs, like Dr Pietro Cassar, Dr Signorello Varisano, Dr Giovanni Bernardo Petrarca, Dr Antonio Bono (sometimes de Bono), Dr Blasco Lancia.13 Of these, only Dr Pietro Cassar, son of the Jurat Matteo was certainly a Maltese lawyer. He later rose to the rank of judge in the Captain’s court.14 All the others were Sicilian or Italian jurists sent to Malta by the Viceroy to investigate or determine legal issues that constantly bedevilled the island.

By now we have ascertained that lawyers were active in Malta well before the establishment of the Order in 1530. These seem to have fallen into two broad types: the advocatus, a person somehow versed in the law but without a formal doctorate conferred by a university, and the Utriusque Juris Doctor, or Doctor of Both Laws—UJD (or IUD, more commonly used in Malta, but which I discard, as those initials now refer to a contraceptive).

Doctors of Laws were entitled to be addressed by the honorific title of Magnificus, Magnifico, today only reserved for Notaries Public. In fact, in the earlier Libri Conciliorum the names of lawyers and judges are often followed by their law degree, but in the later ones this is sometimes omitted and substituted by the title Magnificus before their name.

Very incidentally, it is to a Doctor of Laws that we owe the very first known mention of pizza in Malta and in Europe. As early as 1583, Dr Salvatore Xerri UJD was hauled before the Inquisitor, charged with having eaten pizza in public on a Saturday. The Consultants of the Tribunal faced a wrenching dilemma: was it permissible to eat pizza on a day of penance when no other food was available?15

Was everyone charged with a criminal offence entitled to be assisted by a lawyer? The records do not furnish a clear answer, though the little evidence that survives seems to exclude this right. Fra Pierre de Sacconay, the Marshal of the Order, stood accused in 1587 of multa crimina, among others, of having vehemently contrasted the new rule that knights should not carry weapons, of having freed with violence a servant convicted of theft, and of having insulted the judge of the Castellania in the presence of the Grand Master. Sacconay expressly pleaded to be allowed to be assisted by a defence lawyer, but his request was turned down and he had to conduct his defence in person. Six years later, the whole criminal proceedings against Sacconay were annulled by the Pope in Rome, though not for lack of a defence lawyer.16

The Libri Conciliorum , besides throwing some light on lawyers, very occasionally help us to understand how Maltese judges operated. One

instance is in 1582 when the question arose whether the judges of the Mdina jurisdiction, the Corte Capitanale, were entitled to pocket a percentage of the fines they had imposed on delinquents in the criminal court. They petitioned Grand Master la Cassière not to deprive them of this privilege. The Grand Master in Council complied.17 This terrible abuse was only abolished in the early British period.

The question remains: how and where did Maltese lawyers obtain their law degree? Doctorates are only awarded by universities, which Malta lacked up to 1769.

The UJD degree in law refers to a ‘doctorate in both laws’, Canon and Civil, granted from the late Middle Ages by Catholic and Germanic universities, in Malta now substituted by LL.D. which means more or less the same, Doctor of Laws, not Law. But where did Maltese students obtain their law degree prior to 1769?

The situation is clear for those who graduated with a Doctorate in Both Laws to further their career in the church. For these, plentiful evidence survives that they earned their UJD mostly from the universities of Rome and Naples. Prof. Vincent Borg has undertaken very extensive research into the legal training of Maltese students in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and how many of them proceeded to Italy, sometimes on scholarships made available by the Cathedral Chapter; these, however, refer to those studying for the priesthood.18

But Mgr Borg also gives the following lists of Maltese laymen who obtained their law degree in Italy in the sixteenth century:

BEFORE 1550

Dr Antonio Bonello, before 1520

Dr Antonio Desguanez

Dr Giovanni Vassallo

Dr Nicola Xerri

Dr Michele Allegritto

Dr Antonio Bonello

Dr Ludovico Platamone

AFTER 1550 – ROME

Dr Francesco Xerri, 1553

Dr Nicola Pietro Xuereb, 1553

Dr Francesco Surdo, 1561

Dr Melchiorre Cagliares, 1563

Dr Valerio Micallef, 1563

Dr Giovanni Vassallo, 1563

Dr Giovanni Vincenzo Lubrano, 1570

Dr Giovanni Xara, 1580

Dr Cipriano Caxar, 1584

Dr Nicola Antonio Muscat, 1587

Dr Aurelio Vassallo, 1588

Dr Ascanio Surdo, 1591

Dr Antonio Bosio, 1594

Dr Giuseppe Turrense, 1594

Dr Valerio Mizzi, 1598

Dr Placido Abel, practised as Notary

Dr Martino Zammit, practised as Notary

AFTER 1550 – NAPLES

Dr Bartolomeo Tabone, 1590

Dr Giovanni Angelo Anastasio, 1593

It will be observed that some of these names do not appear in the bio-notes compiled below. This may be due to several reasons. Foremost, that the notes refer to lawyers who took up public offices, mostly with the Order. The others may have pursued their law career in the private sphere, village lawyers in the

better sense of the word. Or they may simply not have practised as lawyers after obtaining their doctorate.

As these lists do not contain several names of other known Maltese Doctors of Laws, it is fair to assume that those not mentioned obtained their law degrees from other Italian universities, like Catania, Palermo, Florence, or Bologna, not from Naples and Rome.

Dr Fabrizio Cagliola UJD (1604–1665) a leading Maltese lawyer, wrote a fascinating semi-autobiographical memoir, but fails to mention where and how he obtained his law degree.19 And Dr Ignazio Saverio Mifsud, himself a lawyer, who later wrote Cagliola’s biography describing him as ‘an excellent jurist and a superlative advocate’, similarly fails to mention anything about his training in law.20 Mifsud wrote about and praised several early Maltese lawyers, but not once does he reveal where they obtained their law degree.

There seem to have been very few dull moments in the lives of legal practitioners in Malta in the cinquecento—murders, woundings, torture at the rack, brothels, multiple mistresses, bribery and corruption, gay sex, pimping for virgins. Judge Cagliares was reputed to run three mistresses concurrently, while Judge Micallef frequented high-class bordellos. Dr de Spluchi was murdered, Judge Calli was grievously wounded. The Inquisition took a loving interest in Dr Cadamusto, Dr Xerri, Dr Cumbo, Dr Bonello, and others. Dr Bonello was also accused of attempting to murder the Grand Master. Dr Torrense availed himself of the services of a pimp to enjoy a young virgin, Dr Spatafora smarted under physical violence, Dr Xerri was embroiled in a gay sex scandal, and Judge Cumbo suffered public accusations of bribery and corruption. These are the ones we know of.

The data recorded in this article would have been more focussed and relevant had it been profiled together with clearer information about the legal structures within which the legal profession operated—the different courts, the professional hierarchies, the support systems. But, again, so very little is so far known about them. Just the barest outlines will have to suffice at this stage.

When the Order of St John took over Malta, various separate justice systems were in place. One catered exclusively for criminal justice against members of the Order suspected of having committed felonies. The Council of the Order transformed itself into a criminal court (called the Sguardio) which investigated, prosecuted, and adjudged the suspect knight. As the Order could not inflict the death penalty, in those cases in which it believed death to be the right reward, the Council first expelled the delinquent knight, and then handed him over to the ordinary criminal courts for a retrial which could end in execution.

The second system of justice was the Castellania, in place for anyone who was not a member of the Order. It comprised three courts: civil, criminal, and appeal. The judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and officials who manned the Castellania were almost exclusively Maltese. But Mdina also had its own regional courts, the Corte Capitanale and there was the Gozo Court which exercised general civil and criminal jurisdiction.

Besides the ‘lay’ jurisdictions, two separate ecclesiastical tribunals helped to clutter the legal panorama. The Bishop’s tribunals were mostly manned by ecclesiastical UJDs. Quite active too were the Inquisitor’s courts. Many Maltese lawyers found work there: as legal assessors (virtually deputy Inquisitors), as Promotori Fiscali, that is, directors of prosecutions, or as Advocates for the Poor.

The many Maltese lawyers identified below spent a busy life in these various courts. I have here reconstructed a tentative checklist for this period, with the sketchiest of bio-notes, some rather shocking. Lawyers elevated to the judiciary often reappear later as practising advocates. This is because judges did not, before 1815, have a lifetime’s security of tenure. They were appointed or reappointed periodically for short periods, usually for two years, in alternate autumns.

DR GUGLIELMO (BARTOLOMEO) ABELA (HABEL) UJD was, in 1567, delegated Advocate for the poor, widows and orphans or minors (pauperum, viduarum et pupillorum).21 Fra Gabriel Frias de Lara lost a court case against Dr Abela and appealed.22 In 1590, the Council elected him auditor of acts of governance of Valletta, Birgu (also known as Vittoriosa), Notabile, and Gozo.23 The Grand Master, in 1594, issued a decree favouring Dr Abela.24 There must have been bad blood between Dr Abela and Judge Giovanni Maria Mamo sitting in Gozo. The Council was called upon to adjudicate their difficulties on three separate occasions.25 Still active in 1599, Dr Abela is delegated to audit the affairs on Malta and Gozo.26

Ignazio Saverio Mifsud adds that Abela was universally acknowledged as the leading criminal lawyer of his times in Malta. In 1563, the Inquisition appointed him prosecutor. Grand Master Hugues Loubenx de Verdalle (1531–1595) also made use of his services when he came to redraft the Leggi e Costituzzioni Prammaticali in 1593.27

DR ANTONIO BONELLO UJD. There were two lawyers called Antonio Bonello in the sixteenth century, very likely father and son, and their periods of forensic activity overlapped. At this stage it is sometimes not possible to distinguish which of the two the records are referring to. Dr Bonello Sr graduated Doctor of Laws in the University of Catania, the oldest in Sicily, round the turn of the century,28 and was already very prominent as a jurist before the arrival of the Knights and quite likely the first Maltese to have obtained a Doctor of Laws; he found favour with the Order too. In 1565, the Council substituted him to Dr Nicola De Naro UJD in the criminal trial for sodomy against Fra Alvaro Fasano.29 In 1582, the Council appoints Dr Bonello (probably Jr) to audit the affairs of the officials in charge of Malta and Gozo.30

One criminal case in which Dr Bonello was involved is emblematic of the mobility of Maltese lawyers and their close interaction. In June 1595, Fra Girolamo Piscina stood accused of various crimes.31 Shortly after, he was murdered. On the

19 December, the Council plays around with five Maltese lawyers: it substitutes Dr Bonello to Dr Valerio Micallef in the Piscina proceedings and appoints Dr Pietro Muscat instead of Dr Paolo Cassar on the case of Dr Francesco Torrense.32 Incidentally, the Council found Fra Vincenzo Minardo guilty of the Piscina homicide and condemned him to a term of imprisonment.33 Dr Bonello had a very chequered career. Grand Master la Cassière accused him of attempting to poison him, in conspiracy with Inquisitor Domenico Petrucci.34 But Bonello had himself been a victim of the Inquisition when the physician Giulio Gratioso, his sworn enemy, had framed him with Domenico Cubelles, Bishop and Inquisitor, alleging he had turned Lutheran.35 In fact, the Inquisition did find Dr Bonello guilty of heresy in 1575.36

DR BARTOLOMEO BONELLO UJD, described as jurisperitus, is, in 1568, nominated Advocate for the poor, widows, orphans, or minors.37 In 1619, he appeared as witness in the will of the disturbed philanthropist Caterina Vitale.38

DR ANTONIO BOSIO UJD, better known as the leading archaeologist of the Roman catacombs, was born in 1575. Before channelling his energies to archaeology, he had a flourishing legal practice in the Roman Curia. He died in 1629.39

DR GALEAZZO CADAMUSTO UJD. In 1551, the Council ordered that a mislaid pouch, containing documents which identified the properties in Gozo belonging to those captured by the Ottomans in the great razzia of 1551, should be returned to Judge Cadamusto. 40 In 1569, the Council appoints Dr Cadamusto to audit the acta et gesta of the jurats of Notabile.41 Six years later, the appointment is renewed with the inclusion of the affairs of all the captains of the towns and of the forts of the islands. 42

Judge Cadamusto too had a close brush with the Inquisition. In 1582, he was investigated for witchcraft for having secretly written a book about divination through communicating with the dead.43

DR MELCHIORRE CAGLIARES UJD, also Cagliareno, Cagliarense, all indicating he was from Cagliari, was the father of the only Maltese bishop during the rule of the Order, Baldassare Cagliares (1575–1633). He first appears in the records in 1570, when he was appointed to audit the work of the Maltese officials of Mdina.44 Three years later he served as an Advocate for the poor, widows, orphans, or minors,45 and repeats the same audit.46 In the 1577 investigation into the atrocious murder (crudelissima morte) of Fra Giorgio Correa, Dr Cagliares played a leading role.47 Five years later, Cagliares, as criminal prosecutor, petitioned the Council in Italian to query the validity of certain legal enactments.48

Cagliares suffered excommunication at the hands of Bishop Tommaso Gargallo, known for his incompetence in anger management. In one of the Bishop’s several confrontations with the Grand Master in 1579, Dr Cagliares sided against Gargallo, who promptly excommunicated him. The Rector of St Paul’s in Valletta cut his excommunicated former friend dead when they crossed each other on Palace Square. The Inquisitor recorded Cagliares’ threat in its original Maltese: ‘Le tibzax, hecde kif fixkilt l’ohrajn, infixkil lilik’. 49

In the 1584 high-profile criminal proceedings against Fra Francesco Sommaia, captain of the San Giovanni, one of the Order’s galleys, Fra Francesco was charged with responsibility for the loss of his galley to the Venetians, of having abandoned a captured Ottoman vessel after having looted its merchandise, of having personally killed a soldier of his crew, and most unpardonable crime of all, of having served wretched meals on board, tavola sordidissima. The council arrested him and put him on trial. Dr Cagliares played a leading role in the prosecution.50 His career took an unexpected turn in 1589 when he tried to join the Order as a knight in the priory of Portugal, facing the strong, but unsuccessful opposition of the knights of that priory.51

But Cagliares, besides fathering bishops, left his mark in history for keeping three mistresses concurrently. To contain the prurient scandal, he slept with Marietta, her sister Caterina, and Marietta’s daughter. He believed strongly in family values.52

DR GIOVANNI CALAVÀ UJD was very likely the first Maltese lawyer to be promoted or confirmed judge after the Order had settled in Malta. It is reputed he advised Grand Master L’Isle-Adam in his negotiations with Charles V about the transfer of Malta to the Order, and helped with the drafting of the 1530 legal minefield, the deed of cession. The Grand Master rewarded him by granting him a title of nobility with an endowment of territories at Għajn Qajjet. Some lands of the wealthy Secretia, the Maltese office which administered the properties of the Sicilian crown on the island, were willed to the minor Joannella de Guevara, and Calavà was appointed to act as curator during her minority. Calavà numbered with those well in with the new rulers: ‘fideliter et diligentes obsequies Religionis nostre intendent’.53

DR GIOVANNI CALLI (OR CALI) UJD. In 1574, Calli is appointed to audit the affairs of the public officials of Valletta and Birgu.54 But the Grand Master later

removed him as suspectus, that is, because of a possible conflict of interest.55 The following year he was involved in the proceedings against Fra Onofrio Acciauoli, receiver of the Order in Messina, accused of having abused his office.56 In 1577, Fra Alberto Arrighi from Florence, professed only two years earlier, wounded Judge Calli ‘with copious bloodshed’.57 Dr Paolo Vella was appointed to compile the evidence, but shortly after was substituted by Dr Francesco Torrense.58 For wounding Calli, the Council condemned Arrighi to one year detention in the tower.59 The Council in 1590 imprisoned the turbulent knight for killing Polidoro Bernardino Mattei.60

The jurist later received the commission to audit all the affairs that fell under the jurisdiction of the Mdina officials,61 repeated in 1579.62 Shortly after, the minutes of the Council record that a challenge by Dr Paolo Vella and Dr Giovanni Vassallo against Dr Calli, was to be deemed unfounded.63 The Council again makes use of Calli’s services in the criminal proceedings against Fra Antonio de Vega and Fra Pedro Queiroz.64

But Calli was aware of his linguistic limitations. In 1584, when judge of the civil court, he petitioned the Grand Master to be relieved of hearing minor cases on the ground that his grasp of Maltese was poor. He recommended the appointment of the lawyer Dr Giovan Paolo Micci (Mizzi) who had a good command of Maltese, in his stead.65

In 1595, the Council substitutes Dr Gio Domenico Vella to Dr Cagliares in the criminal proceedings against Fra Andre de Martine called ‘Pellubier’.66 1597 saw Calli’s promotion to the Court of Appeal,67 confirmed in 1601.68

Dr Calli, son of Michele, drew up his last wills on 30 July 1616 and 26 June 1623 in the records of Notary Giovanni Carabott.

From Francesco Saverio Mifsud we learn that Grand Master Verdalle eventually promoted Calli to be his Uditore and the lawyer’s wisdom helped Verdalle solve ‘tutti gli intrigatissimi affari’ of the Order. Calli’s top legal achievement was the redrafting, together with other Doctors of Laws, of the Leggi e Costituzzioni Prammaticali, published by Verdalle in 1593. His speciality was criminal law, and

this earned him the post of prosecutor of the Inquisition in Malta. His legal opinions and reports, bound in two manuscript volumes, retained their popularity and authority for many years after his death.69

DR ALFONSO CASSAR UJD. Very little is known of this Maltese lawyer. He is not mentioned in the Libri Conciliorum, but he accompanied Dr Ludovico Platamone on the Maltese embassy to the Viceroy of Sicily in 1591. Mifsud refers to him as a Maltese advocate who enjoyed great credit and high reputation on the island.70

DR PAOLO CASSAR UJD was appointed auditor for the affairs of the local governments of Malta and Gozo in 1597 and again in 1601.71 He was the legal Assessor in the Inquisition proceedings against Giorgio Scala in 1598.72 The Inquisition employed Dr Cassar as legal Assessor between 1609 and 1614.73

DR GIOVANNI VINCENZO CAVALEVECCHIO UJD. He is found mentioned only once.74

DR AGOSTINO CUMBO UJD. Jurist who worked alternatively as a lawyer and as a judge. He remained notorious for his submission to Grand Master d’Homedes to pervert the course of justice. When Tripoli, belonging to the Order, fell to the Ottomans in 1551, the indignant eyes of the Christian world fell on Malta. D’Homedes, who had grossly neglected the defence of Tripoli, found himself accused of ineptitude. To shift the universal blame from himself, he had to find a scapegoat. The blame fell on the defenders of Tripoli, the valiant Fra Gaspar de Valies and all the other surviving knights.

D’Homedes accused them of passivity and cowardice in the face of the enemy and had them all defrocked. No longer knights, they were sent to the ordinary criminal courts, presided over by Judges Cumbo and Giovanni Vassallo, who condemned them to death. Fra Durand de Villegaignon publicly

and in a printed pamphlet accused d’Homedes of having bribed Judge Cumbo (‘a man easily corrupted, being always ready to sacrifice his conscience to his love of money’) to shift the blame from himself onto de Valies and the surviving defenders. A substantial sum of money, paid in gold in advance, did the trick.75

Cumbo is mentioned again in 1559 when the Council appointed him to assist the commissioners delegated to examine and report on a court case pending between three knights.76 Agostino may have been one of the first of the illustrious, often infamous, dynasty of Cumbo jurists who dominated the legal panorama of Malta during the whole duration of the Order’s rule.77 In 1563, the Council appointed the usual board of enquiry to investigate his conduct as judge.78 The year before the Great Siege, the Council tasked Cumbo to audit the performance of the Jurats of Birgu.79

Dr Cumbo, too, had fallen foul of the Inquisition. He was suspected of Lutheran sympathies, and either he, or his co-accused, suffered torture at the rack.

DR CAMILLO CUMBO UJD. Found mentioned only once.80

DR PIETRO CUMBO UJD first appears in the Libri Conciliorum when he was appointed Advocate for the poor in 1556.81 Like several other Maltese lawyers, the Inquisition investigated him on suspicion of Lutheran sympathies.82

DR NICOLA D’AGATHA UJD. The records mention him in 1546 when he was already a Judge, charged with a criminal trial. He asked the Council of the Order to suspend proceedings against Giovanni from Salonika for crimes he was accused of having committed in Tripoli when the North African town still belonged to the Order.83 D’Agatha was a Sicilian Notary from Mazara del Vallo who had settled in Malta with his wife Isolde, very likely the parents of the very first Maltese Jesuit, Fr Luigi D’Agatha SJ.

DR PASQUALE DE FRANCHIS UJD. His first mention in the Libri Conciliorum dates to 1574, when the Council appoints him to examine the affairs of Mdina, its Captain of the Rod, its jurats, the Castellan and the judges.84 In 1577, he, together with Dr Francesco Turrense, is appointed arbitrator in an important law suit between Fra Pietro Giustiniani, Prior of Messina and leader of the Order’s fleet at the Battle of Lepanto, and Fra Giuseppe Arborio. The two lawyers published their joint award, drafted exceptionally in Italian, in the Council.85

DR FRANCESCO GARIBO UJD was in 1586 made Advocate for the Poor86 and appointed judge of the civil court in 1599.87

DR GIORGIO GIANPIERI UJD was named in 1575 Advocate for the Poor, Widows, Children or Orphans.88 His public legal career included the auditing of the affairs of the cities of Malta and of Gozo in 1577,89 and commissioner for housing.90 After obtaining a Doctorate in Laws, Gianpieri entered the priesthood as a conventual chaplain in 1580, and eventually reached the very highest positions:

Vice-Chancellor, Uditore, all the way up to Grand Prior in 1592, though his election to the Grand Priorate was legally, though unsuccessfully, challenged in Rome.91 The following year, the Council imprisoned Fra Andrea Salvatore for ‘verba injuriosa et immmodesta’ bawled at Dr Gianpieri.92 His juridical expertise was determining in the promulgation and publication of the Leggi e Costituzzioni Prammaticali issued by Grand Master Verdalle in 1593.93 It is touching to record that on his deathbed, Verdalle wanted to receive the last sacraments at the hand of the former lawyer and of the Capuchin friars he had patronised.94

DR PIETRO DE GIOVANNI UJD is only mentioned in 1591 when the Council appoints him to audit the affairs of Valletta, Birgu, Mdina, and Gozo.95

DR FEDERICO DE GROMO UJD. The Council appoints this Doctor of Laws in 1598 to act as the conservator of the Order’s privileges.96

DR JACOBO LO PERNO UJD is mentioned in 1561 in connection with his appointment to audit the work of the Captain of the Rod of Mdina, and again the following year.97

DR ANTONIO MAHNUQ UJD. The ‘Mahnuq’, an old, notable and wealthy family from Gozo, had the surname italianised to Maccanuzio (once to Mahanne). The Order appointed him Judge of the Castellania in 159798 and of the civil court in August 1602,99 but in November the Jurats petitioned the Council to have him removed from some legal affair, and he is substituted by Judge Ascanio Surdo.100

DR GIOVANNI MARIA MAMO UJD. He was judge in the Gozo Court in 1599.101 The following year, the Council ordered the auditors to determine according to justice a petition by Dr Mamo.102 Dr Mamo acted as judge of the Castellania,

married Leonora Vassallo, and among his children numbered Dr Gregorio Mamo UJD, who, in turn, married Paola, daughter of Judge Ascanio Surdo UJD.103

DR FRANCESCO MEGO UJD. This very high-profile jurist, born in Malta of noble Rhodiot parents who had followed the Order after its expulsion from Rhodes in 1523, is repeatedly mentioned in the Libri Conciliorum; the first time in 1552 when Grand Master Juan d’Homedes appoints him as judge in all civil and criminal proceedings.104 By 1557, Grand Master de Valette entrusts him with the highest civil responsibility, that of Uditore, minister with judicial authority, the most powerful office in the civil governance of the island.105

Mego was also one of the Commissioners delegated in 1557 to report on the Moretto affair, which had significant international resonance.106 The following year the Council appoints Mego to the official investigation into a nasty brawl between two leading knights.107 Another major career leap came in 1560, when the Council appoints Mego as lieutenant and coadjutor of the Vice-Chancellor of the Order.108 And other promotions follow,109 including his nomination as Acting-Chancellor.110

Mifsud supplements some information about Mego. The Council eventually elevated him to Uditore, although the statutes laid down that only professed knights could aspire to that rank. He must have been among the first of a long series of Maltese Uditori, generally lawyers. Mego, together with Giovanni Vassallo, was responsible for the updating and redrafting of the Statutes of the Order willed by Grand Master Verdalle. Bishop and Inquisitor Domenico Cubelles appointed Mego assessor of the Inquisition, a post almost invariably held by a leading jurist.111

DR VALERIO MICALLEF UJD. In 1579, the Council entrusted Dr Micallef to represent it in the matter of its privileges and prerogatives in the Order’s disputes with the fiery Bishop Tommaso Gargallo.112 The following year, news of the theft of one the most treasured relics of the Knights from the sacristy of St John—a segment of the skull of St John encased in a disk of solid gold studded with

precious stones—shocked the Order. Micallef was one of the commissioners chosen to investigate the sacrilegious robbery. He found the culprit—Fra Vincenzo Pesaro, who had, sadly, already broken up the relic for melting.113

A number of knights, charged with having committed ‘various excesses’ in Messina in 1587, were investigated by Micallef.114 And when the terrible plague broke out in 1592, one of the measures taken was to appoint Micallef ‘assessor in causa de regimine sanitatis’.115 By 1594, the Council had selected him to audit the affairs of Valletta, Mdina, and Gozo.116 The following year, Micallef became judge of the Castellania (see also Dr Antonio Bonello, above).117

But Micallef left traces in the records not solely for his undoubted forensic skills. He was an assiduous frequenter of an exclusive, high-class bordello kept by Nardu Mamo in Ħaż-Żebbuġ. Mamo only admitted the highest knights and the classiest whores to his home in the village.118

DR GIOVAN PAOLO MICCI (MIZZI) UJD; DR VALERIO MICCI (MIZZI)

UJD. Two Micci lawyers are mentioned towards the end of the century. In 1584, Judge Calli proposed Dr Giovan Paolo Micci UJD to stand in for him in minor civil cases as Micci had a better grasp of Maltese than he did.119 Meanwhile, in 1614, the Inquisition promoted Dr Valerio Micci UJD, who had until then worked as Advocate of the Poor in that institution, to Assessor.120

DR NICOLA MUSCAT UJD is recorded in 1589 when the Council chose him to audit the affairs of Valletta, Birgu, Mdina, and Gozo.121

DR PIETRO MUSCAT UJD was elected auditor of the affairs of Malta in 1595122 and judge of the Castellania in 1597 (see also Dr Antonio Bonello, above).123

DR NICOLA DENARO (OR NARO) UJD is first mentioned in 1564 in connection with the criminal proceedings against the British knight Sir John James Sandelands, later convicted of the sacrilegious theft of precious silverware

from the church of St Anthony in Birgu. DeNaro’s instructions included the order to obtain evidence by ‘indicia, conjecturas et presuntiones’ (circumstantial evidence and legal presumptions) and, of course, recourse to torture.124 DeNaro also investigated Fra Alvaro Fasano, accused in 1565 of sodomy. He was, however, later removed from the case and substituted by Dr Antonio Bonello UJD.125 The Inquisition employed Dr DeNaro as legal Assessor in 1565 and 1566.126

DR GIROLAMO NICCO UJD is mentioned only once, in 1581, in the Libri Conciliorum, when the Council authorised the Prior of Lombardy to substitute Dr Nicco for himself in the lawsuit to recover the property of Matteo Minali.127

DR LUDOVICO PLATAMONE UJD from Gozo went through a brilliant legal career. In 1570, the Council required from him a complete audit of all that the Captain of the Rod, the Jurats, the Treasurer, and all the public officials of Mdina had done.128 Five years later, Fra Philip de Foissy was investigated for outrageous words hurled at Platamone, who was then judge.129

Platamone, like many other Maltese lawyers, had troubles with the Inquisition; he was investigated twice, the first time in 1574, the second time in 1579.130 One of the penalties the lawyer incurred in 1576 at the hands of the Inquisition was to subsidise to the tune of twenty scudi the purchase of liturgical books needed by the church of the Annunciation in Birgu.131 When in 1593 a bomb exploded on the doorstep of the twenty-seven-year-old Caterina Vitale, a turbulent pharmacist and sex-worker, the Council appointed Dr Platamone and two knights to investigate this ‘extremely serious and dastardly crime … an atrocious and pernicious example’.132 Platamone became judge of the Appeal Court in 1595.133

Mifsud adds that Platamone, when in private practice as a lawyer, had ‘interminable queues of clients’, and eventually rose to the highest ranks of the legal profession: various times judge of first instance and of the Supreme Court of Appeal, and Uditore of Grand Masters de Valette and la Cassière. He was designated ambassador of Malta, together with Dr Alfonso Cassar, to the Viceroy of Sicily in 1591. Apart from his great expertise in legal matters, Platamone was renowned for his outstanding integrity. He died in 1604.134

DR ROLANDO SCERRI UJD. In 1569, the Council appointed Dr Scerri to examine the work of the jurats of Birgu.135

DR ORTENSIO SPATAFORA UJD is the very first Maltese lawyer mentioned in the Libri Conciliarum, in connection with an outrage he suffered in the ‘public archives’ at the hands of an irascible knight, Fra Bartolomeo Vasco, in I542. The knight slapped the lawyer violently across the face. The Council of the Order

took a rather dim view of Vasco’s bravado and sentenced him to be detained in the smaller underground guva in Gozo for two months.136

DR ANTONIO DE SPULCHI, UJD is only known because a knight, Fra Antonio Bracalona (from Rome, professed in 1569), murdered him in 1579. As the Order had abolished the death penalty for its members, the knight was defrocked so that he could then be handed over to the ordinary criminal court to be tried and if found guilty, executed.137

DR ASCANIO SURDO UJD, son of another lawyer, Dr Francesco Surdo UJD, was born in 1563. He was made judge of the Castellania in 1597138 and after four years, raised to the Court of Appeal.139 Two years later he was confirmed in that Court140 and, in 1602, substituted Judge Dr Antonio Mahnuq at the request of the jurats in some legal matter.141 He rose to a meteoric and intense legal career, reaching the highest offices of judge and Uditore to Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt ‘for his doctrine and integrity’. He died aged 93.142

DR BARTOLOMEO TABONE UJD. He was appointed judge of the civil court in 1601.143

DR GIO DOMENICO TESTAFERRATA UJD mostly worked as lawyer for the Inquisition in the office of Promotore Fiscale, roughly, director of prosecutions. In 1598, he directed the investigation and prosecution of Giorgio Scala144 and served the Inquisition in a legal capacity all his professional life. He was later promoted to Assessor of the institution.145 According to Ciantar, Dr Gio Domenico was closely related to two other Maltese lawyers, Dr Giacomo Testaferrata, later judge of civil cases in the Corte Capitanale of Mdina, and Dr Paolo Testaferrata. He died in office around 1614.

DR FRANCESCO TORRENSE (OR TURRENSE) UJD. In 1570, the Council tasked Dr Torrense to audit the acts of governance of the Castellan of Birgu, Fra

Francesco Marzilla.146 Two years later, he was appointed Advocate for the poor, widows, orphans or minors.147 This lawyer, too, fell foul of the Inquisition. He was arraigned in 1574, found guilty, but pardoned after he retracted.148

After the wounding of Judge Calli in 1575 by Fra Alberto Arrighi, Dr Torrense replaced Dr Paolo Vassallo in the case against the vile-tempered knight.149 He was then delegated as arbitrator in the controversy between the Prior of Messina and Fra Giuseppe Arboreo (see Dr Pasquale de Franchis).150 His turn to act again as Advocate for the Poor, Widows, Orphans, or Minors came in 1588.151 But, in 1595, the prosecutor of the auditors petitioned the Council to have Torrense removed (see also Dr Antonio Bonello, above).152

Dr Torrense’s real surname was Rocchione (Turrense was the approximate Latin translation), and he was born in Savoia. By the time of the Great Siege he had already settled in Malta. He drew up his last will on 7 October 1599. He fathered two sons, both lawyers: Antonio, an illegitimate offspring, and Giuseppe. The two married into lawyer dynasties, the Cumbo and the Pontremoli.153 Dr Torrense, too, found himself embroiled in the wiles of Maltese whores. Domenico Carceppo accused the procuress Margherita Zammit of having prostituted his still-virgin sister-in-law, Lauria, with the lawyer. The affair lasted a couple of months and only ended when Domenico started turning heavy on Torrense.154

DR GIOVANNI VASSALLO UJD. The records first mention him when already a judge in 1547 in connection with the insults and invectives hurled his way by Fra Domenico de Sbach.155 Five years later, the Council subjected him to an investigation about his activity as a judge.156 Since these enquiries into the conduct of judges are rather common, it is not clear whether these were routine audits of members of the judiciary or specific investigations into some alleged misdeed. In 1561, Dr Vassallo was submitted to a similar ‘enquiry’.157 The year after the Great Siege, the Council appointed Vassallo Advocate for the poor, widows, and minors or orphans.158 By 1595, the Council designated him judge of the Castellania.159

Vassallo had already been judge of Corte Capitanale in Mdina in 1534. Ignazio Saverio Mifsud praises the lawyer’s forensic virtues: ‘always ready to take up the defence in lawsuits, shrewd in solving the difficulties that arose, sombre, but at the same time welcomed by everyone, especially by the illustrious Order of St John of Jerusalem’. Grand Master la Sengle entrusted to him the amendment, amplification, and commentary of the Statutes of the Order and rewarded him with liberali donativi. In 1590, Vassallo was honoured as Senator of Mdina.160 The major blot on Vassallo’s reputation was his participation in the conspiracy to condemn to death the knights who survived the loss of Tripoli in 1551 (see Agostino Cumbo above).

DR GASPARE VELLA UJD first appears as Advocate for the poor in 1601.161

DR GIO DOMENICO VELLA UJD. In 1596, Dr Vella substitutes Dr Calli in the criminal proceedings against Fra Andre de Martine.162 Three years later Dr Vella is made judge of the criminal court.163 That same year, the Council orders him to start criminal action against Fra Joseph de Guevara for subreptitia (deceptions) against the privileges of the Order.164 At the same time Dr Vella had also landed a job with the Inquisition as Advocate for the poor.165

The Dominican friars in Valletta appointed Dr Vella as their lawyer, and in 1603 rewarded him by the grant of a chapel in their church in lieu of payment. Dr Vella was the son of Salvatore and Antonella, and in 1589 married the bishop’s sister, Maddalena, daughter of Dr Melchiorre Cagliares.166 Between 1605 and 1609, the Inquisition employed Dr Vella as its legal Assessor.167

Dr Vella is described in the most flattering terms: ‘the depth of his knowledge, the wise prudence in all his acts, and the maturity of his deliberations’ earned him the post of Assessor and Consultor of the Inquisition and of judge in the local courts; he took part in the compilation of the municipal laws. He fathered another lawyer, Dr Melchiorre Vella UJD.168

DR PAOLO VELLA UJD. In 1576, Dr Vella was appointed Assessor in the criminal proceedings against Fra Antonio Brancaleone (probably Bracalone) and others.169 The following year he also took part in the prosecution of Fra Alberto Arrighi who had wounded Judge Calli.170 In 1576 and 1577, Dr Vella was appointed judge of the Corte Capitanale. Another member of the same family, Dr Giandomenico Vella UJD, occupied the same post in 1594.171 Dr Paolo is mentioned before in the records, but not as UJD.

DR GIUSEPPE XARA UJD. Found mentioned only once.172 Ciantar mentions another lawyer, Dr Orlando Xara UJD, active after 1530.173

DR FRANCESO XERRI UJD. Found mentioned only once.174 He took a prominent role in a gay scandal that ended in the lap of the Inquisition. The Doctor of Laws Nicola Pietro Xuereb, when a student in Naples, had succumbed to a strong physical attraction towards another student, Francesco de Buzietta, the couple living ‘like one soul in two bodies’ and everyone knew they committed the unmentionable crime—crimen nefandum.

The Inquisition in Malta took an interest in Xuereb—for his inquisitiveness about Lutheran and Calvinist literature. Xuereb was Dr Xerri’s first cousin, and the Inquisitor homed on Dr Xerri too, also under suspicion of sympathy for Lutheran heresies. In his pleadings to the Inquisition, Xerri capitalised on his honour—during the trial of a man charged with sodomy, Julio Xeibe had tried to corrupt him in favour of the accused. But, being a man of integrity, he had proceeded all the same with the torture of the gay suspect.175

DR GREGORIO XERRI UJD was Judge and Assessor of the Corte Capitanale in 1512.176

DR ORLANDO XERRI UJD was Judge and Assessor of the Corte Capitanale in 1581. 177

DR NICOLA PIETRO (COLAPIETRO)

XUEREB UJD is mentioned in the gay scandal and the Inquisition investigation (see Dr Francesco Xerri, supra), became judge of civil cases in 1558, and Judge of the Corte Capitanale in 1562. He left Malta permanently for Sicily shortly after the Great Siege. He married twice: Margherita, daughter of Ugolino Bonnici, and Leonora Lagunna, and had numerous children from both spouses.178

Captions

P.12 An unidentified lawyer at the time of the Order. (Private Collection, Malta)

P.18 The lawyer Gaetano Bruno, Uditore of the Order. (Courtesy of the National Library, Malta)

P.23 Unidentified Maltese judge, eighteenth century. (Casa Vella, Attard / Courtesy of George De Gaetano)

P.27 (left) Portrait of a lawyer by Francesco Zahra. (Private Collection, Malta)

P.27 (right) Portrait of an unidentified Maltese lawyer, by Antoine Favray. (Private collection, Malta)

P.30 (left) The lawyer and judge Vincenzo Bonavita. (Courtesy of the Chamber of Advocates, Malta)

P.30 (right) A Maltese lawyer, eighteenth century. (Private Collection, Malta)

P.35 Antoine Favray, Portrait of Giovanni Nicola Muscat, Auditor of Grand Master Rohan, in his studio explaining a will to common folk, oil on canvas, 102 x 142cm. Ferdinando Inglott purchased the painting from the heirs of the Muscat family estate, as registered in the Acts of Notary Achille Micallef, 25 May 1888. (Private Collection, Malta)

ENDNOTES

1 Albert Ganado, Judge Robert Ganado. A History of the Government Departments from 1815 and Lawyers from 1666 (Malta: BDL Publishing, 2015), 251.

2 Stanley Fiorini, ed., Documentary Sources of Maltese History, Part II, No. 2 (Malta: Malta University Press, 2004), 133, 136, 138.

3 Ibid., 369.

4 Ibid., 660.

5 Ibid., and Part II, No. 4 (2013), passim

6 Ibid., Part I, No. 1 (1990), 309.

7 Ibid., 6.

8 Ibid., Part III, No. 1 (1996), 41.

9 Ibid., 167.

10 Ibid., passim.

11 Ibid., Part III, No. 2 (2014), 239.

12 Godfrey Wettinger, The Jews of Malta during the Late Middle Ages (Malta: Midsea Books, 1985), 62, 96, 102.

13 Stanley Fiorini, Documentary Sources of Maltese History, Part III, No. 3 (Malta: Malta University Press, 2016), 1197.

14 Ibid., 994, 1001.

15 Vincent Borg, Melita Sacra, Vol. 2 (Malta, 2009), 416.

16 AOM [Archivum Ordinis Melitae] 97, f. 95v, f. 98v; Bartolomeo dal Pozzo, Historia, Vol. 1 (Verona: Giovanni Berno, 1703), 280-281.

17 AOM 96, f. 66v.

18 Borg (2009), 73 et seq

19 NLM [National Library of Malta], Lib. Ms. 654.

20 Ignazio Saverio Mifsud, Biblioteca Maltese (Malta: Niccolò Capaci, 1764), 276.

21 AOM 92, f. 34v.

22 AOM 95, f. 198v.

23 AOM 98. f. 35.

24 AOM 98, f. 198v.

25 AOM 100, f. 130v, f. 145, f. 155.

26 AOM 100, f 127v.

27 Mifsud (1764), 82-83.

28 Giovanni Antonio Ciantar, Malta Illustrata, Vol. 2 (Malta: Giovanni Mallia, 1780), 402.

29 AOM 91, f. 134.

30 AOM 96, f. 79v.

31 AOM 99, f. 27.

32 AOM 99, f. 56.

33 AOM 99, f. 113v.

34 AOM 95, f. 224v; dal Pozzo (1703), 171.

35 Roger Ellul Micallef, ‘Sketches of Medical Practice in Sixteenth Century Malta’, in P. Xuereb, ed., Karissime Gotifride (Malta: University of Malta Press, 1999), 111.

36 Michael Fsadni, ‘The Dominicans’, in L. Bugeja, M Buhagiar, and S. Fiorini, Birgu, A Maltese Maritime City, Vol. 2 (Malta: University of Malta Press; Central Bank of Malta, 1993), 698.

37 AOM 92, f. 52v.

38 Notary Vincella de Santoro, 8.7.1616, and AOM 1990, f. 135. See, in this publication, the essay: ‘Tragic Tales of Slaves in Malta’, 105-113.

39 Mifsud (1764), 88-96.

40 AOM 94, f. 61.

41 AOM 92, f. 173,

42 AOM 94, f. 71.

43 AIM [Archivum Inquisitionis Melitae] Crim. 5C, f. 1037.

44 AOM 92, f. 212.

45 AOM 93, f. 101.

46 AOM 93, f. 156v.

47 AOM 94, f. 161.

48 AOM 96, f. 80r-v.

49 Carmel Cassar, Society, Culture and Identity in Early Modern Malta (Malta: Mireva, 2000), 160.

50 AOM 96, f. 179; dal Pozzo (1703), 248.

51 AOM 97, f. 189v, f. 190v; AOM 98, f. 15v.

52 Carmel Cassar, ‘The First Decades of the Inquisition, 1546–1581’, Hyphen, Vol. 4 No. 6 (1986), 225.

53 AOM 416, f. 193; AOM 414, f. 273v, f. 203; Lorenzo Schiavone, Pietrino del Ponte nella Storia dell’Ordine Gerosolimitano (Asti: Litografia Minigraf, 1995), 195.

54 AOM 94, f. 29.

55 AOM 94, f. 35.

56 AOM 95, f. 58, f. 63.

57 AOM 95, f. 37.

58 Ibid.

59 AOM 95, f. 52v.

60 AOM 98, f. 32.

61 AOM 95, f. 95v.

62 AOM 95, f. 151.

63 AOM 95, f. 162.

64 AOM 97, f. 181.

65 Cassar (2000), 161.

66 AOM 99, f. 107.

67 AOM 100, f. 20v.

68 AOM 100, f. 196v.

69 Mifsud (1764), 80-82.

70 Ibid., 78.

71 AOM 100, f. 22v, f. 196v.

72 Dionisius A. Agius, ed., Georgio Scala and the Moorish Slaves (Malta: Midsea Books, 2013), passim.

73 Alexander Bonnici, Medieval and Roman Inquisition in Malta (Malta: Franġiskani Koventwali, 1998), 307.

74 AOM 438, ff. 261r-v.

75 AOM 98, f. 94v; Louis de Boisgelin, Ancient and Modern Malta, Vol. 2 (London: Richard Phillips, 1805), 46-55. Boisgelin’s source is probably Villegaignon’s pamphlet, De Bello Melitensi (Paris, 1555).

76 AOM 90, f. 64.

77 Giovanni Bonello, Histories of Malta, Vol. 9 (Malta: Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, 2008), 140-153.

78 AOM 91, f. 109v.

79 AOM 91, f. 176.

80 AOM 436, f. 272.

81 AOM 89, f. 94v.

82 Bonnici (1998), 13.

83 AOM 87, f. 82v.

84 AOM 94, f. 156v.

85 AOM 95, f. 6.

86 AOM 100, f. 47.

87 AOM 100, f. 121v.

88 AOM 95, f. 85v.

89 AOM 97, f. 143v.

90 AOM 97, f. 181.

91 Dal Pozzo (1703), 334.

92 AOM 100, f. 106.

93 Mifsud (1764), 73-76.

94 AOM 99, f. 6v, f. 16.

95 AOM 98, f. 57v.

96 AOM 100, f. 22.

97 AOM 91, f. 42v, f. 81v.

98 AOM 100, f. 20v.

99 AOM 100, f. 249v.

100 AOM 100, f. 258.

101 AOM 100, f. 130v, f. 135, f. 145.

102 AOM 100, f. 155.

103 Ciantar (1780), 457.

104 AOM 88, f. 120v.

105 AOM 89, f. 120v.

106 AOM 89, f. 99, f. 100. For the Moretto affair see Bonello (2008), 96-111.

107 AOM 90, f. 18v.

108 AOM 90, f. 126.

109 AOM 91, f. 61.

110 AOM 91, f. 87v.

111 Mifsud (1764), 30-31.

112 AOM 95, f. 142v, f. 143.

113 AOM 95, f. 197, f. 199v, f. 204v. See, in this publication, the essay: ‘Thefts from Churches in Malta’, 97-103

114 AOM 97, f. 91v.

115 AOM 98, f. 98.

116 AOM 98, f. 178v.

117 AOM 99, f. 34v.

118 Carmel Cassar, Daughters of Eve. Women, Gender Roles, and the Impact of the Council of Trent in Catholic Malta (Malta: Mireva, 2002), 38.

119 Cassar (2000), 161.

120 Alexander Bonnici, Storja tal-Inkizizzjoni ta’ Malta, Vol. 1 (Malta: Franġiskani Koventwali, 1990), 191.

121 AOM 97, f. 188.

122 AOM 99, f. 35.

123 AOM 99, f. 41.

124 AOM 91, f. 132, f. 133v. See, in this publication, the essay: ‘Thefts from Churches in Malta’, 97103.

125 AOM 91, f. 133v, f. 134.

126 Bonnici (1998), 307.

127 AOM 95, f. 283v.

128 AOM 92, f. 211v.

129 AOM 94, f. 48v.

130 Cassar (2000), 218.

131 Fsadni (1993), 700.

132 AOM 98, f. 147v.

133 AOM 99, f. 34v.

134 Mifsud (1764), 76-80.

135 AOM 92, f. 173.

136 AOM 86, f. 130v.

137 AOM 95, f. 126, f. 129.

138 AOM 100, f. 20v.

139 AOM 100, f. 196v.

140 AOM 100, f. 121v.

141 AOM 100, f. 258.

142 Mifsud (1764), 103-106.

143 AOM 100, f. 196v.

144 Agius (2013), passim.

145 Ciantar (1780), 484.

146 AOM 92, f. 195v.

147 AOM 93, f. 81v.

148 Fsadni (1993), 698.

149 AOM 95, f. 37.

150 AOM 94, f. 190v.

151 AOM 97, f. 143.

152 AOM 99, f. 40.

153 Mikiel Fsadni, Id-Dumnikani fil-Belt (Malta: Veritas Press, 1971), 49

154 Cassar (2002), 39.

155 AOM 87, f. 129v.

156 AOM 88, f. 118.

157 AOM 91, f. 25, f. 26.

158 AOM 91, f. 178.

159 AOM 99, f. 41.

160 Mifsud (1764), 27-29.

161 AOM 100, f. 175v.

162 AOM 99, f. 107.

163 AOM 100, f. 121v.

164 AOM 100, f. 128. 165 Cassar (2002), 115. 166 Fsadni (1971), 31, 53. 167 Bonnici (1998), 307. 168 Mifsud (1764), 83-84.

169 AOM 94, f. 129v.

170 AOM 95, f. 37. 171 Ciantar (1780), 492.

172 AOM 438, f. 254.

173 Ciantar (1780), 495.

174 AOM 438, f. 257v.

175 Giovanni Bonello, Histories of Malta, Vol. 1 (Malta: Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, 2000), 88.

176 Ciantar (1780), 497.

177 Ibid.

178 Ciantar (1780), 498-499.

A 1636 Murder in Birgu … and its Fall-Out

‘The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.’

Bertrand Russell

On a dark night in November 1636, a worthless reprobate murdered, with premeditated perfidy, an oil merchant in his home in Birgu. Francesco Scarlatta had been charitably providing assistance, meals, and lodging to Nicolὸ Ciardi, a Sicilian compatriot.1 Ciardi could think of no better way to settle his debt of gratitude to his benefactor than by taking his life, and all his money too. Did the murderer act alone? There are indications that he may have been helped by another scoundrel, Gian Biagio Trimarchi, also Sicilian, and by a Maltese, Salvatore Dumez.

I could recount this story as the straightforward chronicle of a sordid seicento murder, an object of morbid curiosity cut out for tabloid readership. But I see it as far more than that: as emblematic of the struggles for supremacy and of the intractable tensions between the three powers that then ruled Malta. By comparison to their craving for dominance, such immaterial considerations as the guilt of the accused or the rights of the victim start looking insignificant, if not wholly irrelevant.

Three exalted dignitaries shared ultimate authority in Malta in the latter times of the Order: the Grand Master, the bishop, and the Inquisitor, divided by their power-manias, united by a common obedience to the Pope. The three clashed routinely over conflicts of jurisdiction, precedence, prerogatives, protocol, and etiquette. When it was not a three-cornered fight, it was a conflict between two, sometimes, as in this case, refereed or mediated by the third player. The Ciardi affair and the criminal’s virtual abduction by the civil police from his inviolate church sanctuary, pitted the Grand Master against the bishop, with both desperately eager to rope in the Inquisitor on their side, and both brown-nosing him because of his direct hotline with the Pope.

Were it not for two peculiarities, Scarlatta’s would have been just another routine homicide, one in an endless series of many. The centuries of the Order of St John in Malta were extremely brutal times, with murder, grievous bodily harm, and other crimes of violence being almost everyday occurrences, easy come, easy forgotten, as they were elsewhere throughout Europe. Those who fantasise about previous centuries as some lost golden era had better rethink. We do not have statistics for either of the two distinct lay criminal courts then active in Malta, that

of the Knights and the one for civilians, and in so far as the latter goes, meagre research has so far yielded meagre results. But, if the records of justice in the criminal court of the Order are anything to go by, the rate of homicide in Malta in the seicento was nothing short of appalling.

The internal criminal system of the Order (the sguardio) only catered for crimes committed by knights, or crimes perpetrated against knights. In Malta the members of the Order rarely exceeded 600, and yet, even within such a tiny community, the murder rate hovered at an average of one homicide, attempted homicide, or grievous bodily harm, per week. One knight killed, or killing, every seven days, sometimes even more. It would be reasonable to assume that a roughly similar ratio of homicidal violence prevailed in the civilian population too. The Maltese judge Julio Cumbo boasted of having single-handedly sent 120 murderers to the gallows. He lovingly kept note of every notch on his pole—name, surname, and date—and his past achievements inspired him to reach higher targets in future exploits.

The homicide of Scarlatta would have joined that of hundreds of others buried in oblivion were it not for two circumstances. After the murder, realising the police were hot on his trail, Ciardi took refuge inside a church in Birgu. Again, nothing extraordinary in that; the civil authorities had no jurisdiction over churches as the state acknowledged that these enjoyed civil and criminal immunity, and all malefactors were well aware of that privilege and routinely took advantage of it.

But the criminal police had by then had more than enough of that. They plotted a stratagem to lure Ciardi outside the church. On crossing the Grand Harbour on his way to the Floriana waterfront, they pounced on him and detained him, rather self-satisfied with the brilliant outcome of their cunning, I would say.

This gave rise to one of those grievous and seemingly never-ending conflicts between the bishop and the Grand Master, in which the Pope in Rome ultimately had to mediate, cajole, and stamp his feet, and which dragged on, with strident acrimony, at least up to March 1639.

The second reason why Ciardi’s humdrum murder for greed remains notable is that parts of the evidence have been preserved. For some reason I have

A 1636 MURDER IN BIRGU … AND ITS FALL-OUT

never managed to establish, most of the early criminal records of the Maltese Castellania (criminal court) seem to have disappeared. Maybe they are still stored somewhere inaccessible, or perhaps they were deliberately destroyed on superior orders, though I prefer not to be much of a conspiracy theorist. Criminal records usually grow very bulky with the transcripts of all the evidence, documents, reports by experts, and written pleadings by lawyers. Over the years they tend to occupy serious amounts of shelf space. I can well imagine registry clerks, desperate where to store the new files, binning the older ones. Whatever the reason, full files of the old processi of the criminal courts remain a major rarity.

In Ciardi’s case, some of the evidence has been preserved—not the original file, but through related transcripts left for safekeeping in the records of a notary at the request of Dr Ascanio Surdo, the judge of the criminal court of Malta, and Dr Palmerino Montana, avvocato fiscale (public prosecutor) of the Castellania, mostly to demonstrate that they had acted in good faith in holding on to Ciardi after his arrest by the police and to ward off the threat of instant excommunication by the bishop.

Ascanio Surdo, fifth Baron of Cicciano, and to a lesser extent, Palmerino Montana, then shone as prominent stars in the legal firmament of Malta. The contemporaries of Surdo had nothing but praise for him as one of Malta’s more outstanding experts in civil and canon law of all times. He had acted as uditore (minister with judicial powers) to Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt and remained active in the law as judge of the Castellania. He died, aged 93, three days short of Christmas 1656, and his remains were buried in the church of the Minor Observants in Valletta.2 His Statuti of the Order relating to Armamenti (maritime trade and corsairing) were first published in Malta in 1605 and again in Palermo two years after his death.3 Surdo’s portrait should be among those of eminent Maltese in the corridors of the Old University in Valletta but has not been traced so far.4

In their long pleadings, preserved in the records of Notary Ralli of 23 July 1637, Surdo and Montana, in the hope of warding off excommunication, give no less than eighteen reasons to justify their arresting Ciardi after he came out of the church.5 You can almost hear their teeth chattering.

These notarial documents dovetail remarkably into the numerous letters and dispatches from Malta sent to Rome by Inquisitor Fabio Chigi on the Ciardi murder and its aftermath, studied by Mgr Vincent Borg. Many of these internal Inquisition dispatches are written in cipher to ensure secrecy should they fall in unauthorised hands, but Mgr Borg had access to the decoded transcripts housed in the Vatican archives. The accent in the documents discovered lately in the Notarial Archives is on the bishop’s violation of the rights of the lay criminal courts, rather than on the State’s violation of the bishop’s prerogatives, or on the delinquencies of Ciardi. These papers are more concerned with the acrimonious battles of jurisdiction between the rival claimants in which every side tried to score points, many garnished with threats of instant excommunication. The guilt or innocence of the suspect or any consideration for his victim do not feature prominently. It is enough to refer and to dismiss the murdered man a miserabile. Often old documents in Italian refer to a person killed by a criminal as miserabile, wretched. The Sicilian was just the small mouse the big cats had a ball playing with.

The Ciardi case ruffled feathers so badly that to preserve the evidence and the chess moves for eternity, a notary, Michele Ralli, was commissioned and presumably paid to immortalise the progress of the power fall-out that followed the blood-soaked saga in pages upon pages of curial script.

The evidence of the Scarlatta’s murder and the subsequent confrontation between Grand Master and bishop, contained in the notarial archives, runs into at least 61 folio pages.6 This is not the right medium to summarise it in any detail, though it would be grand material for a history student’s case-study dissertation.

In brief, here are the facts. In November 1636, at night, a Sicilian oil merchant was murdered in ‘proditorio et appostato modo’ (in a ‘treacherous and deliberate manner’, see Maltese apposta) by Nicolὸ Ciardi. The two had dined together in the merchant’s home in Birgu, and Ciardi had waited for Scarlatta to fall asleep. In his slumber, he killed the merchant and robbed him of all his belongings. He then dumped the corpse, naked, in a public road. The records do not seem to specify how Scarlatta was killed. Firearms were then acquiring ever

increasing popularity as weapons for homicides, though the use of daggers and stilettos still prevailed. Scarlatta is a typical, though uncommon, Sicilian surname.

The murder of the oil trader left substantial traces in three important Maltese archives. I have already mentioned the Notarial Archives and those of the Inquisition, but the homicide also features in the archives of the Order of Malta housed in the National Library, in Valletta. A long report in the minutes of the Council of the Order of 31 August 1637, summarises the cases of Ciardi and Trimarchi. Nicolὸ Ciardi is here referred to as padron Cola Ricciardo—the padron seems to indicate that he was the owner-captain of a boat.

Undoubted evidence compiled by our criminal court shows that the miserabile Francesco Scarlatta was treacherously murdered for the purpose of robbing him of his money, by Padron Cola Ricciardo, his compatriot, at a time when the victim was charitably hosting him at table and had also given him his own bed to sleep on. This traitor, after having committed the detestable murder, fled immediately to the Greek church in Birgu.

The records of the Order make clear the belief of the police that Ciardi did not act alone but involved in the killing his accomplices Trimarchi and a Maltese called Salvator Dumez.7 However, about this third suspect in the Scarlatta murder case, the sources consulted are silent.

A coeval petition vividly portrays the precarious state of law and order in Birgu in 1638. Don Grazio Calleja and Antonio Calleja jointly entreated the Grand Master to do something about the lawlessness that was taking over Birgu and making the city unliveable. They could no longer take the rampant criminality, the unrestrained violence that was becoming habitual. Birgu had been falling in the hands of ‘malandati che non hanno timore di Dio’ (‘delinquents who have no fear of God’). The least the Callejas expected from the state was an increased police presence and a more earnest concern for public order.8 Hope springs eternal. The authorities decreed the petition on 21 August 1638.

The police of the Castellania investigated diligently and discovered that Ciardi was hiding inside the Greek church of Birgu where he could not be

apprehended. This was probably Our Lady of Damascus, close to the parish church of St Lawrence, though Birgu had another two Greek chapels. He then moved in secret to the church of the Carmelite friars fronting Birgu wharf. In time, Ciardi believed he had organised his escape to Sicily and embarked on a boat that headed for Floriana ‘sotto i padri capuccini’, but was captured by the Castellania police in the middle of Grand Harbour. It later became clear that what he foolishly believed to be his flight to Sicily had been nothing but a stratagem plotted by the police to lay their hands on the murderer outside the boundaries of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

Bishop Miguel Balaguer’s fury at having the carpet pulled from under his feet knew no bounds; he claimed that his jurisdiction over Ciardi could not be neutralised by trickery and by the use of false and dishonest ruses. Ciardi had to be immediately handed back to the Church.

Grand Master Jean Paul Lascaris subscribed to a different school of thought; the trap to ensnare the murderer out of the Carmelite church had no doubt been authorised by him. No lowly lay subordinate would dream of

provoking the ire of the bishop in a matter so scandalously explosive without preguaranteed protection from his boss.

This conflict arising from the ‘abduction’ of the murderer Nicolὸ Ciardi has to be viewed against the general resentment by the Grand Master, the bishop, and the Inquisitor of any encroachment by others of their jurisdictions. But one has also to factor in the catastrophic personal animosity that existed between Bishop Balaguer and Lascaris. Balaguer’s letters to Rome constantly harp on the persecution of the bishop by the Grand Master, or perhaps his paranoid perception of it. He wrote to Cardinal Barberini: ‘If one single day passes without my lord the Grand Master having done something against me, he will feel without a reason for living … The Grand Master is solely concerned with exterminating me’.9

The whole matter avalanched. First Bishop Balaguer formally declared that Ciardi was under ecclesiastical jurisdiction and entitled to the right of asylum. After his abduction by the Order’s officers, Balaguer issued a ban against his torture (useful to obtain a useless confession). Lascaris protested and insisted on a revocation of the ban. Balaguer replied by increasing the dose: anyone who disobeyed his orders would instantly incur the heaviest religious penalties. The Grand Master appealed to the papal Inquisitor in Malta, Fabio Chigi, later elected Pope Alexander VII.

Not to be outdone, Balaguer, on his side, sent his complaint directly to the Roman Congregation of Ecclesiastical Immunity, charging the Order of St John with breaches of religious authority and contempt for the privileges of the Church. The Roman congregation supported the bishop and ordered Chigi to side with Balaguer against the inroads of the Grand Master and to resist all attempts to diminish the bishop’s jurisdiction. Chigi tried to act as pacifier, and on 30 July he proposed to reconcile the positions of the Order and the church by establishing that no innovations on conflicting jurisdictions were to be introduced by either side.

Chigi’s efforts at mediation were undermined in the Grand Master’s eyes by the perception that he was no friend of the Order and altogether too chummy with the secretary of the Roman congregation which was loudly siding

with the bishop. The troublemakers among the knights did everything to keep Chigi and the Grand Master apart. The best way to guarantee that was to reduce the honours conferred on the Inquisitor when he dined with the Grand Master. This ploy worked. Faced with this obvious outrage against protocol, Chigi felt compelled to boycott the Grand Master’s company for many months.

The Inquisitor did write to both the Grand Master and the bishop on 19 August, appealing to them to reach a peaceful compromise in the Ciardi murder, and not to add new troubles to the many already existing. But the prospects of an agreement were fading fast. Feeling overwhelmed, the Grand Master roped in Cardinal Giovanni Doria, Archbishop of Palermo and the Metropolitan of Malta and therefore, in hierarchy, the superior of Balaguer. With some adroit lateral thinking, Doria recalled the Ciardi trial to his own court in Palermo and ordered Balaguer to send the complete criminal file instantly to his court in Sicily. In Doria’s view, his solution of trying the murderer in Sicily rather than Malta would prevent the bishop and the Grand Master claiming victory over the other. Balaguer, strong in his support from Rome and in a defiant mood, decided to flout his superior in Palermo and to retain Ciardi for his own consumption. Chigi feared that this would provoke a violent riot by the knights against the bishop and persuaded him to leave Valletta instantly and hide in the countryside. In fact, in a previous letter to Rome, Chigi had already mentioned his concern with the physical threats to the bishop by the more hot-headed members of the Order. Cardinal Doria, supporting Lascaris, increased the pressure and wrote to Balaguer warning him he could expect the forfeiture of all his revenues from Sicily and Gozo. Faced with the prospect of physical violence and the sequestration of his property and income, Balaguer, no doubt most ungraciously, yielded. The Church’s criminal file against Ciardi was sent to Palermo and the alleged murderer transferred to the Inquisitor’s prison in Birgu. By now, Ciardi had been hosted in preventive custody in all the three prisons of Malta: the civil, the bishop’s, and the Inquisitor’s.

But the Grand Master’s direct appeal to Cardinal Doria in Palermo had rubbed Rome the wrong way, and badly too. Malta was not under the

ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Palermo! The Palermo tribunal asserted it exercised final powers and did not even recognise an appeal to the Pope. This was subjecting the Order of Malta to the Sicilian monarchy, rather than to Rome. Cardinal Francesco Barberini, powerful vice-chancellor of the Holy Roman Church to his uncle Pope Urban VIII, blew a fuse. The false news that the Order had appealed to the Sicilian monarch (it had actually appealed to the Archbishop of Palermo) to bypass Rome, prompted Barberini to renounce, and loudly, his patronage of the Order and to state formally that the Knights of Malta no longer enjoyed his protection.

One of Lascaris’ concerns, when Ciardi was in the bishop’s prison, was that the detained person would be ‘escaped’, an old ruse to break jurisdictional stalemates. For this reason, the Grand Master proposed any of three practical alternatives: to hold the alleged murderer in the Castellania prisons, or in those of the Inquisitor, or to add his own guards while Ciardi remained in the bishop’s cells. One compromise reached was that Ciardi, while the great debate was ongoing, would stay in the Inquisition prison in Birgu, guarded jointly by the wardens of the Church and those of the Grand Master. Eventually, Chigi received instructions from Rome to hand the alleged murderer to the Grand Master, to be punished ‘ citra penam sanguinis et mutilationem membrorum ’—which I take to mean, short of the death penalty and the mutilation of his limbs. One of the faults of Lascaris, according to Chigi, was that he relied for advice on some Maltese whom he had previously despised.

The last dispatch regarding Ciardi’s trial is dated 24 February 1639— twenty-seven months after the brutal homicide, all spent in bickering, threatening, and elbowing for position. Chigi informed Cardinal Barberini that, in view of the atrocity of the crime, he had agreed to transfer Ciardi to be tried by the Grand Master’s court, but on condition that he be spared the death penalty or permanent mutilation. If, in the meantime, evidence of more grievous misconduct should emerge against Ciardi (more grievous than the premeditated assassination in cold blood of your benefactor in his sleep?) then Lascaris had to take fresh instructions

from the Pope in Rome. To find a way out of the impasse, on 5 September, Rome ordered Chigi in Malta to hand over Ciardi—not to the ordinary courts of the Castellania but to the Order’s own internal criminal courts—if he was satisfied that the murderer did not enjoy the right of ecclesiastical asylum; the Inquisitor could also resort to the exception that ‘atrocious crimes’ did not automatically enjoy ecclesiastical immunity.10 Face-saving and lame, but a closure, however fraught.

Chigi made it clear that this was to be an ex gratia concession by the Church to the State. Lascaris believed this to be acceptable, but it angered the mali consultori of the Grand Master who wanted Ciardi by right, not ex gratia. 11

The presumed accomplice of Ciardi, his friend Gian Biagio Trimarchi, had also been living in Malta when suspicion fell on him of his involvement in the Scarlatta murder. It was discovered that previously he had been twice condemned to row in the galleys and had been banished from Sicily as a felon. The Order’s commissioners against vagabonds had ordered him to depart from Malta, but he was held here by an impediment for civil debt. At some time, Trimarchi had moved to Gozo where he distinguished himself as a troublemaker and for his dissolute life. The Grand Master made clear his intention of clearing him from Gozo, but Balaguer intervened again, claiming Trimarchi fell under his jurisdiction as he was a cleric, with a patent to prove it. Lascaris denied the validity of the certificate as there were indications it was a forgery. The Grand Master added that Trimarchi had never been seen in clerical habit; on the contrary, he swaggered around wearing a sword and a dagger to his side and was at the centre of every popular disorder, ‘mischiarsi in mille enormità’. Surely the bishop should not claim these scoundrels enjoyed ecclesiastical protection?

Trimarchi was taking advantage not of one, but two ecclesiastical privileges: the right of asylum enjoyed by everyone once inside a Catholic church and, secondly, the right of patentees or clerics of the bishop or of the Inquisitor not to submit to the ordinary criminal jurisdiction of the state. All this echoes the searing criticism of the clerical hangers-on of the bishop made by Inquisitor Gori Pannellini in 1646:

In the diocese of Malta, the clerics are never at the service of the Church, and dress according to current fashions, some in the French style, others in the Lombard, wearing colours, carrying weapons of any kind, sporting feminine hairstyles with garlands on their hair; they employ themselves as soldiers on the galleys and vessels of the state, some work as carpenters, masons, tavern keepers, undertakers, and grocers; they become clerics only to avoid guard duties and the cavalry levy, not to pay customs and in case they commit a criminal offence.12

Trimarchi petitioned the Grand Master to release him as he intended to depart from Malta, ‘and we thanked the Lord for this’. On the point of leaving Malta, the police received grave indications that he had been an accomplice in the treacherous murder of Scarlatta.13 He was instantly rearrested, and the Grand Master ordered him detained in St Elmo from where he escaped and, to no one’s surprise, took refuge in a church. Lascaris asked the Inquisitor to intervene to help him get Trimarchi to face the ordinary criminal courts, but Chigi washed his hands, stating that his instructions only extended to Ciardi. Was this the end of Trimarchi’s delinquencies? Not by a stretch. He returned to Malta, and on 30 July 1639, shot and killed a young knight of the Langue of Aragon, guilty of being out relaxing in the breeze. Trimarchi had lately escaped from the prison of St Elmo and ganged up with four other criminals enjoying the immunity of ecclesiastical refuge in the church and convent of St Dominic in Valletta. After murdering the novice knight, Trimarchi fled for sanctuary to the church of Our Lady of Sorrows, in Pietà. A number of Aragonese knights sought and obtained permission from the bishop to enter the church and capture the killer, but he must have received some forewarning as he escaped from there too and went into hiding in the countryside. A price was put on his head and the authorities formally declared him an outlaw—fair game for anyone who fancied taking a shot at him.

Another posse of knights ignored the sanctity of ecclesiastical sanctuary and broke violently into St Dominic’s convent where they killed three of Trimarchi’s comrades in crime. One, Giacomo Calli, disguised himself in women’s clothes, but that did not deceive the vigilante knights and they assassinated him all the same. In the felons’ room in the convent, a serious arsenal was discovered: thirty-five firearms. The fourth criminal was wounded and captured to face a justice-less summary.14

It took a large number of violent scandals and the persistence and defiance of Grand Master Pinto for him and Bishop Bartolomeo Rull to agree, in 1761, to limit the right of asylum of delinquents inside places of worship as from 31 May. Gianpatist Borg, a Gozitan murderer, had lived safe in a church, openly mocking retribution and justice, for thirty years!15 A rather large number of churches and chapels lost their immunity from the civil authorities, and henceforth criminals had no reason to take refuge in them. Many of the edifices affected by this reform today still show the tell-tale inscription near their front door: ‘Non gode l’immunità

ecclesiastica’ (‘Does not enjoy ecclesiastical immunity’). Only churches where the Eucharist was held retained the right of asylum.

The British, under Governor Fredrick Ponsonby, abolished the right altogether in 1828. Their Proclamation of 10 April, in substance, decreed that no local privilege or immunity would henceforth be available to prevent the due execution of the law in criminal matters. If any person suspected of having committed any crime or offence sought refuge in any place considered, up to the date of the Proclamation, as affording sanctuary, it was lawful for any officer of the executive police to demand the handing over of such person at the outer door of the place of refuge, and, in case of non-compliance, to enter the place and to remove him ‘with the least possible scandal or disturbance’.16

This was, no doubt grudgingly, agreed to by Bishop Ferdinando Mattei. Had it been Bishop Balaguer, he would have fired off a salvo of wilting excommunications and stiffened permanently in a fit of apoplexy. Though there were feeble protests and rumblings of Protestant interference with the ancient prerogatives of the Church, in a short time most came round to the idea that this was not such a bad idea after all.

In parallel with the Ciardi and Trimarchi imbroglios, Inquisitor Chigi had also to deal with a third case which involved conflicts of jurisdiction between the Grand Master and the bishop. Agostino Borg, a seemingly respectable Maltese businessman, had persuaded his compatriots to entrust him with the purchase of grain from Sicily at a time when Malta teetered on the verge of famine. Borg proceeded to Licata to buy the desperately needed provisions. This he did, acting in an official capacity, but it later transpired that he had cooked the books and had fraudulently pocketed 20,000 scudi stolen from the public purse, an immense amount. Mattia Preti, by comparison, charged fifty scudi for an altarpiece.

Quite predictably, the Grand Master did not seem at all amused and ordered the arrest of Borg to stand trial for corruption and misappropriation, ‘for having committed robbery and caused public harm to the tune of about 20,000 scudi, besides having risked destroying the population through famine’.

No, retorted Bishop Balaguer, Borg had registered as a celibate cleric who fell under his jurisdiction and only the tribunal of the Church could detain him or try him. Lascaris, no doubt making an epic effort not to resort to profanities, countered that after Borg had married he had never worn the clerical habit again, nor shaved the tonsure on his head. In fact, he had stopped frequenting Church altogether. No matter. Balaguer insisted on his right not to hand over Borg to the ordinary courts, threatening excommunication to all those who attempted to interfere. It is not known how the conflict ended, but I tend not to believe the rumour that Borg later stood for election as a government minister.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thanks to Paul Camilleri of the Notarial Archives, Valletta, who identified the Ciardi documents, to Dr Joan Abela for facilitating my research, and to Ms Maroma Camilleri of the National Library, Valletta. The works of Mgr Vincent Borg, quoted in the endnotes, have also been invaluable.

CAPTIONS

P.44 Detail from 1624 map of the Grand Harbour, by Douillier and Reignauld. (Courtesy of the Albert Ganado Collection)

P.48 Giovanni Gasparro, Portrait of Fabio Chigi, Inquisitor of Malta, later Pope Alexander VII. (Private Collection / Courtesy of Palazzo Chigi / Photo: Luciano and Marco Pedicini)

P.52 Birgu waterfront with the façade of the church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in view. (Courtesy of Bay Retro)

P.56 Melchiorre Cafa (cast by Giovanni Piscina), Bust of Fabio Chigi (Pope Alexander VII), front view, bronze, 99.9 x 87 x 41.9cm, 1667. (Courtesy of The Met; Edith Perry Chapman Fund, 1957)

P.59 Non gode immunita marble plaque inscription, placed on the facade or exterior walls of churches following an agreement between Grand Master Pinto and Bishop Rull, in 1761, to limit the right of asylum in churches. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

ENDNOTES

1 Sometimes Ciardo, Ricciardo, or Ricciardi.

2 Giovanni’ Antonio Ciantar, Malta Illustrata, Lib. 2 (Malta: Stamperia del Palazzo, 1780), 536.

3 Ignatio Saverio Mifsud, Biblioteca Maltese, Vol. 1 (Malta: Capaci, 1764), 103-106; Antonio Schembri, Selva di autori e traduttori Maltesi (Malta: Paolo Cumbo, 1855), 69.

4 Joseph Zammit, Elogia Illustrium Melitensium (Malta: Paolo Cumbo, 1855), 25.

5 NAV, Notary Michele Ralli, Vol. 8, 1635–1639, ff. 126-136v.

6 NAV, Notary Michele Ralli, Vol. 8, entries from 22 July 22 1637 to 1 September 1 1637.

7 AOM 112, f. 59.

8 AOM 1184, ff. 216-225.

9 Alessandro Bonnici, ‘I vescovi di Malta’, Melita Historica, Vol. 5 No. 2 (1969), 126, 128.

10 Vincent Borg, The Maltese Diocese during the Seventeenth Century, Vol. 3: Melita Sacra (Malta, 2015), 50-52.

11 Information on the trials of Ciardi, Trimarchi, and Borg can be found in Vincent Borg, Fabio Chigi, Apostolic Delegate in Malta (1634–1639) (Vatican: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1967), 73-77, 287, 289, 299, 307, 316, 322-323, 326, 331, 336, 379, 462.

12 Bonnici (1969), 127.

13 AOM 112, ff. 57v-58.

14 William Zammit, Kissing the Gallows (Malta: BDL, 2016), 198.

15 AOM 650, f. 161; AOM 652, f. 139.

16 Albert Victor Laferla, British Malta. 1800–1872, Vol. 1 (Malta: AC Aquilina & Co., 1947), 122.

Mischievous Books in the Times of the Order

‘It is there, where they burn books, that eventually they burn people.’

Heinrich Heine

I salute Joseph Schiro, the book paramour who gave life and dignity to paper. Not in itself, but paper as the prerequisite, the physical soul of knowledge, of beauty, of history. I dedicate to his legendary commitment this hasty research on the destiny of writings that offended or disturbed power at the times of the Order of Malta.

On 5 May 1609, the principal square in Birgu witnessed a rather unusual event: a solemn and public burning of wicked books, unfit for the eyes of good Christians. Like, for example, a translation of the Bible into English, the Psalms in French, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and a life of Christ, also in French.

Fire equals purification. Such pernicious poison had to disappear in flames, lest it pollute the cosy certainties of uninformed faith. That was still the time when the Church reserved knowledge of the word of God almost exclusively to ecclesiastics; laymen could only partake of it through the mediation of priests, under pain of capital sin.

Fancy translating the Bible for every ‘Masu’, ‘Daddu’, and ‘Toni’ to read, misunderstand and get strange ideas. That, the moralists argued, would be dangerous beyond words. The publication, possession, and reading of translations of the Scriptures into the vernacular, the Church subordinated stringently to written permission from the Inquisition.

Giovanni Luca Gauci, the Inquisitor’s scribe, kept careful note of all the books consigned to the flames, and drew up a detailed proces verbal of the proceedings. He noted everything, including ‘the presence of a multitude of people’, not specifying, however, if exultant or in irreversible depression.

Fifty-two precious books were turned to ashes by order of Inquisitor Evangelista Carbonesi (a. 1608–1614). No surprise that the list included more than one Liber Mohametanus aut Alcoranus, and a Liber Hebraicus, probably confiscated from slaves. But what of the Mathematics of Ptolemy and the visually stunning work on anatomy, De Humanis Corporis Fabrica, by Andreas Vesalius?

Some related to astrology—one, by Girolamo Cardano, the great sixteenth-century physician and mathematician from Pavia, who developed the theory of algebra and first published an algebraic solution of cubic and quartic

equations. Carbonesi must have cultivated some grudge against mathematicians. His list of proscribed books included one by Giovanni Sconero on the construction of right angles and radii, and another Mathematics of Ptolemy with Cardano’s commentary, both imminent threats to Christian beatitudes.

A few of the books fed to the fires still have resonance in our times. The torched work most in vogue today would probably be the Prophesies of Nostradamus. Close second candidates for burning in Birgu were the complete works of François Rabelais (c.1490–c.1553), a lapsed Franciscan turned physician, humanist scholar and, famously, a satirist. His best-selling Gargantua and Pantagruel soon attracted the ire of Rome for their outspoken mockery of some odd religious practices and for their very personal views on faith. They too rose in smoke in the Birgu skies.

INTOLERANCE AND FEAR

Carbonesi’s victims included the standard textbook on duelling by Girolamo (Justinopolitan) Mutio, an ambivalent work which purported to condemn duels by detailing how wonderful they really were. And, of course, a book on politics by Machiavelli (1469–1527), probably the notorious Il Principe.

One set of books curiously on Carbonesi’s list was the very first printed history of the Order of Malta in nine volumes, the work of Henri Pantaleon, published in Basel, Switzerland, in 1581. Pantaleon’s huge effort begged out loud for the kiss of fire—a Protestant—what else to expect?

This was the first, but hardly the only chronicle of the Order of Malta to fall under the solicitous censorship of Rome. The best-selling history by RenéAubert Vertot (known as Abbé de Vertot), as we shall see later, languished for a century on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the official proscription list published periodically by Rome following an early decision by the Council of Trent to spare Catholics the fatigue of thinking with their own minds.1

The burning of books in public seems one of the more obvious, but hardly the only, manifestation of intolerance in the structured war against freedom of expression. Today, at least in democratic areas, we take these fundamental

liberties for granted. We hold that freedom of expression, of thought, conscience, religion, assembly, and association to be basic minimums rather than enviable achievements of modern civilisation. It was hardly so two centuries ago when the principles of autocracy reigned almost uncontested.

Power, and those who wielded it, feared little as much as diversity and dissent—the first they perceived as threatening, the second as perilous. Believing you could speak your mind, even in eminently non-controversial fields like scientific observation—think Galileo—only courted repression and persecution.

It was as if at birth you delegated others to think for you, speak for you, decide what is best for you, and to shut you up if you went out of line. If you queried, you disturbed the fine equilibrium of authority; if you were different, you challenged the cosy comforts of conformity: Religious difference—heretics, Protestants, atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, Muslims, Jews; political difference—republicans, anarchists, egalitarians, liberals, democrats; behavioural differences—homosexuals, ‘witches’, lepers, lunatics, aliens; all were at best ostracised, though preferably exterminated.

In this study I will be focussing of how books and freedom of expression in general thrived in these Islands in the times of the Knights; no way did our country fare much worse than others in Europe. Of course, the fact that in Malta, differently from elsewhere, all civil power concentrated in the hands of, and was shared by, three religious entities—the Order, the bishop, and the Inquisition—and that not even a vestige of democratic representation, however primitive, found a place in the arena, ensured that autocracy, intolerance and totalitarian control reigned unquestioned.

A few other countries and cities (for example England, Venice, Switzerland) developed some timid sharing of power and had token ‘democratic’ structures in place. These mitigated the onslaught of absolute authority, propped by engineered ignorance and enforced by the rack.

‘ABOMINABLE PRINCIPLES OF LIBERTY’

Malta could have been worse off. We might have had the keys to our intellect in the pockets of the Spanish rather than the Roman Inquisition, which, harsh as it

undoubtedly was, at least came packaged in a finer Italian version, administered almost benignly by intelligent and well-educated Inquisitors. These generally preferred to discourage challenges to the purity of the faith by reminding those tempted to evil that the tribunal was there. They privileged this pervasive, but passive, intimidation over systematic torture and the resort to human barbecue, so prevalent in the Spanish Inquisition.

Most of the episodes you are about to read would never have passed today’s stringent tests of how freedom of expression ought to be disciplined and restricted. Of course, not even our more enlightened times admit a freedom of expression that knows no bounds. Like most other fundamental rights, it suffers limits and borders we cannot presume to cross in the name of total liberty. Freedom of expression includes the rights to hold opinions, to receive and impart information and ideas, without interference by public authorities through prior censorship and without fear of reprisal.

However, even the most reckless upholders of this fundamental freedom (I fear I count myself among them) acknowledge that a well-ordered society cannot avoid some limitations. The state has the duty to impose restrictions, be they in the interest of national security or public safety, to prevent disorder or crime, to protect health, morals and the reputation and rights of others, to prevent disclosure of confidential information, and to ensure the authority of the judiciary. Quite a formidable array of exceptions, but we ought never to forget that freedom of expression is the only fundamental right in the European system that, by definition, carries ‘duties and responsibilities’.

Did our ancestors miss freedom of expression? Free spirits, more or less bizarre, once and again tried to assert a right to think and speak out, but it would not appear they garnered much of a following. People took to the streets when food was scarce or carnivals were banned, not for the confiscation of books. Do not touch my panem et circensis

Those in a position to lead, more often than not, basked in the advantages of the status quo. Being ‘searchers after new ideas’, or bramosi di novità, 2 the conformists

hurled at such persons as the ultimate insult. Canon Francesco Saverio Caruana (later Archbishop) held in horror ‘the abominable principles of liberty and equality’.

Things took a turn for the better, where freedom of expression was concerned, at the start of the British connection. Not much though. Under Alexander Ball, Maltese nationals, including a young boy, were brutally exiled from Malta ‘per aver sparlato del governo’ (‘for having spoken ill of the government’).3

And freedom of the press had to wait till 1839 to somehow turn into a reality. The Maltese then acquired the privilege to write and publish anything, so long as it was pro-British.

BOCCACCIO AND PROTESTANT BOOKS

Carbonesi’s bonfire of 1609 must have flared quite spectacularly, but it could hardly claim to be the first battle against the book in Malta. In 1562, Grand Master Jean Parisot de Valette (1494–1568), alarmed at the thriving onslaught of Protestantism against Catholic strongholds in Europe, reflected disconsolately that ‘among the major causes through which the spirits of men are perverted to evil, are the poisonous books by Lutherans and other heretics’. He determined the Order be ‘completely purged and cleansed of such books’.

With this in mind de Valette appointed a Commission against Lutheran literature, and enjoined it to raid ships coming from abroad and to break open all trunks belonging to anyone, high or low, ‘without respect or deference’. The searches and seizures targeted books and other writings ‘of the heretic Lutherans and others of their sect and by any other prohibited writer’.

The Commissioners’ powers included that of entering and searching any home in Malta. Lists of books and of their owners were to be drawn up and the corpus delicti handed over to the Bishop.4 My ancestor Gio Maria Bonello distinguished himself as one of the first victims of the Protestant witch-hunt. The Inquisitor twice prosecuted him in 1563 for poisoning his mind with Protestant books.5

De Valette selected as chief mastiff in his hunt for Protestant literature his Latin secretary, Sir Oliver Starkey. Not a very sagacious choice, seeing that

less than three years later Starkey was secretly negotiating favourable terms for his conversion to Protestantism and his return to England.6 Starkey contributed further to freedom of expression when placed in charge of the prosecution of knights who had ridiculed or criticised de Valette (see below).

After de Valette’s blitz on pernicious books came the turn of Inquisitor Rainaldo Corsi (1525–c.1582). In 1577, he ordered the burning of many volumes, among them the mildly bawdy Decameron by Boccaccio (today recommended reading in schools) and the writings of the humanist Erasmus von Rotterdam (1466–1536), an Augustinian monk and later priest, and an unrelenting yet constructive critic of the rampant abuses many Church dignitaries considered their birthright. Inquisitor Corsi earned a warm encomium from Rome for the combustion of so much evil.7

Presumably many prurient young knights would have wanted to read Boccaccio’s Decameron without incurring the Inquisitor’s censure, but few seemed to have summoned the pluck to beseech permission. One, Fra Prospero Colonna, Prior of Ireland, did, and in 1638 asked Inquisitor Fabio Chigi (1599–1667) for a special Boccaccio dispensation. Rome, for once, said yes. Could this have been because the Colonna family had popes and cardinals around every dark and light corner of the eternal city?8

LOW LEVEL OF CULTURE IN MALTA

Book bonfires remained a popular sport at least up to 1640. At the turn of the century, the Cardinal of Santa Severina ordered Inquisitor Fabrizio Verallo (1560–1624) to burn all the prohibited books collected over the previous years, singling out by name the Republica by Jean Bodin (Bodino). The torching, he told the Inquisitor, had to be performed in public ‘to give an example to others’. Books also fed the flames in 1609 and 1640.9

Beyond 1640, the burning of books proceeded, though perhaps not publicly as before. In 1659, Pietro Durante received from abroad some volumes which presumably contained heretical teachings. Inquisitor Girolamo Casenate (1620–1700) had them destroyed by fire. Durante protested his good faith and

filed for damages. Rome sided with him and Casenate found himself ordered to reimburse the plaintiff of all costs incurred.10

The year 1577 also witnessed another major blow to literacy. Giovanni Barbieri, armed with all necessary permits, shipped books from Palermo to Malta by order, destined for the convents of the monks on the island. This notwithstanding the Inquisitor impounded his cargo and prosecuted him before the tribunal.11 Carmel Cassar believes this episode contributed to the restriction of the availability of books on the island in the decades that followed.12

The Inquisitors, rather than the Grand Master, remained the true champions in Malta of intellectual control and repression. They watched out that no one owned or read ‘prohibited books’. How far this impacted on the cultural development of society is difficult to tell. I do not believe the standard of literacy to have been particularly high among the knights or the Maltese upper classes. Grand Master Jean l’Evesque de la Cassière (1502–1581) detested scholars and openly sneered at those more interested in cultivating their minds than their biceps: ‘My Order needs warriors and seamen rather than graduates and other indolent layabouts who crowd this island, much to the detriment of this principality’.13

NO BOOKSHOPS IN MALTA

In fact, in 1637, the Jesuit culture vulture Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) confessed he could no longer waste away in Malta ‘owing to the dearth of books’ which had caused him to interrupt his studies and writings: ‘puoca commodità di promuovere questi suoi pensieri’.14 The saintly Bishop Baldassare Cagliares (c.1575–1633), dismayed by the general ignorance of the Maltese clergy, decreed that every priest should as a minimum own at least a copy of the Bible. In his 1615 census of the regular clergy of Malta, he noted the names of some fifty priests who never had a copy and enjoined them, under penalties, to acquire one.15

The secret report by the Venetian Giacomo Capello in 1716 notes there were no bookshops in Valletta. He calls the young knights ‘a gathering of

desperate youth, cadet loafers protected in every excess, without fear of the world or of God; there are no bookshops in the city; there was only one bookseller, but he went bankrupt’.16

This reflects the views of Balì Fra Pontius Francois de Fleury who in a private letter expressed a disconsolate view of the intellectual panorama in Malta: ‘I just hope that our little rock [Malta] is pulling itself out of the barbarian state in which it is today, as far as science and art are concerned’.17 And Giandonato Rogadeo did little to hide his contempt for the level of literacy among the Maltese. They fancy themselves as litterati, he squirms, but have only produced a few miserable scribblers. This did not hold them back from publishing a book showing off their literary glories—the Biblioteca Maltese, printed by Ignatio Saverio Mifsud in 1764.18

It would seem that the main accumulations of books in Malta were to be found in the convents; the bishop, the Grand Prior, and the medical school also had reasonably extensive libraries. Nicola Debono outdid most with an honourable hoard of 810 books—quite impressive for the times.19

By 1734, a French bookseller again tried his luck in Valletta, but we know of him through a clearance sale of books and prints, giving away polizze (broadsheets) at one carlino each.20 This bookseller, known only by his name Jean, was still in business in 1764, doubling as bookbinder for the Order to ward famine off his door, when the Venetian Andrea Rapetti came on the book scene to put up some competition; the prospects of good turnovers remained extremely poor on the island.

‘Books here’, wrote a knight that same year, ‘are an unknown commodity’; only a minimal fraction of the knights and the upper classes in Malta could read at all.21 Perhaps it is not a mere coincidence that the Public Library was the very last building to be planned and constructed by the Order in Malta.

The incidence of prosecutions of owners or readers of prohibited books in the ranks of the Order does not appear particularly high (probably because the rate of literacy among them was particularly low). Of the over 327 investigations initiated between 1563 and 1689 by the Inquisitors against members of the Order

(all ranks), only thirty-nine referred to the ownership or reading of bad literature; this works out roughly at twelve per cent.

The Inquisitor generally dealt quite leniently with those accused of reading prohibited books. Besides the obvious confiscation of the incriminated volumes (fuel for the next bonfire), mostly the punishments consisted in a reprimand—though Fra Paolo Garsia, a Sicilian from Augusta, ended having to recite the seven psalms weekly and the litany for two years. Perhaps Inquisitor Martino Alfieri (1590–1641) singled him out because of his rank as conventual chaplain. He should have known better.

The greatest culprits to get caught appear to be the French knights—over twenty showed an appetite for prohibited books, closely followed by the Italians (thirteen). The Spaniards figure with two knights, plus one German, and two others of unstated nationality.

During the first thirty years of its activity, the Inquisition did not investigate one single member of the Order in connection with banned literature. Only as late as 1583 did Fra Annibale Petrucci attract attention to his wayward reading habits. One sees long periods on record with no anti-book activity at all, punctuated by short spells of industrious book-hunting frenzy.

This possibly depended on the personality of the man in charge. Particularly tireless appear Inquisitors Martino Alfieri and his immediate successor Fabio Chigi (later Pope Alexander VII). In the short span between April 1633 and February 1635, they investigated sixteen knights suspected of close encounters with dangerous books. None of the knights under enquiry ever achieved fame in any strata of the Order or otherwise. Most of them remained obscure rankers. The real irony is that one of the very few Knights of Malta who did earn an international reputation in literature attained renown not as reader but as an author of prohibited books. To this day, history acknowledges the knight Fra Pietro Aretino (1492–1557) as the first great modern pornographer, his name the equivalent of unbridled obscenity throughout all Europe, including England.22 Other Knights of Malta made it transiently to the Index of Prohibited Books. Fra Pietro Aretino never left it.

Prohibited books attracted others, besides knights and priests. Aloysetta Metaxi, a prostitute on the slow boat to reform, joined the convent of the Ripentite as a novice; she admitted to reading condemned books.23

Once a book had been placed on the Roman Index, all had to handle it with the utmost care. Only special permits from Rome exceptionally enabled one to possess it or to read it. So perfidious were condemned books deemed to be that not even the learned Consultors of the Inquisition, appointed to take part in the trial of persons accused of holding or reading them, could be allowed to set eyes on their nefarious contents.24

GALILEO BANNED

A subversive book like Galileo’s Dialogo on motion in the astronomical system, which theorised the centrality of the sun, had been condemned in 1633; the ban trumpeted

all over Catholic Universities in Europe. Four years later, the eminent knight and engineer (ergo mathematician) Fra Gio Batta Vertoa from Bergamo pleaded for a special permit to peruse Galileo’s fundamental scientific work. Inquisitor Fabio Chigi relayed this shocking request to Rome, which refused permission. Vertoa had to be protected firstly from himself and then from Galileo’s truths.25

Boccaccio, Erasmus, Nostradamus, Galileo … but expurgated versions of works on astronomy by Copernicus and Castiglione’s 1582 manual on courtly manners, Il Cortigiano, were grudgingly allowed.26 The list is never-ending and, not surprisingly, includes Voltaire. Fra Alexandre Gardun, in 1764, confessed he had read works by this author which shook some of the certainties of his faith. Inquisitor Angelo Maria Durini (1725–1796), after registering Gardun’s recantation of error, let him off with an obligation to hold his silence.27

Voltaire, the scandalous satirist, seems to have been well known in Malta. To induce the Order to grant him the impresa of the Manoel Theatre in 1776, Pasquale Quintavalle offered to stage plays by Voltaire.28 A dubious enticement, as the Inquisitor in Malta had, since 1757, been alerted to the evils of this writer. His La Pulcelle d’Orleans, a satirical poem published anonymously in 1754, ‘was full of impious blasphemies and mocked the dearest mysteries of religion and Holy Church. Its most obscene and impure descriptions could corrupt the habits of any reader’.29

Suspicion of having authored the long anonymous poem ‘Letter by the Devil to Voltaire’, published in Geneva in 1760, fell on a knight of Malta, Fra Clement de Resseguier. Though this knight eventually supported wholeheartedly the French Revolution, he (if Voltaire truly penned the piece) had an unabashed aversion to the author: the Devil addresses him:

Mais, en fait d’irréligion, d’extravagance et de blasphème, nul ne peut sans présumption te contraster le rang suprême 30

On his deathbed, Voltaire more or less reconciled with the Church. When the priest who was administering the last sacraments asked him if he denounced the devil and all his pomp, Voltaire answered: ‘Look here, Father, do you think this is the right time to start making enemies?’

NO KNIGHT COULD PUBLISH

Suppression of books created disturbances to freedom of expression. Occasionally they could also create diplomatic turbulence. In the 1680s, Rome warned Inquisitor Innico Caracciolo (1607–1685) in Malta of an impending threat. King James of England had written an Apologia per i Riformatori e per la Religione Riformata, and would almost certainly send Grand Master Gregorio Carafa (1615–1690) a copy. If he received it, he had to redirect it immediately to Rome, as its pages crawled with pernicious heresy.31 Though some obscurity stalks this text. The Apologia per i Riformatori was a lengthy anti-Catholic tract written by Giacomo Picenino (1654–1714), but only published in 1706. And James II, who ruled England during the first part of Caracciolo’s term in Malta, was thought as a Catholic fundamentalist who would end on the block like his father rather than justify the Reformation.

Restraints against books worked on different fronts. Firstly, the obligation of knights not to write and publish anything concerning the Order without the prior licence of the authorities; then, anyone who desired to print any book had to obtain three separate visas beforehand—that of the Bishop, that of the Inquisitor, and that of the Grand Master; and, finally, the general ban against the circulation of (already published) prohibited books or any other work likely to subvert the teachings of the Catholic Church, including books in Hebrew and Arabic, or the authority of the establishment.

The Council of the Order decreed that no knight should publish anything concerning the history, statutes, customs, or organisation of the Order whose text had not been previously vetted and approved. I will here only skim superficially over this subject. The prohibition preventing any knight from publishing ‘under real or false name’ anything about the Order goes back to Grand Master Nicholas

de Lorgue (1277–1284). This ban extended to histories and commentaries on the statutes or privileges of the Order. The penalty for contravention amounted to three years locked up in the castle and loss of an equivalent period of seniority. Priors had, moreover, to see to it that the lay magistrates refused non-members of the Order any permission to publish similar works.32

In 1634, Malta learnt with disbelief, alarm and shock that Fra Don Gio Luca Ebejer (Hebeier), a Maltese conventual chaplain, ‘had dared to send to be printed in Rome’ a legal commentary on the formalities for the election of a Grand Master, the Elettionario. Without prior approval! Grand Master Antoine de Paule (c.1551–1636) and the Council panicked. They saw behind this publication an attempt by a rebellious faction to destabilise the Order; they commanded their ambassador in Rome to ‘use all perseverance to ensure that it [Ebejer’s book] would not be published, and, should it have already been printed, that it be banned, that he be punished for his effrontery, that all the copies be gathered in, and that the Receiver [of the Order in Rome] be informed to make all the necessary opposition’.33

This resulted in Ebejer’s commentary being placed formally on the Roman Index of Prohibited Books. Ebejer was exiled from Rome and the Papal States for seven years. But some copies of the books had ended in Malta. The next Grand Master, Lascaris, received orders from Rome to recover all the copies circulating on the island. Ebejer returned to Malta, but was thrown in prison in Fort St Elmo, his house raided, and all his writings confiscated, though these latter measures were more the result of a second set of charges. He died in Rome, disgraced, in 1642.34

HISTORIES OF THE ORDER ON THE ‘INDEX’

Just before his death in 1663, Grand Master Rafael Cotoner (1601–1663) issued strict warnings to all members of the Order that forbade publications, ‘considering how extraneous and harmful to the spirit of religious obedience, and what great prejudice and inconvenience can result from any person of the habit printing any

work concerning the statutes, ordinances, uses and privileges, or history of the Order, without express licence from the Grand Master’.

The Council unanimously decreed that no knight of any rank or condition should print, or cause to be printed, directly or indirectly, under his real name or a false one, any book or writing about the history of the Order under penalty of forfeiture of three years income and three years imprisonment in the castle.

Cotoner added that similar inconveniences could also arise if lay persons (not knights) ‘perhaps less well informed of our affairs’ were to publish their works on the history of the Order; the Council issued a general directive to all officers to ensure that the lay courts would not grant any permission to print unless the text had previously been viewed and approved by the Grand Master in Council.35

Following these measures, no knight who was also a historian dared publish anything about the Order’s annals without first having obtained the Grand Master’s and the Council’s fiat. The previously mentioned Abbé de Vertot, who did not belong to the Order, could well ignore the ban. And he did, publishing in 1726 his best-selling history of the Knights of Malta.

When the news reached Malta of the publication in Paris of the sumptuous four volumes, a repeat of the Ebejer hysteria gripped the Order. The Council appointed high-powered commissioners to examine and report. They issued a long, alarmed and negative critique. Not that Vertot berated the Order unduly. In fact, his work shows sometimes a grudging, and often a wholehearted admiration throughout. The Order found objectionable Vertot’s failure to suppress what was objectionable about the most objectionable of the popes.

The Order did not succeed in stopping the circulation of Vertot’s work but obtained a second next-best result. It had the history officially excommunicated by Rome, and it ended on the dreaded Index Librorum Prohibitorum, where it remained at least up to 1828.36 No doubt its evil reputation boosted inordinately the sales of the wicked book; in fact, various reprints and translations followed.

A wholly different fate had awaited a scathing libel printed in Paris by a very prominent knight of Malta, Fra Nicholas Durand de Villegaignon, in 1553.

The Order had just lost Tripoli to the Ottomans, and the Spanish Grand Master Juan d’Homedes (1477–1553) publicly blamed the defeat on the cowardice and lack of spirit of the French defenders, knights, and soldiers who he promptly put in chains. Villegaignon answered indignantly with his De Bello Melitensi, stridently and without equivocation denouncing the Grand Master whose weakness, ineptness, and lack of foresight had made the loss of Tripoli inevitable. No ill consequences seem to have hit the author or his publication for his scandalous lese majeste.

Buying back and destroying all printed copies of an offending work just to get it out of the way and spare good Christians the heavy burden of judging for themselves, is said to have also been resorted to when the anonymous ‘Carasi’, in 1790, printed in Lyons his blistering exposure of the Order’s decline.37 That may account for the extreme rarity of Carasi’s two withering volumes. Whenever possible, the Order preferred more economical ways to dematerialise a book, than spending money to buy back all the printed copies from printers and booksellers. It would prohibit as a criminal offence the possession of a particular book, and, under penalty of a penal sanction, anyone owning a copy was ordered to hand it in forthwith to the authorities.

DESTRUCTION OF SEDITIOUS BOOKS

The planned rising of the slaves in 1749 led to an unforeseen literary aftermath. Within two years, Michele Acciard published in Naples a long account of the affair, Mustafà Bassà di Rodi, which unequivocally put Grand Master Pinto de Fonseca (1681–1773) and the Order in a bad light and in a worse mood. It disclosed the Maltese opposition to the grant of the Islands to the Order in 1530, the French support for the rebels and the extravaganzas of sadistic tortures to which the alleged plotters had been subjected. Pinto went into damage-limitation overdrive. He convinced Rome to intervene, by including this publication in the Index of Prohibited Books and to have all copies seized and destroyed.38 Canon Gio Francesco Agius de Soldanis, in spite of the spiritual

opprobrium, claimed to be the author of the condemned book and accused Acciard of having plagiarised his work.39 It is not easy to establish the real authorship of the troublesome book.

More or less the same happened when the star jurist Gian Donato Rogadeo, once Grand Master Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc’s (1725–1797) personal adviser on the reform of the laws and judicial system of Malta, the rules of procedure and the courts, returned home from Malta to Italy in overwhelming disillusion and, in 1780, published his indignant, almost 500-pages-long observations on the shocking state of the laws, lawyers, and law courts in Malta.40

Although Rogadeo diplomatically dedicated his hard-hitting malice to Rohan (who he personally spared from his almost all-embracing censure), the Grand Master ‘for his own just reasons’ ordered anyone in possession of a copy of Rogadeo’s book to hand it over within twenty-four hours to the Gran Corte della Castellania (the lay criminal court) under all those penalties ‘favourably considered’ by himself. Rohan also directed judges to employ the expedited procedure in default.41 It is unknown how many copies ended in the vaults of the

criminal court for pulping. Encouraged by the ban, Rogadeo just went ahead and printed a second edition in Naples.

Exactly coeval with Rogadeo’s intellectual repressions, another major incident played itself out. In 1774, Bavaria had confiscated all the wealth of the Jesuit Order, including vast landed estates, ostensibly to use the proceeds to promote the public education system. But when later the Duke Elector Karl Theodor set his heart on the foundation of a new Bavarian Grand Priory of Malta comprising twenty-eight commanderies, he redirected all that wealth to the new branch of the Order of Malta. The idea of this Grand Priory was not well received by all, especially by the monasteries. The discontents organised a hostile press campaign conducted clandestinely owing to official censorship.

Three long anonymous pamphlets, highly critical of the new Grand Priory, were circulated late in 1781. The Duke Elector wanted these writings suppressed. The police identified the author as Johann Friedrich Eggelkraut, a scribe at the service of the cities of Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) at the Imperial Diet of Regensburg (Ratisbon), working at the service of Ludwig von Winckelman. Karl Theodor had Eggelkraut imprisoned and interrogated, but to defuse the incident, Winckelman was not put on trial. The Duke Elector, livid that his powers did not reach Regensburg, had to content himself with suppressing the distribution of the three pamphlets in his vast territories: Bavaria, the Palatinate, Dusseldorf, Julich, and Kleve.42

WRITINGS BY INFIDELS AND JEWS

All pernicious, heretical, or seditious books and pamphlets would have fallen under one of three unsparing axes: that of the Order, of the Inquisitor, or of the bishop— or of all three. The Inquisitor, in, particular, kept a watchful eye on Jewish and Islamic books and tracts, and anything that could threaten or adulterate the ‘purity of the faith’. The general Istruzzioni which constituted the Inquisitor’s know-yourinfidel manual, prohibited the keeping and divulging in Malta of any Talmudic or other prohibited Jewish books, referred to as volumi detestabili. Inquisitors were

to see to it that none contaminated this happy Christian republic. Talmudic and Kabbalistic literature, and anything written in Hebrew, was presumed to contain ‘abuse, ungodliness and heresy’ and ‘shameful and obscene narratives’.

Christians who printed or distributed Jewish books incurred automatic excommunication. Even expurgated versions of these works fell under the ban: the Inquisition presumed that errors and calumnies against Christianity would still be artfully concealed in them, errors which ‘could not be expurgated except by fire’. Officially, the veto covered all Jewish books, but the instructions benignly (and secretly) allowed the Inquisitor not to prosecute Jews who kept books ‘of mere grammar’.43

In fact, the great 1609 Birgu bonfire that kick-started this feature had Inquisitor Carbonesi reducing to ashes copies of the Quran, other ‘Muslim’ books, a Liber Hebraicus, a Liber Arabicus, a book of Islamic prayers and, to make doubly sure, a work in French ‘The Three Truths against Atheists, Idolaters, Mohamedans, Heretics and Schismatics’, by Pierre le Caron. One could never be quite sure that the condemnation of these evils was thorough enough.44

The main thrust against freedom of expression came from the compulsory pre-censorship of anything intended for publication. Malta had its first printing press in 1642, but this then closed down fourteen years later, exactly because of the impossibility of the three powers in Malta to come to terms about who of them could claim pre-eminence in censorship.

The bishop, the Grand Master, and the Inquisitor agreed effortlessly on the wonders and the inevitability of prior censorship; they also concurred that each one of them was entitled to have his say. They could not, however, bring themselves to agree as to who should sign the imprimatur. This silly controversy about whose name should appear, paralysed printing in Malta for a whole century. Whatever little literary activity went on in Malta, it had to be abroad that works written on the island could hope for printing and dissemination.45

Grand Master de Rohan regulated pre-emptive press censorship in his Codice. He delegated the Advocate-General, at the request of the Vice Chancellor

of the Order, to examine anything intended to be printed. Should he find cosa pregiudizievole, he had to veto the publication by an order to be handed to the Vice Chancellor. If the contents appeared harmless enough for public consumption, he was to certify this.46

Surprisingly, I have found very scanty evidence of censorship in the theatre. This simply makes no sense, considering that every public expression of opinion had first to receive the comfort of official approval. Nothing not in conformity with orthodox religious and political ideas could obtain the green light. I cannot believe that staging plays, opera, or satire (which reached wider and more ‘vulnerable’ audiences than books) escaped this fundamental rule. Perhaps a hint of stage censorship could be deduced from the 1742 contract of lease of the Manoel playhouse which obliged the impresario to hand over in advance to the management a copy of the libretto of the play or opera to be staged.47

It is only in 1764 that a minor episode of theatre censorship surfaces. A panicky Vicar General informed the Inquisitor about a comedy to be performed at the Manoel which included a character described as ‘abbate affettato Romano’. Affettato could mean either poseur, weak, effeminate, distinguished by his affectation, or one ‘cut in slices’. Whatever, the outrage could not be tolerated. Inquisitor Durini appeared doubly peeved as the libretto had actually been approved by his censor! The Vicar wanted the play banned, but Grand Master Pinto came to the rescue and the offending character morphed into a ‘dottore affettato Romano’.48

How pernicious the written word could turn out to be was proved by the tumultuous 1772 incident which involved the Order’s official printer, the Conventual Chaplain Fra Nicolò Capaci. At loggerheads with his staff at the Government printing press, he wrote a comedy satirising them, but without mentioning names. He confided in a woman bookseller who the butts of his invective were: his employees Fra Gio Batta Mallia and Don Saverio (probably Pace); he might as well have advertised their names on a loudhailer. To compound his distress, Capaci lent a copy of the comedy to Don Nicola Savona who lent it to Don Saverio before reading it.

Stung by the merciless satire, Don Saverio rushed personally to Grand Master Pinto with the text, accusing Capaci of libel. Pinto ordered the confiscation of all the writings at the press, the immediate arrest of the printer and his confinement in the Manoel Island guva. Capaci ended dismissed from his job and expelled to his native Sicily. Don Nicola Savona loudly berated Don Saverio for having shown the comedy to the Grand Master, with the result that Pinto arrested Savona too and held him in the Birgu prison.49

STIFLING POLITICAL DISSENT

As high as suppressing the printed word stood in the autocratic agenda, so also that of neutralising political opposition or dissent. The Order, not differently from all other totalitarian regimes, then and now, equated criticism with sedition and dissent with treason. The Grand Masters looked not at all benignly on anything likely to make others ask questions or disturb the status quo.

Emblematic of this intolerance is the case of Dr ‘Mattew’ Callus (from Żurrieq, born sometime between 1500 and 1510), who stood up to Grand Master de Valette.50 The circumstances in consequence of which he became a mythical victim and hero remain quite hazily documented. The accredited version seems to be that, unhappy with de Valette’s high-handed erosion of the political rights of the Maltese and the imposition of new taxes, a few notables got together to ‘report’ de Valette to Philip II of Spain.

The petition drawn up by Callus deplorably ended in the Grand Master’s hands. He deemed it intolerable that a mere vassal should dare question policies or politics. Tried and condemned to death for treason, he was hanged in 1561. This was the fate of those who believed they had some right to have rights.51

As it were, Callus suffered death twice: first by the rope, later by silence. Giacomo Bosio, so meticulous in recording every piddly fall of a leaf, omitted Callus altogether from his interminable annals. Nor did Callus’ own countrymen prove any bolder. Gian Francesco Abela who, in 1647, listed and glorified any Maltese, however stupendous his mediocrity, snubs Callus relentlessly. So did

Count Ciantar writing before 1780. Reminding others of resistance to oppression came dangerously near incitement to sedition.

No evidence survives that Dr Callus belonged to the Mdina nobility. It appears clear that little love was lost between the nobles of the old capital and the Order. Many Maltese aristocrats protested against the barrier imposed by the new rulers against what they considered their vested rights to despoil the poveri habitatori delle ville che essi chiamano casali.

Bosio sneeringly refers to these Maltese nobles: they claimed to be descendants of prominent families in Spain and Italy. True, he comments, they were. But of bandits and criminals who had been banished to Malta. These nobles cultivated ‘hate and a hostile spirit’ against the Knights because the Order had succeeded in bringing to a stop their tyrannies over the poor inhabitants. When Angarau d’Inguanez went personally to remonstrate with Emperor Charles V in Spain, he was spared a hanging but ignominiously kicked out of the presence of the Emperor and from court ‘vituperosamente scacciato dal cospetto e dalla corte di Cesare’.52

JAIL FOR CRITICISM

Episodes more or less resembling Callus’ recur throughout the course of Maltese history. Like the Rev. Giovanni Francesco Farrugia who, in a fit of misguided candour, reported Grand Master Manoel de Vilhena (1663–1736) to Rome, denouncing ‘his scandalous, abominable and incestuous life’. Vilhena knew how to deal with such native nuisance. He had Farrugia defrocked and chained inside a dungeon where he remained eleven years, till belatedly freed by the next Grand Master, Emanuel Pinto.53

Further restrictive paranoia appears in the episode concerning Fra Andrè de Sancier. In 1574, suspected of being ‘disloyal’ to the Grand Master, his correspondence was secretly intercepted, opened and read, to find evidence of his non-conformity.54

The repression of any form of protest or criticism best manifests itself in the recurrent problems that libelli famosi posed. Here famosi does not mean

famous, but ‘related to fame and reputation’. The early records teem with the paranoia roused by these libelli famosi in the famous. They usually took the form of anonymous posters put up under cover of darkness in central places, often stuck to the doors of popular churches.

Hardly had the Order settled in Malta in 1530 that the libelli started appearing. In the first recorded case, Fra Garcia Cortes, the Order’s governor in Tripoli, brought the existence of these libelli to the attention of the criminal organs of the Order.55 Four years later the Council appointed a commission to investigate other libellous placards and to discover their author.56

The Council launched yet another criminal enquiry to identify the culprits of scripta diffamatoria glued to the doors of the church of St Lawrence in 1542.57 And the leading knight Louis de Vallée found himself the object of handbills containing indecent epithets ‘put up in public places’.58

Fra Ludovico de Rangiffo from Castile went one bolder where bawdiness was concerned. He tore down from the doors of the church of St Lawrence a decree of excommunication issued by the Pope in Rome and replaced it with a poster enriched with obscenities.59

POSTERS AGAINST DE VALETTE

All this may have been taken more or less lightly (I doubt it) but, when the libelli ridiculed and criticised him personally, de Valette turned vicious and implacable. This pathetic story, too, deserts the pages of Bosio’s great history, and I could only discover and reconstruct it by scrutinising the very concise entries in the minute books of the criminal court of the Order.

Shortly after the euphoria of the lifting of the Great Siege, the mood of the Order started to change. Fear of an imminent and devastating reprisal by the scorned Suleyman at a time the defences of Malta were in tatters, the huge financial haemorrhage that the building of a new fortified city on Sceberras entailed, the presence of an immoderate number of young purposeless knights who had nothing better to do but to gripe and laze around,

contributed to widespread discontent and to cause de Valette’s gallant image to plummet.

From being the focus of European veneration, he became a sorry target for satire and contempt. He took refuge in paranoia. His repression of any criticism escalated in brutality. The Callus streak surfaced again, this time targeted against his own brethren in the convent.

14 May 1567: De Valette placed as item number one on the agenda of the Council an investigation into the pasting in various public places of libellous posters against him and some elders of the Order.60 He appointed a criminal commission of enquiry which, shortly later, his close collaborator Sir Oliver Starkey joined.61 Suspicion soon fell on some of the alleged authors: Fra Juan de Penna, Fra Gaspar Samano, and others.62 De Valette ordered them to be segregated in jail, together with Fra Alvaro Quinones, until they revealed the names of all those involved.63

This raised a commotion in the ranks. Some knights spoke against these anomalous and intimidating detentions only intended to extort information. De Valette wanted those who dissented with these measures and who had allegedly used threats prosecuted too.64 Some big guns on the Spanish side now move in—the eternal French-Spanish divide in the Order (those hit so far had been relatively small fry).

Fra Pedro Urtado de Mendoza and Fra Antonio Maldonado, among the biggest fish in the Order’s aquarium, stepped in to raise their voices in protest. De Valette reacted without a trace of self-control. He expelled both from the Order, instantly and dishonourably. Two of their henchmen, Fra Juan de Villegas and Fra Ferdinando de Bibanco, he condemned to one year’s imprisonment.65 Maldonado, who had personally carried from Spain to de Valette Philip II’s gem-encrusted sword and dagger, was thrown out by the scruff of his neck. However, even de Valette, now completely ruffled, had to reconsider. He commuted Maldonado’s expulsion into ten years jail continuos et completos in the prison of the Gozo castle—a fair penalty for disagreement.66

DEATH PENALTY FOR LIBEL

I am not aware how the criminal law regulated libelli famosi before 1724. That year, however, Grand Master Vilhena published his Leggi e Costituzioni Prammaticali, which imposed the death penalty for exposing libellous posters in public. He directed his anger to ‘any person, whatever his state, sex or condition who dared compose and stick in any place, any bill or placard containing defamation, or who helps in, counsels, or favours, directly or indirectly, the composition or sticking of such posters’. Ipso facto, Vilhena warned, this entailed the penalty of loss of life and forfeiture of property.73

Grand Master de Rohan, sixty years later, fell victim to moderation. He changed the death penalty to rowing in the galleys from ten years to life. Typesetters, printers, and those who glued the posters on walls, if unable to row, had to be flogged instead, plus being forced to hard labour in public works for life or for a minimum of ten years. If women committed the offence, the judge had the choice to exile them to Gozo or abroad, in perpetuity or for ten years. For good measure, de Rohan also condemned all public assemblies (‘radunanze de’ popoli’) for any reason whatsoever. Anyone who had anything to say should only do it through the jurats. The Codice punished contraventions by imprisonment during the Grand Master’s tenure.74

CRIMES OF OPINION

These disproportionate repressions of disagreement hardly remained the Grand Masters’ monopoly or the Inquisitors’. Some bishops, too, are on record with ungraceful excesses when faced with criticism or dissent. The prize probably goes to the hot-tempered Bishop Tommaso Gargallo (1536–1614). He had his armed thugs roaming the streets to rough up those who opposed him. When, in a dispute with the Inquisitor, the canons of the Cathedral choose to side with the latter, Gargallo left them in no doubt what he thought of their freedom of choice.

On Sunday, during High Mass, he sent his bravi to the Cathedral. These manacled all the canons, trussed them up with ropes still wearing their splendid damask vestments, tied them to horses and dragged them all the way from Mdina to his dungeons in Birgu. Two died immediately after, a fair price for belonging to a different school of thought than that of the good pastor.75

I have so far only dealt with ‘crimes of opinion’ committed by affixing public placards. The records show various other forms of dissent against the authority of the Grand Master and how effectively he dealt with protests and criticism. Fra Antonio Arpal was hauled before the Council because ‘he wrote against the honour of the Grand Master’ and, later, ‘in contemptum superiorum’.76 Fra Francesco Mousi (or Moysi) ‘qui … multa dixit et scripsit contra Ordinem S. Johannis’ ended defrocked.77 Although he was readmitted shortly later (kneeling and clutching a torch?), he fled from Malta and is last heard of wounding grievously several persons.78

The British knights, factious and loud, often landed themselves in trouble for outspoken fault-finding. Take Sir Clement West in 153979 and, in 1547, Sir Oswald Massingberd for his ‘verba immoderata prolata coram Magno Magistro’.80 Fra Fernando de Funes, in 1573, asked what authority la Cassiére had for throwing a certain knight in prison; he soon found out. The Grand Master locked him up in jail for one year to dispel any lingering doubts.81

Although freedom of expression mostly relates to the spoken or written word, ‘expressive conduct’ too can, at times, amount to a manifestation of expression. A personalised haircut, wearing a fashion rather than another, symbols, a peculiar lifestyle, can also be silent ways of making statements as eloquent as any inflamed book, speech, or placard.

The Order in Malta, and many regimes outside it, tried to regulate strictly what persons must or ought not to wear, what ornaments or cosmetics, what haircuts the Council approved of and those it took objection to. No one doubted that these vexatious interferences were the basis of good governance.82

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

My thanks to Dr Thomas Freller for his input in the course of research for this article.

CAPTIONS

P.62 Frontispiece of the 1758 edition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, published at the time of Pope Benedict XIV (Rome: Camerae Apostolicae, 1758); engraved by Giovanni Fabri. (Courtesy of Wellcome Library and Wikimedia Commons)

P.66 Title-page of Francois Rabelais’ Gargantua (Lyon: Denis de Harsy, 1537). (Courtesy of BnF –Bibliotheque nationale de France)

P.72 Title-page of Ignatio Saverio Mifsud, Biblioteca Maltese, Part 1 (Malta: Stamperia del Palazzo, 1764). (Courtesy of the National Library of Malta)

P.75 Folios from Pietro Aretino, Sonetti Lussuriosi (Venice, c.1527); illustrated by Giulio Romano and engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi. (Courtesy of the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence)

P.76 Frontispiece of Galileo Galilei’s Dialogo (Florence: Per Gio Battista Landini, 1632); engraving by Stefano della Bella. (Courtesy of the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress)

P.82 Title-page and frontispiece showing a portrait engraving of Mustafa Bassa, from Michele Acciard’s Mustafa Bassa di Rodi (Naples: Benedetto and Ignazio Gessari, 1751).

P.92 Title-page of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, from a 1711 edition published at the time of Pope Clement XI (Rome: Camerae Apostolicae, 1711). (Courtesy of the Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek, Leipzig)

ENDNOTES

1 AIM [Archivum Inquisitionis Melitensis], Proc. Crim. Vol. 34B, case 584, ff. 668-669, in Carmel Cassar, Witchcraft, Sorcery and the Inquisition (Malta: Mireva, 1996), 93-96. On the control of books in Malta, see the excellent studies by Cassar (1996), 57-63, and by Frans Ciappara, Society and the Inquisition (Malta: P.E.G., 2000), 92-114.

2 Bartolomeo dal Pozzo, Historia della Sacra Religione Militare di S. Giovanni, Vol. 1 (Verona: Per Giovanni Berno, 1703), 149.

3 Malta, 31 December 1909.

4 AOM 91, f. 64v.

5 Carmel Cassar, ‘The Reformation and Sixteenth Century Malta’, Melita Historica, Vol. 10 No. 1 (1988), 61, 67-68.

6 Claire-Éliane Engel, Le Grand Siege, Malte (Paris: Société de L’Histoire de L’Ordre de Malte, 1965), 21.

7 AIM, Corrispondenza, t. 88, Tom. 1, f. 1, in Cassar (1966), 61.

8 Vincent Borg, Fabio Chigi (Vatican: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1967), 374, 384.

9 Ciappara (2000),104.

10 Alexander Bonnici, Storja tal-Inkisizzjoni ta’ Malta, Vol. 2 (Malta: Franġiskani Konventwali, 1992), 51.

11 AIM, Crim. Vol. 167, Case 1, f. 10.

12 Carmel Cassar, Society, Culture and Identity in Early Modern Malta (Malta: Mireva, 2000), 174.

13 AOM 1418, f. 49.

14 Borg (1967), 313.

15 Vincent Borg, Melita Sacra, Vol. 2 (Malta, 2009), passim

16 Victor Mallia-Milanes, Descrittione di Malta. Anno 1716 – A Venetian Account (Malta: Bugeli, 1988), 98.

17 Claire-Éliane Engel, L’Ordre de Malte en la Mediterranee (Monaco: Du Rocher, 1957), 103.

18 Giovanni Bonello, Histories of Malta, Vol. 1 (Malta: Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, 2000), 157.

19 Ciappara (2000), 108.

20 Gaetano Reboul, in V. Laurenza, ed., Giornale de’ Successi (Malta, 1939), 30.

21 Victor Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta (Malta: P.E.G., 1992), 253.

22 Bette Talvacchia, Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance Italy (New Jersey: Princetown University Press, 1999), passim

23 Carmel Cassar, Daughters of Eve (Malta: Mireva, 2002), 205.

24 Alexander Bonnici, Storja tal-Inkisizzjoni ta’ Malta, Vol. 1 (Malta: Franġiskani Konventwali, 1990), 266.

25 Borg (1967), 296.

26 Ciappara (2000), 109.

27 AIM, Proc. 126C, f. 202r-v, in Alexander Bonnici, Storja tal-Inkisizzjoni ta’ Malta, Vol. 3 (Malta: Franġiskani Konventwali, 1994), 279.

28 AOM 1192, f. 307.

29 Ciappara (2000), 107.

30 Engel (1957), 291.

31 Ibid., 105.

32 Codice del Sovrano Militare Ordine (Malta: Stamperia del Palazzo, 1772), 399.

33 AOM 256, f. 166.

34 Vincent Borg, Melita Sacra, Vol. 3 (Malta, 2015), 322-323.

35 AOM 260, f. 174.

36 The last edition of the Index I could peruse was that of 1819. A new one was issued in 1828.

37 ‘Carasi’, L’Ordre de Malthe Devoilé (Lyons, 1790).

38 AIM, Corrispondenza, 100, ff. 108-109.

39 Antonio Schembri, Selva di autori e traduttori maltese (Malta: P. Cumbo, 1855), 54.

40 Gian Donato Rogadeo, Ragionamenti (Lucca, 1780; Naples, 1783).

41 NLM, Lib. Ms. 429/7, f. 144.

42 Thanks to Thomas Freller for this unpublished information. Bavarian State Archive, Munich, Kasten Schwarz 503/1, Kasten Blau 373/1.

43 AIM, Misc. 2, Prattica del Procedere.

44 Cassar (1996), 93, 95.

45 Joseph F. Grima, Printing and Censorship in Malta. 1642–1839: A General Survey (Malta: Valletta Publishing Co., 1991), 11-14.

46 Codice Municipale (Malta, 1784), 65.

47 Acts Notary Giuseppe Callus, 28 May 1742.

48 William Zammit, ‘Con icenza de’ superiori’. Printing in Malta During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Malta: National Library of Malta, 1992), 26.

49 NLM, Lib. Ms. 1146/2, f. 183.

50 His real name was Giuseppe; his son was Mattew.

51 Paul Cassar, Medical History of Malta (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1964), 17-19.

52 Giacomo Bosio, Istoria della Sacra Religione, Vol. 3 (Rome: Stamperia Apostolica Vaticana, 1602), 248.

53 Ciappara (2000), 99.

54 AOM 94, f. 17v.

55 AOM 85, f. 127v.

56 AOM 86, f. 69v.

57 AOM 86, f. 124.

58 AOM 87, f. 143.

59 AOM 88, f. 192v.

60 AOM 91, f. 186.

61 AOM 92, f. 83.

62 AOM 92, f. 25.

63 AOM 92, f. 35.

64 AOM 92, f. 36.

65 AOM 92, f. 49.

66 AOM 92, f. 55.

67 AOM 92, f. 188.

68 AOM 92, f. 190.

69 AOM 92, f. 192.

70 AOM 95, f. 83v.

71 Dal Pozzo (1703), 149.

72 AOM 95, f. 270v.

73 Leggi e Costituzioni Prammaticali (Malta, 1724), 134.

74 Codice Municipale (Malta, 1784), 169-170, 189.

75 Giovanni Bonello, Histories of Malta, Vol. 2 (Malta: Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, 2001), 21-22.

76 AOM 86, ff. 33, 35, 45v.

77 AOM 87, f. 104.

78 Ibid.

79 AOM 86, f. 82.

80 AOM 87, f. 124v.

81 AOM 93, f. 108v.

82 Bonello (2001), 53-68.

Thefts from Churches in Malta

‘Above all Christians are not allowed to correct by violence sinful wrongdoings.’

Clement of Alexandria

THEFTS FROM CHURCHES IN MALTA

Eddie Attard’s article on thefts from churches in Malta is an important overview of the subject from 1663 onwards.1 I had dedicated some research to ‘thefts with sacrilege’ in the sixteenth century, reaching the conclusion that these were anything but a rare occurrence.2 According to my findings, professed members of the Order of Malta figured high in the list of culprits.

The frequent recurrence of thefts by knights from churches and from varied other places has to be seen in context. It links closely with the family status of knights and with the moral setup of the Order. The majority of knights were not rich: they generally came from the cadet ranks of noble wealthy families who concentrated all their riches on the first-born (the system of primogeniture) and often left the younger sons to fend for themselves. Many saw the Order of Malta as an opportunity of gainful employment and financial security for young men of the aristocratic classes. But before they rose in its ranks, their income would be very meagre unless supplemented by handouts from home.

The ‘poorer’ knights lived surrounded by the opulence of the richer ones, oppressed by peer pressure of being unable to keep up with the competition and by the imperative that they had to maintain the highest social standards which many could ill afford. Most strove to rise diligently in the hierarchy and in the favour of the Grand Master, each promotion translating into a better source of income. The minority, compelled to keep up with the Joneses, resorted to criminal expedients, like robbery, counterfeiting currency, underhand commerce, dubious corsairing, or illegal piracy. Of course, some entered the Order with a pre-existing criminal streak, as evidenced by the fact that many knights convicted of thefts already had an important police record in other misdemeanours to show.

The vow of poverty taken by all knights on joining the Order had over time acquired a hollow meaning coated in sophistry. In practice it had come to mean that nothing belonged to the individual knight, that he held his wealth in trust from the Order, and that, on his death, all his earthly goods reverted to the Order. But while they were alive, knights could still revel in the most opulent extravagance—if they could afford it.

A theft from a church in 1556 created a major scandal and turned into an ideal cautionary tale. Fra Stamati Condo, a chaplain of the Order of Greek parentage, succumbed to the temptation of stealing jewels which adorned the icon most venerated by the Knights of St John, Our Lady of Philermos. Reliable sources state that when Condo took the gems ‘his arm withered and went rigid, whereupon he remained crippled for life’. Struck by paralysis and remorse, the penitent Condo owned up to the robbery and returned the jewels. Being a priest, he was severely reprimanded and exiled from Malta as punishment. The Philermos Madonna had already suffered a previous theft in 1537.

This story, rather well documented, is pregnant with inverse symbolism: we have a ‘negative’ miracle, one in which divine intervention serves to punish and maim rather than to heal or reward. It is the vengeful God of the Old Testament rather than the God of Love of the New. Justice and retribution were instantaneous, the good Lord apparently not subscribing to the teaching that revenge had best be served cold. Grand Master Claude de la Sengle proved himself more merciful than the outraged heavens, but Condo’s crippled arm was put to good use and served as a didactic tool for many years after the theft.

The year before the Great Siege saw two sacrilegious robberies by Knights of Malta. In May, Fra Filippo Stagno from Messina and the no-good British troublemaker Sir John James Sandilands broke into the small church of St Anthony in Birgu at night and stole every item of gold and silver they could lay their hands on. They arranged for the precious metals to be melted down, roping in the silversmith Laurencio Ros from Rhodes. The knights were eventually caught, expelled from the Order, and handed over to the local criminal tribunal for trial. The court ordered that they be strangled in prison and their bodies disposed of in weighted sacks in the middle of the Grand Harbour. Sandilands’ body seems to have been left in a ditch to be eaten by dogs. The judges spared Ros, but he lived the rest of his life in abject poverty soliciting hand-outs.

The savage severity of these penalties reflected the priorities of the Ancien Régime based on the sanctity of private property and the pre-eminence of religion.

Thefts from churches violated both these fundamental precepts, and the combination of these two abominations in one act attracted punishments rarely heard of in relation to other crimes. Sacrilege features towards the very top in the pyramid of the gravity of sin.

This exemplary fate of Stagno and Sandilands hardly served as a deterrent. Only two months later, the Council found Fra Pedro Loubbes (Lopez?) guilty of having stolen the silver cruets from the chapel of the Virgin Mary in the church of St Lawrence in Birgu. Loubbes, a serial burglar, had been convicted of many thefts of precious objects from Auberges. The Council publicly expelled him from the Order.

In 1568, another major theft from the tholo, the strongroom/chapel in which the precious reliquaries of the Order were kept, was never solved, despite the dire instructions to submit all suspects to torture to obtain information.

Another ‘church’ theft hit the headlines in 1580, when one of the most valuable relics of the Order went missing. It housed part of the skull of St John the Baptist, embedded in a solid gold basin encrusted with precious stones. Suspicion fell on the Italian Knight Fra Vincenzo Pesaro. When the authorities searched his lodgings they found the reliquary, but the delinquent had already broken it up. Expertly restored, it was placed on display for the veneration of the faithful, only to be taken again, this time irreversibly, by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798. Pesaro was executed, Bonaparte exalted.

These were all thefts committed by knights. But there are others recorded. In July 1596, for example, a robber broke into the church of Porto Salvo in Valletta and stole the pyx and the container of the cruets for holy oils. He eventually repented, confessed his theft and returned the precious objects. A legal problem arose as to whether evidence obtained in confession could be used in court. To the present day, the absolute confidentiality of the confessional has always been respected by the Maltese courts, though the legal basis of this protection is rather elusive in the codes of law.

THEFTS FROM CHURCHES IN MALTA

CAPTIONS

P.96 The solid gold basin encrusted with gems, containing part of the skull of St John the Baptist. (Courtesy of The Mdina Cathedral Museum / Photo: Joe P. Borg)

P.98 Icon of Our Lady of Philermos, Blue Chapel of the National Museum of Montenegro. (Courtesy of Daniel Cilia)

P.101 The dress of Our Lady of Philermos from which Fra Stamati Condo stole jewels in 1556. (Courtesy of The Mdina Cathedral Museum / Photo: Joe P. Borg)

ENDNOTES

1 The Times of Malta, 23 November 2014.

2 An in-depth and detailed study on robberies committed by the Knights of St John in the cinquecento can be found in my Histories of Malta, Vol. 8 (Malta: Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, 2007), 9-26.

Tragic Tales of Slaves in Malta

‘“They are slaves.”

No, they are human beings.

“They are slaves.”

No, they are housemates.

“They are slaves.”

No, they are lowborn friends.

“They are slaves.”

Fellow slaves, rather, if you keep in mind that fortune has its way with you just as much as with them.’

to Lucilius

Seneca

One cannot even dream of trying to better Godfrey Wettinger’s truly monumental history of slavery in Malta, published in 2002. He made a banquet of the subject and only left others what crumbs, if any, fell off his table. I am here picking up some.

How, on the human plane, private owners treated slaves depended on a wide variety of factors. Slaves were not persons but objects that could be owned, exchanged, traded, pawned, auctioned to the highest bidder, or given as presents, just like cows, armchairs, or credits. Slavery fundamentally dehumanised, legally and morally, those who suffered it, made its targets chattels less than human. Falling into slavery meant civil death, the loss of legal personality and of the protection of the law.

In 1701, a seafaring knight Fra Charles de Villiers Labardiere, who needed to purchase a large load of biscuits—probably for his corsairing crew— offered not to pay in cash but instead to exchange the carbohydrates for a twentytwo-year-old slave and twenty-one iron cannon.1

Violence against slaves had no legal consequences except that, if injury resulted, their owner could claim compensation, just like the owner of a car damaged in a road accident. The community perceived commerce in slaves as honourable as that in white goods or computers. Slaves primarily represented an economic asset, tools that provided labour for free and capital that would render attractive dividends if the wares were ransomed. Owners had every reason to keep slaves happy, healthy, and strong as insurance against depreciation.

Many lived with the families of their proprietor and sometimes bonds of affection grew between the owner and the owned—they became loved participants of the household and assumed the surname of its head. Numerous cases are on record of family slaves being ‘manumitted’—granted their freedom by wills or other notarial deeds. Mattia Preti, to mention one, gave his slave Giuseppe Cianferli his freedom and his invaluable accumulation of drawings, today worth millions.2 Many others showed gratitude for faithful service, though some took care to temper an irrational compassion with a rational business plan—freedom but in exchange for a sum of money.

Angelica, widow of the late Antonio Grech had a nineteen-year-old daughter, still unmarried, who must have taken a shine to the slave Antonio Vayni, a rower on the galley San Luigi. She had put aside 100 scudi to give her daughter as dowry. In 1702, she offered this sum to the Treasury to ransom the slave so her daughter could marry him, adding to the price another slave of the same age belonging to an owner who had put him in detention as punishment. She reminded the Treasury that her husband had died of infectious fever while serving the Order as a soldier.3 Her offer was accepted.

Only five days later, another slave, Giuseppe Carnero ‘on his knees and flowing tears of blood’ from his eyes, begged to be released from slavery, claiming his owner Balì (Gaspare?) Carnero had granted him his freedom on his deathbed and that he had promised marriage to a giovane zitella who was prepared to pay sixty scudi for his freedom—all she possessed. The Treasury agreed but reserved the right to top up another forty scudi from the estate of the late Balì.4

At the other end of the spectrum are records of extreme cruelty suffered by slaves—seen as objects with few, if any, rights. The Mdina nobleman Francesco Gatto kept a mistress who, by instalments, rewarded his lust with gifts of illegitimate children. One day, in 1410, he discovered she was cheating on him with the help of a young slave. The indications all point to the fact that Gatto was rather unamused—he assaulted her with his sword, sliced off her nose, and carved out her vagina. He also beat the slave to death. The royal authorities pardoned his indiscretions and let the good man off.5

And the philanthropist Caterina Vitale of saintly fame who left considerable wealth for the ransom of Christian slaves in Ottoman captivity, was not at all averse to satisfying a sadist craving through the agency of her slaves. Evidence survives about the extreme callousness she lavished on her female slaves, possibly brightened by sexual gratification. She had them tied to the railings of her staircase and flogged with a whip fashioned out of ox hide soaked in water to make it heavier and more painful.

Vitale made sure not to run short of torments to inflict on her female slaves. She ordered her male slave to smear boiling fat on their bare backs. One twenty-seven-year-old hollered so loudly she had to be gagged, almost suffocated, a delicate concern not to wake the neighbours.6

Those were slaves in private ownership. Many however belonged to the community. Did the state treat them well? Able-bodied males often ended as rowers on the galleys. They lived the duration of a sea journey chained to benches, not being released for any reason. They usually relieved themselves on their immediate workplace, in an ambiance of unbearable stench. An agozzino enforced discipline—no wonder to this day the Maltese word arguzin refers to a heartless person who can only dish out cruelty. Some slaves self-mutilated grievously just to avoid galley service.7

Grand Masters enacted special legislation to discourage slaves voluntarily overdosing on opium to put an end to a lifetime’s miseries of captivity. The suicide of a slave rated as an economic mishap—an affront to the sacred right of private property. How dare a slave even contemplate defrauding his owner by taking his own life?8 The agozzino claimed a prerogative of life and death over the rowerslaves under his care. When, during a sea skirmish in 1625, the agozzino believed that a rower only pretended to row, barely dipping the tip of his oar in the sea, without much ado he chopped off his malingering arm.9 Everyone praised his dedication to duty.

The correspondence of the Grand Masters with the Islamic rulers of North Africa emphasises how humanely the Order treated its slaves and expected Christians fallen in captivity to be treated in return. In 1714, the Grand Master and the Bey of Tripoli exchanged gifts. The Grand Master received an ostrich, a horse, and some gazelles, and paid back the compliment with four crates of confectioneries.10

Rarely do the annals record instances of wanton ill-treatment of public slaves. Apart from deprivation of freedom of movement, they enjoyed their own markets and their four mosques—one each in Valletta, in Marsa, Birgu, and Isla

(also known as Senglea). Most of the slaves who survived on their own exercised menial trades, though exceptions are not unknown. When the construction of the great Wignacourt aqueduct ran into serious engineering problems and ground to a halt in 1612, it was an Ottoman slave who saved the day.11 We know the name of the bungling engineer, but no one bothered to record that of the redeemer, a mere slave. This would all change abruptly if slaves misbehaved. Pitiless retribution followed. When Grand Master Pinto discovered the conspiracy of the slaves in 1749, he let a supremely creative sadism run riot. He ordered the execution of the principal conspirators, not before subjecting them to protracted and most excruciating torments which horrified contemporaries, including Michele Acciard who describes these atrocities in bloodcurdling detail. They make the Marquis de Sade look like Francis of Assisi.12

In all, the authorities arrested and tortured 135 slaves and executed thirty-eight. The torments included the rack, the lash, flesh being torn away with red hot pincers, arms and legs shattered by repeated blows of a metal sledgehammer, and finally drawing and quartering while still alive by tying each extremity of the body to four vessels rowing in opposite direction.13 The area delle Forbici, near the Due Balli in Valletta, identifies, since at least the 1590s, the place where the flesh of delinquents was torn away with pincers or forceps, usually starting with the nipples.

So horrific were the torments inflicted on the slaves that the pregnant Teresa Aprile, one of the multitudes watching, fainted and suffered a miscarriage. Her recreational curiosity earned her the loss of her three-month-old offspring.14

As contemporary illustrations show, lavish use was also made of the torture bench, with a sharp V-shaped ridge running on top through its length. A pulley dropped suspects on it from a height with their legs apart; at times heavy weights attached to the feet made the impact with the groin more unbearable still. One wretch with haemorrhoids turned the torture chamber into a lake of blood.15 Lighted torches held next to the slave’s chest and back ensured he would not writhe to relieve the pain.

This ‘Spanish donkey’, known originally by its Italian name cavalletto squarciapalle, in Malta became iż-żiemel ta’ Cumbo from the constant use made of it by the kindly Judge Giulio Cumbo (d. 1761) who kept a list and boasted of the 123 wretches he had condemned to death on the back of very voluntary confessions obtained through his eloquent contraption.

Such was the fear inspired by the cavalletto that a slave who had been tortured on it and was to face a second session tried to take his own life by drowning, but was saved in time. He then hanged himself in his cell. His corpse was exposed on a gibbet for public derision and was buried in the centre of a public road to seal his complete humiliation in death as well as in life.16

One of the slaves who was awaiting interrogation and torture following the discovery of the conspiracy cheated the tormentors by hanging himself by

his trousers. Pinto, indignant at his unsporting dishonesty, ordered his body to be paraded on a cart round the streets of Valletta accompanied by a fanfare of trumpets, hung upside-down by only one leg, and then barbequed.17

The horrified publicity stirred abroad by the savage Maltese orgy of inhumanity provoked revulsion against the Order throughout a not remarkably squeamish Europe. Pinto did not want the world to learn how far the charity of a good Christian prince could stretch. In an exercise of damage-control he convinced Rome to place Acciard’s publication on the Index of Prohibited Books, and had his agents buy back every copy stocked by booksellers in Malta and abroad. He saw nothing wrong with his barbarities, but drew the line at their disclosure.18

One of the three judges, all Maltese, who orchestrated and fine-tuned the torments of the slaves, Dr Pietro de Franchis, then ended heartbroken when Gaetano, his forty-year-old personal slave, six years later died of an apoplectic fit. His tender heart could not bear the sorrows of bereavement. He went around telling anyone who cared to listen how unbearable life without his slave had become.19

What about state-owned slaves suffering at the hands of private individuals? Two emblematic examples: Pietro Ghimes (related to the Inguanez nobility) came from a good family. In 1627, he killed a slave of the Order and was sued for reimbursement of damages. He claimed to have done so because of taunting and provocation by other slaves, one of whom then died of the injuries inflicted by Ghimes. The matter was settled by Ghimes offering the Order another slave. The Treasury consented, provided the replacement slave had not reached his thirtieth year of age.20

In the second instance, the galley slave Ram Hussein Ogli Aglali, in 1701, was beaten so badly (mali trattamenti, bastonato) by one Enrico Grech that he succumbed to his injuries. The state did not prosecute Grech in the criminal courts but sued him for civil damages. The court valued the slave’s life at 400 piastre and condemned him to fork that sum out. Grech and his brother Alessandro, who had stood surety for him in the proceedings, then reached a settlement—instead of

TRAGIC

paying damages, all would be overlooked if they provided the state with another two suitable slaves acceptable to the agozzino Giovanni D’Andrea.21

Slaves, being things not persons, the niceties of the rule of law applied very sparsely to them. The prince could and did order their execution without due process. Crimes of homosexual behaviour did not seem uncommon among slaves. In one instance, in 1744, the slave Delil Mehmet had superficially stabbed (‘senza però gran danno’) a Maltese youth Alessio Lauron, who had repulsed his gay advances. The enraged Grand Master intervened personally in the investigation, impatiently signalling the judges to stop wasting time. He ordered Mehmet’s public hanging the very day of the outrage.22 Homophobia rules, ok?

The mere suspicion of erotic attraction by slaves brought about the harshest punishments. A slave seen publicly and innocently talking to a boy was

TRAGIC TALES OF SLAVES IN MALTA

condemned to two years rowing in the galleys.23 Another slave tried for gay offences was acquitted by the trial judge, but the Grand Master all the same ignored the court’s findings and sent him to row on the galleys during his pleasure.24 Hanging awaited an Ottoman slave who entered a women’s house to rape her.25 The harshest retribution awaited slaves recaptured after escaping. Cutting off their nose and ears and branding their foreheads or cheeks with red-hot irons was the least they could expect. A finding of homicide for reasons of theft entailed the clawing of the flesh with pincers, the mutilation of the offending hands, before a merciful hanging hastened the ultimate release from pain.26

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thanks for help received from Maroma Camilleri, Jeremy Debono, Theresa Vella, and William Zammit.

CAPTIONS

P.104 (detail) Mattia Preti, Pilate Washing His Hands, oil on canvas, 206.1 x 184.8cm, 1663. (Courtesy of the Met Museum, New York)

P.109 Red chalk on paper showing a galley slave at work on the recto, 261 x 264mm, c.1585–1590. Inscription in ink by an unknown hand and numbered bottom right: ‘Annibale Carracci 69’. (Courtesy of the Jan Krugier Foundation)

P.112 Muslim galley slaves prepare a galley for the dry dock, while a supervisor (agozzin?) gives directions. Etching produced by M. Schaep, after a print by Cornelis de Wael, 116 x 149mm, 1649. (Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

ENDNOTES

1 AOM 647, f. 162v.

2 Bernardo De Dominici, Vita dei Pittori (Naples: Stamperia del Ricciardi, 1742–1745), 381-384.

3 AOM 647, f. 201r.

4 Ibid.

5 Godfrey Wettinger, Slavery in the Islands of Malta

and Gozo (Malta: PEG, 2002), 22.

6 Giovanni Bonello, Histories of Malta, Vol. 5 (Malta: Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, 2004), 114.

7 Wettinger (2002), 353.

8 Bonello (2004), 14.

9 NLM, Lib. Ms. 614, Fabrizio Cagliola, Disavventure marinaresche, f. 1314, published in book form (Valletta: Tipografia del ‘Malta’, 1929), 46.

10 Wettinger (2002), 56.

11 Elizabeth Schermerhorn, Malta of the Knights (London: Hienemann, 1929), 265

12 For example, Michele Acciardi, Mustafà Bassà di Rodi, schiavo in Malta (Naples: Benedetto and Ignazio Gessari, 1751).

13 NLM, Lib. Ms. 1221, f. 92 et seq

14 William Zammit, Kissing the Gallows (Malta: BDL Publishing, 2016), 106.

15 Ibid., 70.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid., 367.

18 Giovanni Bonello, Art in Malta: Discoveries and Recoveries (Malta: Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, 1998), 150-151.

19 NLM, Lib. Ms. 11. f. 658.

20 AOM 664. f. 140.

21 AOM 647, ff. 154r-v, 183.

22 Gaetano Reboul, in V. Laurenza, ed., Giornale dei successi (Malta, 1939), 64.

23 Zammit (2016), 362.

24 Ibid., 363.

25 Ibid., 364.

26 Ibid., 53.

Caterina Scappi Revisited

‘Errare humanum est, sed pereverare diabolicum’.

(‘To err is human, but to persist in the mistake is diabolical’.)

Seneca

My initial research on Caterina Scappi had yielded quite substantial results, but I had left the earlier part of her life shrouded in mystery.1 This extraordinary woman who dedicated the latter part of her life and the best part of her wealth to alleviate the sufferings of ailing, abandoned, or destitute prostitutes, seems to have emerged from nowhere. She founded and endowed with her belongings the very first infirmary for women in Malta—‘the hospital for incurable women’— read prostitutes with untreatable venereal disease, when these unfortunate rejects of society had no one to turn to and nowhere to go. The very first feminist in the history of a male-dominant Malta.

For her absolutely pioneer social commitment, for this revolutionary philanthropy, Caterina Scappi deserves the monument she never got. Only an obscure and overlooked tombstone in the Carmelite church in Valletta today bears witness to her existence, her feminist vision, and her generous, farsighted altruism. She died on 20 June 1643, but her marble intarsia memorial was set up much later, in 1791. And since then, oblivion.

The archival references to her life were mostly sketchy. We know that she had a strong connection with Siena, to the point that instead of using her surname Scappi she was generally identified only as Caterina ‘la Senese’ or ‘la Senesa’, even in formal documents. She certainly connected somehow with Siena—the knights she consorted with and trusted were all from Siena, and she borrowed her coat of arms from the most renowned hospital in Siena. In innumerable notarial contracts, in the three wills she drew up in Malta, she never once mentions her parents, as if she was deliberately trying to delete them from memory.

Other objective facts transpire from the documents: in her later years she appears undoubtedly wealthy though in the most unostentatious of ways; she remained active in business and part of her affluence may have been due to her commercial dealings. But above everything, she cultivated a consuming compassion for the sufferings of fallen women, to whom she seems to have dedicated most of her energies and resources in the latter part of her life.

The first archival reference to Caterina Scappi known so far dated to 1597, when she is already in Malta and of sufficient age to enter into legally binding commitments. But before that, time had dropped its heavy pall of amnesia. We knew nothing about her parents, her upbringing, her education, her private life, her friendships, and her loves. Not even an unfocussed blur. From various vague indications, I had speculated she had herself emerged from the prostitution circles. But that was it: mere speculation.

In fact, that early 1597 document, first noticed by Christine Muscat, had already set alarm bells ringing. It was all about a sum of money Caterina had destined to gift the convent of the Ripentite—a religious institute for prostitutes who wanted to change their lives. In it, Caterina clearly states that should she, in the future, want to enter that convent, the sum she was donating was to be computed as her dowry.2 Rather disturbing.

But then Victor Bonnici serendipitously came across an earlier document which he shared with me.3 Mr Bonnici is a Latinist who frequents archives and believes that his learning should be at the disposal of the widest community. What he found was a 1583–1584 criminal court record in which a younger Caterina Scappi features in a milieu of burglars, whores, and perjurers. A fascinating and revealing story.

The years 1583–1584 had been relatively calm and unadventurous for Malta and for the Order of St John. Grand Master Verdalle had just been elected, after the turbulent end of the former Grand Master la Cassière, dethroned by a palace conspiracy. The only salient event that riveted the attention of the Order and of the population was the capture of two proud galleys of the Order near Candia in late summer 1583—the capture of what were thought to be Ottoman ships but which later turned out to be Venetian. This created a serious diplomatic rumpus which spilled over to 1584. The Grand Master ordered the arrest of the General of the Order’s fleet, Fra Girolamo Avogadro, and had him criminally tried and condemned to forfeit his honours, and to spend one year in jail for having mishandled his command and disobeyed orders.4 The public riveted its

attention on this diplomatic fracas and on this high-profile trial rather than on petty robberies committed by the lowest of felons.

On the night of 29 November 1583, some delinquents had forced their way into a shop in the square of Valletta. As was customary with official court documents of the times, the scribe recorded the proceedings in Latin but the direct speech of the witnesses in Italian—a confusing melange. The shop is described as the ‘apotheca confettarii’, the confectionary shop run by Gioseppe Lancza.

I believe this to be the very first reference to a confectioner in Malta. The burglars entered by smashing a window, and stole one gold doubloon valued at thirty-two tarì, one gold zecchino and one gold scudo of forteen tarì, and many

silver and copper coins, besides a large pan di zucchero weighing ten rotoli, one large casciola or caxola (kaxxa, ‘box’?) full of confectionery weighing five or six rotoli, and a large sweet marzipan full of confetti (sugar almonds) valued at twelve tarì. In another deposition it was stated that the five or six rotoli of sweets were taken from hanging vases called bornei. A pan di zucchero, literally a loaf of sugar, was the standard conical bee-hive shape of compressed cane sugar after manufacture (in Italy?).

Suspicion fell on some layabouts, Pietro Zoppard (Azzopardi), son of Baptista, Nicola Bonnich, Martino Pulis, Bartholomeo Frendo, and other accomplices. The police apprehended them and the well-known lawyer Giovanni Calli UJD, prosecutor general (promotorem fiscalem), led the criminal compilation of evidence.

Giovanni Calli UJD (Doctor of Both Laws, canon and civil) progressed through a chequered but soaring career as jurist within the government of the Order. He dealt with thorny prosecutions and investigations, crowning his curriculum in 1597 as judge. In his role as prosecutor and criminal investigator he was hampered by his poor knowledge of Maltese and was once the victim of an attempted murder by a violent and angry knight he was investigating, Fra Alberto Arrigo. Contemporaries held his juridical knowledge in high esteem and his collected legal opinions in three manuscript volumes which continued to be consulted by lawyers and the judiciary 150 years after his death.5

The principal suspect, Pietro Azzopardi, desperately needed an alibi—he was facing the gallows if convicted, no less. And that is where he thought the prostitute Francesca, a slave of Caterina Scappi would come in handy. Would she not testify that he had spent that night in her bed in Scappi’s home?

During his interrogation, Calli asked Azzopardi to account for his movements on that particular night. The suspect answered that he and his friends had all left the tavern together and that Nicola, Martino, and Bartholomeo had accompanied him to the home of a puttana—a whore. Asked what time this happened and for the name of the prostitute, Pietro answered that it was just after the bell known as la ruffiana had tolled and that he had gone to the whore who

had been the slave of the late Joannello Grioli, and who today was with Caterina Scappi la Senesa.

The court record has some details about the tavern where the suspects had dined. It belonged to Paolo Calafato who had served them a plate of fish for supper. The tavern had a secluded place for customers (‘un retiretto’) and they had dinner there.

Calli then asked Pietro how long he had stayed with the prostitute together with his friends and when he had left. The suspect replied: I stayed there all night until the rolling of the drum (‘fino al tamburo’, daybreak or, sometimes, an hour before sunrise) from the tolling of la ruffiana, as I have recounted before. This court document, like other coeval ones, turns into a treasure house of linguistic curiosities. Take ‘ l’hora della ruffiana’, literally the hour of the procuress, female pimp. These are three perfectly Italian words, but not an Italian usage. I have only found this phrase in Malta, the first time in 1558, sometimes as ‘ suonata la ruffiana’, but never in Italy. In Malta this vulgarsounding phrase often turns up even in official enactments and regulations, and from the context it almost certainly means the bell that struck at sunset. The Order’s early legislation ordered all prostitutes to be back home when darkness fell and so the signal stood symbolically for the procuress who at that hour rounded and locked up her troupe of whores.6 In other countries it would be l’Angelus or curfew.

Asked by the prosecutor whether on that night Pietro had walked through the street that leads to the Infermeria and from there to the square of Valletta, the suspect answered: when I thought of going to the home of the said Francesca, my companions Nicola, Martino, and Bartholomeo came with me to that house and we walked together through the street of the Infermeria and through the square, and after we took the road to the Palace and passed under the windows of the Maestro delle Case, and after that we stayed all night up to the morning when the drum beat the signal, without my having distanced myself from my companions, until they left on their own business.

But if the scoundrel was counting on the support of Francesca la puttana, she soon disabused him. In her long and damning testimony, she nailed Pietro to his responsibilities and to his lies. Giving evidence on 5 December 1583, Francesca the ‘serva alba’ (white slave) of the magnifice Caterina Senese said that on the night of the robbery, a few hours after the ringing of la ruffiana, being inside the house of her owner in Valletta, she heard someone whistling in the street and looking out of the window she saw that it was Pietro, son of Baptista Azzopardi, with two or three others she did not recognise.

Pietro told her he wanted to spend the night with her in the home of her Signora. ‘I said I did not want, as he was a fraschetta (an incontinent scoundrel) because he had once had sex with me (‘avendome una volta toccata carnalmente’), with the added promise of a sausage in payment, then went around boasting he had got away without settling his dues. So, he left with his companions, and I locked the window and went to sleep’.

But Francesca had more to tell. On Friday or Saturday, she was not sure, having gone to the lockup of the criminal court to visit ‘Bru.ta la Chiazzesa’ (illegibly but possibly ‘Brunetta from Chiazze’) detained there:

Alessandro Vella who was also imprisoned in the Castellania told me that a friend of mine was held in that lockup and that I could save him from the gallows if only I said that last Saturday he had slept with me. I answered I could not say this as it was untrue and that I did not want to remove the noose from his neck to place it round mine. Having given him this answer resolutely, three or four Maltese men who were also present and who I do not know, told me that it was a small favour to ask to save a man from the gallows [‘levarlo dalla furca’]. Having refused again, I left and went around on my business.

Recalled to give further evidence on 17 December (St Ivo, the feast of lawyers), Francesca clarified some points. Firstly she ‘ratified and does ratify, commended

and does commend, approved and does approve and moreover confirmed and does confirm, word for word, from the first line to the last one what was in her previous testimony’. Then she added that: … on the night when Pietro Azzopardi together with the others had come to the house of my owner, Nicola lo bucchieri [perhaps a nickname—le boucher or il-biccier?] [later] threw a stone at my window and said “tell Pietro to come out—he is in there with you”. I answered not to mention Pietro as he has got nothing to do with me and that anyway he was not inside.

When I gave them this answer, Pietro son of Baptista who was with them dressed in disguise told me: “Why don’t you want to open for me? Why don’t you want me?” I told him to go away with God on his own business and that I did not want to lose the friendship of good soldiers for the sake of a fraschetta. Shortly later a bombardier of the company that had recently arrived from Rome came to me when Pietro and the others had left, and said he had come across them and told me that I did not know how to get rid of people as those young men did when speaking to whores [chirazze].

Francesca added that Caterina Scappi usually held the house keys and at night locked the front door herself and slept with the keys under her pillow. The night Pietro came the door keys were held by her.

Again, the evidence of Francesca offers some linguistic peculiarities which show that Italian current on the mainland sometimes ended modified in Malta. Take the word chirazza. Though of Italian origin, it was exclusively in Malta that it came to mean professional prostitute. While puttana, meretrice, and others, had currency throughout Italy, chirazza seems to have been the easy term in Malta to describe women who traded sex. And only in Malta. Likewise, the word fraschetta in Italian means a woman of easy sexual morals, a flirt, a promiscuous girl. In Malta, however, fraschetta meant a man with

CATERINA SCAPPI REVISITED

the same qualities. Maltese still uses that Italian word fraxketta, but like sixteenthcentury Malta, has changed its gender.

Finally, it was the turn of Caterina Scappi la Senese to give evidence. This she did on 3 January 1584. The record referred to her as Nobilis Caterina Senesa, a title which raises various questions and which I have never found in any other document. It only deepens the mystery of her origins, as the Scappi were not registered with the nobility of Siena. She confirmed that she always kept the house keys herself, and only she locked and unlocked the front door. She kept the keys under her pillow when she slept. When in the company of some man at home—‘qualche amico’ she left the key with Francesca. ‘On Saturday nights I usually do not want any male friends at home’, so the front door key would certainly not have been with Francesca, but with her, under her capizzo (pillow).

The case for the prosecution got more complicated when other witnesses gave evidence. Doubts were cast on the guilt of the suspects when Magnifico Bartolomeo Bonaventura de Bonetiis, on 14 March 1584, swore that a black slave belonging to Doctor Tramontana had recently sold his mother and sister Marietta for twenty-eight or thirty tarì the large pan di zucchero that had been stolen from Lanza’s shop. The ladies had used part of it for the carnival festivities in diverse candies and shared it with the sick who were in the house.

The black slave was the husband of a female slave belonging to de Bonetiis’ sister and often visited their house. He had since escaped and disappeared. De Bonetiis assured Calli that no one had influenced his evidence and that he was solely moved by compassion for the four suspects unjustly imprisoned. He did not know any of them or their relatives. Petruzzo Rizzo confirmed that de Bonetiis had shown him and Giuseppe Cannava, a brother-in-law of Lanza, a piece of the sugar loaf.

The records do not disclose how Pietro’s desperate search for a fake alibi ended. Nor how the revelation that the black slave was in possession of the stolen sweets effected the final judgement. From what little survives, it is probably safe to assume that Pierto Zoppard (Azzopardi) was eventually found guilty

and condemned, though the Grand Master would have found it economically expedient to commute his sentence to a lifetime’s rowing in the galleys. Unpaid labour was undoubtedly more lucrative than state vendetta.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This article is based almost exclusively on an archival document discovered by Victor Bonnici who shared it with me. I cannot thank him enough.

CAPTIONS

P.114 Portrait of Caterina Scappi. (Courtesy of Heritage Malta / Photo: Matthew Mirabelli)

P.118 Jan Collaert, Plate 13 from New Inventions of Modern Times, The Invention of Sugar Refinery, engraving, 27 x 20cm. (Courtesy of the Elish Whittelsey Collection, The Met Museum, New York)

P.123 Jan Luyken, etching of a confectioner, 140 x 81mm. (Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

ENDNOTES

1 Giovanni Bonello, ‘Caterina Scappi and her Revolutionary Hospital for Women who were Incurable’, The Sunday Times of Malta, 23 and 30 August 2015.

2 Christine Muscat, Magdalene Nuns and Penitent Prostitutes (Malta: BDL Publishing, 2013), 130-131.

3 NAM [National Archives of Malta], 92/04 (1583), Box 14.

4 Ubaldino Mori Ubaldini, La marina del sovrano militare Ordine (Roma: Regionale Editrice, 1971), 293-295.

5 Giovanni Bonello, Histories of Malta, Vol. 9 (Malta: Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, 2008), 146-147.

6 Giovanni Bonello, Histories of Malta, Vol. 2 (Malta: Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, 2001), 76.

The 1832 Beheading of a Young Woman in Senglea

‘The world says: “You have needs—satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more”. This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide; for the poor, envy and murder.’

Fyodor Dostoevsky

A macabre scene chilled the neighbours and the police when, on the morning of 13 April 1832, they broke down the door of the rooms where Grazia Grech lived and worked in 37, St Philip Street, Senglea (renumbered 38 in 1930). They recoiled in horror at the body of a young woman, her head hanging only by the vertebra and some tattered skin and muscle from the neck, a razor with clumps of hair sticking to it and everything around soaked in blood.

The broad outlines of this gruesome murder are not unknown, but I came across a manuscript entitled ‘Capital judgement of Giovanni Fedele and Paolo Laus and its execution’ which throws plenty of new light on the events. This is included in the large collection of scrapbooks handwritten in Italian (Nos 114 and 115 in the series) in private hands, put together by the Rev. Giuseppe Carmelo Gristi shortly after the crime. It contains the court’s judgement and additional details and comments, but is copied, almost word for word, from the Italian version on the Malta Government Gazette of 23 May 1832.

The main actors: two young men of whom we know the ages, and a girl, always described as ‘la sventurata ragazza’ (not donna). The eighteen-year-old Giovanni Fedele hailed from Sliema, and Paolo Laus, three years older, from Valletta. They were inseparable and, though on paper apprenticed to a goldsmith to learn the trade, they lived a restless, vagabond life. The girl, Grazia Grech known by her nickname ‘ta’ Zolinzol’, earned her living in the sex trade. Malta, then one of the poorest countries in Europe, had an excess of women forced to rely on prostitution for a living.

The young men shared her graces jointly and she virtually kept them and provided for them to the point that she was known to sell her clothes to maintain them. She repeated to them they were her ‘favourite’ clients. They had frequented her rooms in a kerrejja in Senglea on a regular basis for about a year, by day and by night.

After dark on 12 April, the two youths entered Grech’s rooms and, at about 8:30 p.m., left to buy some bread and ġbejniet together with a bottle of rum from a shop nearby. This was remarkable as they had only bought wine before.

During the subsequent trial, the prosecution relied on this unusual purchase as another argument for premeditation: the killers needed Dutch courage and wanted to numb the victim. Fedele and Laus took the food to the girl’s rooms, and left early the following morning, locking her door behind them.

During the night the neighbours heard the two youths talking but never the voice of Grazia, from which they deduced she had fallen asleep early. No one discerned any noises indicating a fight or an argument. At about 5:00 a.m., one of the neighbours heard from the courtyard a loud gurgling noise which the doctors later explained as the sound expected of air suddenly released from the lungs through a huge bleeding wound. Shortly later, the neighbour noticed Laus opening the door of Grazia’s room to leave, but when he saw the witness, he immediately retreated inside, locking the door again. The neighbour then went out of sight, and Laus and Fedele re-emerged, and he heard them saying ‘ejja ejja malajr aghggel! ’ [sic]. Another witness saw them shortly later, Fedele telling Laus who had a key in his hand and was crying ‘imxi, imxi, tibzax!’ [sic].

All this raised the neighbours’ suspicion. They called Grazia but received no reply. Some brought ladders and looked inside through a window. What they saw horrified them. They sent for the police who forced an entry into Grech’s rooms. The officers informed the duty magistrate of their gruesome findings. To assist him Dr Salvatore Cecy appointed Dr Luigi Gravagna, surgeon and later President of the Board of Health, and Dr Gavino Patrizio Portelli, Professor of anatomy and surgery at the University, and at 11:00 a.m. held an on-site enquiry (aċċess). They found the body on the floor, wearing a shirt, and partly covered by a blanket and a bedspread. The body showed no signs of a struggle and, apart from the lethal wound, only had a small scratch on a fingertip. They noted the pillow and the undersheet soaked in abundant blood.

The police established that the razor found near the body had been seen a few days previously in the hands of Laus, and another witness swore he knew both suspects made use of it. The sleuths also recorded that Laus’ brother had a twin razor, identical to the murder weapon. When this blade, still clogged with

blood and with plenty of hair adhering to it, was shown in court during the trial, it ‘produced a brivido d’orrore in all who saw it’.

Laus and Fedele first roamed round the Senglea bastions, then left through Bormla (also known as Cospicua) and walked all the way to Marsaxlokk. On their way there, various witnesses observed how their clothes were soaked in blood, though Fedele was now wearing them inside out. When later asked about their bloodied appearance, they first said they had been attacked by thieves, beaten, and robbed. Fedele then switched to a different excuse—leaving home he had banged into the open door and had suffered a copious nosebleed which had stained his clothes. Laus claimed he got his hands and clothes dirty helping his friend.

In Marsaxlokk they boarded a boat and asked to be taken to St George’s (probably Kalafrana, not St Julian’s). The boatman, seeing them all splattered in blood, grew suspicious and ordered them off his craft. By now ‘confused and not knowing what to do’, they walked all the way to Valletta and took refuge in the

house of Gustu Sant, next door to where Laus lived hid in the basement, and changed their clothes.

Asked why they were hiding, they answered: ‘It’s some time we wanted to do this’. Meanwhile news of the murder had reached Valletta and Gustu Sant bid them to leave his home. They went next door where Laus lived and where the police found and arrested them, also discovering their blood-soiled clothes hidden behind the garbage in Laus’ home.

Their trial was held very shortly afterwards, on 10 May, in the criminal court of the old Castellania, Merchants’ Street, Valletta. The accused stood charged with having ‘proditoriamente e con premeditazione’ (‘with treachery and premeditation’) caused the death of Grazia Grech. The court, composed of His Majesty’s Judges, Dr Giuseppe Calcedonio Debono presiding, flanked by Judges Dr Giovanni Vella and Dr Gio Batta Satariano, had an open and shut case. The President, born in 1756 under Grand Master Pinto, graduated in 1778. The British sovereign made him Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George the very year of the trial, and he died in 1837. The youngest of the trio, Judge Satariano, had only graduated eleven years earlier, and died in 1857.

Strangely, no contemporary document mentions any defence counsel, which makes it likely the accused were assisted by the Advocate for the Poor who, from 1825, was Dr Filippo Torregiani (graduated in 1794), assisted by Dr Luigi Bardon (graduated in 1807, and later Magistrate in Gozo).

An extraordinary turnout of people crammed the courtroom. The public prosecution fell on Dr Emanuele Caruana, one of the founding fathers of the patriotic movement in Malta, author of early tracts on political freedoms for the Maltese, now sadly forgotten and asking for commemoration. He had graduated Doctor of Laws in 1819 and rose to become Director of public prosecutions.1 The thrust of the evidence was to prove intent and premeditation. Various witnesses testified that the design to kill Grazia Grech had matured well before the culprits carried it out. Both the accused had been seen with the killer razor some time before the murder, and they had openly boasted: ‘There will be great rejoicings,

a feast that will see multitudes from Grazia’s home all the way to Senglea Point.’ The witnesses only understood this hidden message after the assassination.

The evidence did not establish who of the two had actually slit Grazia’s throat. But a statement by the convicts after the trial revealed that Fedele had used the razor on Grazia’s neck, while Laus blocked her mouth with one hand and with the other held the table knife with which the three had dined, ready to use should his friend have failed to put an end to the her life.

With the prosecution’s evidence wholly unassailable, a verdict of guilty became inevitable. The judges passed sentence of death by hanging in a hall crammed to capacity with crowds that had been present throughout the whole trial.

A petition to Governor Sir Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby to commute the death penalty stood little chance of success—the femicide had been so coldbloodied, so gory, so long premeditated: ‘Had there been the slightest doubt about their guilt, their young age and a common sense of humanity, not less the standards of clemency with which our laws are applied, would certainly have worked in their favour, but this clemency could not extend to a killing so atrocious in nature’.

A comment in the manuscript adds: ‘they were dragged to their untimely death by a build-up of vices, and for long they had lived a dissolute life, having abandoned their families, by day and by night for several months’. Some good news follows: before their execution, they repented, ‘they met their death with a perfect trust in the blessings of faith, making a full confession, acknowledging the justice of the sentence passed upon them’.

The driving motive of this crime, which had remained obscure throughout the trial, they now revealed to have been jealousy. During their apprenticeship with a goldsmith, Laus and Fedele had fashioned a gold ring for Grazia. They then discovered that she had gifted their ring to another ‘client’, a fishmonger, and jealousy captured their spirit—they swore vengeance. They had no problem at all with Grazia giving away her body for money, but when she did it for love, she signed her death warrant. The ethics of it all remain rather inscrutable. Grazia’s elimination became their obsession, but every other previous occasion had somehow failed them.

THE 1832 BEHEADING OF A YOUNG WOMAN IN SENGLEA

The execution of Fedele and Laus took place a few days later, on Monday 21 May, on the Floriana glacis, roughly where the War Memorial now stands, facing Senglea, the scene of the crime. Again, huge crowds gathered, eager not to miss the exhilarating spectacle of two young men writhing in agony, an advert for retributive justice. Unchallenged master of ceremonies was Michele Prestigiacomo, known as ‘il-Kalabriz’, a hard-working, obliging executioner who notched some forty hangings to his credit before retiring. Society then still dispensed capital punishments in the open and with the utmost publicity—a free show funded by the taxpayer, part entertainment, part therapy, and part didactic. The record adds that Fedele and Laus, accompanied by Capuchin friars, died highly repentant, begging the Saviour compassion and forgiveness.

Giovanni Fedele claims the dubious record of being the youngest person executed in Malta during the British period, and Grazia Grech the first prostitute to be murdered. But this crime of passion was not satisfied with the extinction of three lives; it claimed two other victims. Girolamo Laus, Paolo’s father, oppressed by grief, humbled by shame, harassed by guilt, took himself to St Julian’s on 14 June, and there hanged himself from a tree. And the Lothario fishmonger, shortly later assaulted by persons unknown, is said to have succumbed to his injuries.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Maroma Camilleri and the staff at the National Library for their assistance.

CAPTIONS

P.126 (detail) Edward Howard Thurlow, watercolour showing a public execution by hanging in Malta. (Courtesy of the Albert Ganado Collection and BDL Publishers)

P.130 The opening paragraph of the manuscript which describes in detail the murder, the trial, and the execution of the accused, Giovanni Fedele and Paolo Laus. (Private Collection, Malta)

P.133 Engraving of Governor Sir Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby (1783–1837), who refused to commute the death penalty of Fedele and Laus. (Courtesy of the National Library of Malta / Photo: Lisa Attard)

P.134 One of the several 1920s postcards of the Rosarianti in Valletta. Issued by Salvatore Lorenzo Cassar. (Courtesy of the Giovanni Bonello Collection)

ENDNOTES

1 Dr Caruana was appointed Avvocato del Re just after the trial, on 14 August 1832. See Repertorio di Proclami …, Vol. 3 (Malta: Government of Malta, 1844), 105.

The Tragic Prince of Abyssinia in Malta

‘Set before your eyes everyday death and exile and everything else that looks terrible, especially death.

Then you will never have any mean thought or be too keen on anything.’

Epictetus of Hierapolis

A frail and melancholic seven-year-old boy was marched through the door of Malta’s leading photographer to have his portrait taken. He was the crown-prince of a defeated empire and a spoil of war, like the jewels from the state treasury or the captured artillery. Leandro Preziosi, the island’s first professional photographer, had earlier moved his studio from Floriana to secluded and shadowed No. 28, Fredrick Street, in Valletta.

On Saturday 27 June 1868, Leandro Preziosi must have welcomed his royal guest graciously—the Preziosis themselves had piled up their not inconsiderable wealth as relentless corsairs, but had later melded into the titled aristocracy of Malta and had contributed gainfully to the public life of the island—the renowned orientalist painter Amadeo Preziosi, the pioneer Maltese photographer, Leandro, and Sir Luigi Preziosi, bold eye surgeon and popular symbol of national unity after the Sette Giugno riots.

Prince Alamayou,1 the young captive, arrived in Malta late in the evening on Thursday 25 June 1868, the prisoner, ward, and guest of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. He had travelled by HMS Urgent from Alexandria to the Grand Harbour on his way to exile and to school in the United Kingdom. His stop in Malta included the photo-session at Preziosi’s. When he entered the studio, an attendant was dutifully carrying a change of clothes for Preziosi to take not one but two photos of the boy. The first is that portraying the tiny Abyssinian wearing European clothing, shiny boots with spats, and holding on to a straw sailor’s hat, with the ship’s name HMS Urgent on the tally—the silk ribbon. The manufacture of straw hats worn by U.K. sailors in the Mediterranean—the sennit—accounted for one of Malta’s more significant cottage industries up to the end of the First World War.

But Leandro Preziosi also took a second portrait on the imperial prince: one in which he wears high Abyssinian ceremonial costume. In this second photo, the boy is barefoot and so his feet rest on a dutiful cushion. He is wearing a rich necklace of shiny seashells, to which he was profoundly attached; he put on the same necklace for portraits taken shortly later by Margaret Cameron in

THE

the Isle of Wight. The prince’s garments could not look more different in the two Preziosi photos, but there is one feature that ties both portraits together: the tragic, defeated look etched on the child’s face.

The boy-prince Alamayou had every reason to look tragic. His father, Theodore II (or Tewodros II) Emperor of Abyssinia, King of Kings, Son of David and Solomon, had just committed suicide after a crushing defeat by the British invaders in the mountain stronghold of Maqdala. His splendid young mother had also just died ‘heartbroken’ of an unclear illness on foreign soil—‘a chest complaint of some standing’. Alamayou was utterly alone, in strangers’ hands, in strangers’ lands.

The crown Prince of Abyssinia remained in Malta until 4 July. A newspaper report says that on landing he was taken straight to the Governor Sir Charles van Straubenzee,2 and then he lodged in what was then the undisputed

centre of Malta’s social life: the Union Club, the old Auberge de Provence, in today’s Republic Street. Another local paper observed: The Prince is an interesting lad … having handsome features, but evidently a delicate frame, and much care will be required to rear him, especially in such a country as England. He is attired in a striped knicker-bocker suit, with a sailor’s hat bearing “Urgent” on the ribbon. He seems quite at ease, barring the wearing of boots to which he has not yet got accustomed. He seems very intelligent for his years, and has already picked up a little English, though not enough to express fully his wants. On Saturday last he sat for his Photograph to Mr Preziosi.3

How else the boy prince whiled his time away on the island is unknown. His appointed tutor, Captain Tristram Speedy, known to the natives and to the young prince as Básha Félika, no doubt took good care of him and did his utmost to keep him happy. Speedy, six foot five and red-bearded, of the Intelligence Department of the Abyssinian punitive expedition, in whose care Alamayou’s dying mother had refused to entrust her son, eventually became the derelict boy’s friend and confidant. After the Maqdala disaster, the prince’s Abyssinian retinue had accompanied Alamayou up to Egypt on the clear understanding that they would be in charge of the little royal, but they had then been summarily dismissed and turned back by the British authorities on the party’s arrival in Alexandria. From then onwards the young orphan was to be ever alone, bereft of the comfort of one friendly or familiar face, or of anyone who could speak his language.

On the island, the media reported, ‘it is rumoured that it is the intention of Her Majesty our sovereign, to have the young prince educated in England under her distinguished patronage’.4

From Malta, the Prince was, in fact, taken to England, again on HMS Urgent, as a colonial prize of war, together with many precious objects looted from the imperial palace, the Coptic churches, and the houses in Maqdala. On

THE TRAGIC PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA IN MALTA

arrival in London, a Maltese paper informs us, the spoils of war were to be put on public display at the South Kensington Museum. Pride of place went to King Theodore’s robes and ritual jewellery, all worthy of the title of spolia optima, a dig borrowed from Roman history to describe what was looted from the corpse of the commander of the enemy killed in battle.

These are described in great and gloating detail in the feature; they included: Emperor Theodore’s robe, crown, and slippers, all worked in beautiful filigree ‘known to connoisseurs as Maltese work’. The robe was ‘ornamented with pieces of stamped silver, and both the robe and the crown have silver balls attached to them with barbaric silver pendants’. The queen’s robe, appeared to be ‘of Indian workmanship, the warp being of gilt thread, the rest of silk and embroidered with silk silver thread in patterns of flowers. The ground is yellow, and the fashion of it is curious in the extreme’. Together with the other exhibits the reporter noticed several seals, among others a large gilt one with a jasper handle and with ‘a monstrously rude lion’ on it.5

This was only the small fraction of the loot that the British public were allowed to know about. Another source says that after the king’s tragic suicide, the British:

looted a vast amount of treasure from the citadel, including Tewodros II’s crowns, a huge number of both royal and ecclesiastic robes, vestments, crosses, chalices, swords and shields, many embroidered or decorated with gold or silver, hundreds of tabots [precious tablets of the law], the great Imperial silver negarit war drum, and a huge number of valuable manuscripts. Many of these continue to be held in various museums and libraries in Europe, as well as in private collections.

The Maltese papers of the time took a keen and prurient interest in the dead king’s love life, which they painted in less than favourable terms. Though a Christian Copt who wanted Abyssinia to be a modern Christian kingdom, the

dead Theodore II is described, a few days after his child had left Malta to proceed to the U.K., as an immoral satrap. The marriage of Theodore II with Alamayou’s mother, recorded the Malta Times, ‘proved a most unhappy one. The Empress, the daughter of a chief vanquished by Theodore, was even more haughty than her fiery consort whom she despised as an upstart. It was impossible for two such firebrands to live together and for some years past, she resided apart from him, with her son, in the palace at Maqdala’.

‘Since this separation’, the Malta Times added, ‘Theodore has lived a disgracefully immoral life at Debra Tabor [then the capital city], and Stamamu, a corpulent Yedju Galla woman, his favourite concubine, was left to live with the wife at Maqdala, receiving, almost daily, letters from her absent Lord … Theodore had, as may be imagined, several illegitimate children, among whom was a son named Mashesha, now about twenty years of age’.6

Our Alamayou Tewodros, son of Emperor Theodore II of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) and Empress Tiruwork Wube, was born on 23 April 1861. Although a highly controversial figure in his lifetime, the man who tried to unite Abyssinia but not always successfully, he is today ‘remembered by Ethiopians as the founder and moderniser of Ethiopia’s reunification. He is now one of the most revered historical figures’. A branch of Theodore’s pedigree settled in Russia, and the renowned actor Sir Peter Ustinov claimed, with considerable plausibility, to be one of the direct descendants of Theodore II.

In brief, the proud Theodore II’s conflict with the British colonial authorities stemmed from his desire to modernise his kingdom. He wrote a dignified personal letter to Queen Victoria, monarch to monarch, requesting her to send a mission of technicians to his kingdom to teach engineering and other modern technologies to his subjects. He handed over the letter to the British Consul with a request to take it personally to Queen Victoria. The Foreign Office laughed him off and told the consul not to bother; sending the king’s message by ordinary courier would do just fine. The letter was left unanswered to gather dust in the Foreign Office ‘pending’ file and no one ever thought it worth forwarding to the Queen.

When, after waiting patiently for two years, Theodore learnt this, he indignantly imprisoned the Consul and various other Europeans, including a missionary who had described him publicly as ‘a barbaric, cruel, unstable usurper’. Theodore did this deliberately and explicitly to attract Queen Victoria’s attention. Britain finally did pay some belated attention. Queen Victoria now sent an insipid reply, but none of the technical assistance asked for three years earlier. Theodore had the messengers imprisoned.

This provoked Britain to launch a punitive expeditionary force in 1868 under the military command of General Robert Napier of the Indian Army. His force, counting 37,000 soldiers, carriers, and auxiliaries7 marched to the mountain fortress town of Maqdala where Theodore was hoping to resist him with 9000 men. The two armies engaged on 10 April, and the far better equipped British battalions decidedly defeated the Abyssinian forces. ‘Tewodros’s muzzle-loading muskets, swords and home-produced artillery were no match for Napier’s breech-loading rifles and steel cannon. The Abyssinians lost 2,200 men, the British just 20’.8

Theodore freed the European prisoners and sent them to Napier together with a peace offering of cattle. Napier took this as a formal offer of surrender, and replied he would treat the Emperor and his family with every dignity. The incensed Theodore replied that he had not surrendered and never would. The British forces then shelled Maqdala furiously and killed most of Theodore’s remaining loyalists.

The Emperor, slightly wounded in one leg, shot himself dead, recording that ‘he would rather surrender to God than to man’. He placed a revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger. The weapon that cut his life off had been a personal 1854 present to him by Queen Victoria ‘as a slight token of her gratitude’, as the inscription on the butt of the gun testified. The victorious officers jostled each other to hack away pieces of the dead Emperor’s clothing as his corpse lay bleeding on the floor, to keep as a memento. The souvenir hunters left him completely naked.9

The British forces looted everything worth taking. The Irish-American war correspondent Henry Morton Stanley (of Dr Livingstone, I presume?) who

THE

was present recounts in sordid detail the destruction and the remorseless plunder. Richard Rivington Holmes, official representative of the British Museum, was there on the front line, choosing and picking up with a trained connoisseur’s eye the most precious looted artefacts.10 Twenty elephants and almost 200 mules were employed to carry away the plundered prizes, the historian Richard Pankhurst counted.11

Four years later, the British Prime Minister William Gladstone, referring to the Maqdala treasures in British public and private collections, some gifted to Queen Victoria herself, declared publicly ‘that he deeply regretted that those articles were ever brought from Abyssinia and could not conceive why they were so brought’. Noble words, ignoble actions. Not one of those artefacts was ever returned to its cultural context, 150 years later.

On Napier’s direct orders, the troops set the ghost town on fire. It was Easter Monday, 13 April 1868, ten days shy of the seventh birthday of the emperor’s son. Maltese papers glorified Napier as ‘the hero of the Abyssinian expedition’ and the British received him in Malta on his way back with a rapturous welcome. The general married twice and fathered fifteen children. Queen Victoria elevated him to the peerage as Baron Napier of Maqdala. Of the four huge Armstrong 100-ton guns, two installed in Malta and two in Gibraltar, one of the latter was named the Napier of Maqdala battery.

Though the suicide of the Emperor seems to be beyond doubt, conspiracy theorists were soon busy at work. Popular legends have him killed by the Oromo warriors of a rival queen. The fable remains strong, but the story has little or no historical substance.

The bewildered boy-prince was taken from Malta to the Isle of Wight, where he lived for some time with Captain Speedy, the red-haired giant, and where he was introduced to Queen Victoria in Osborne House, her residence. She seems to have taken a liking to the gentle child and mentioned him more than once in her private diaries. When Speedy was posted to India, he took the prince with him, and he stayed there until a political decision was taken that he should pursue his education in England and Alamayou was enrolled in Cheltenham College. In 1875, he was moved to Rugby school, his unhappiest days. Three years later, now seventeen years old, he registered at Sandhurst Royal Military College, where he did not stay long, moving college again to Far Headingley, Leeds.

Within a week of his arrival the doctors diagnosed him with pleurisy, probably due to tuberculosis, and six weeks later, on 14 November 1879, eighteen years old, he was dead.

His life in England had been one unrelenting pilgrimage of dejection. His orphaned solitude, the unbearable baggage of anguish and defeat, not least the jeering outrage of contempt for the nigger-boy of the vanquished tropics, marked his spirit with the doom of death. His death was his fortune and his release.

Queen Victoria mourned ‘the good and kind boy’ in her secret diary. How sad, she remarked, that the young prince should die so far away from his family! How unhappy the prince had been! How conscious he was of people making fun of his colour! She ordered that he be buried in Windsor Castle, and the chief mourners at his funeral were Captain Speedy and General Napier. It is not recorded if duplicity, too, was buried there with Alamayou.

A brass plaque in the nave of St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle is, presumably, meant to commemorate the prince. It says: ‘I was a stranger and you took me in’, again interchanging the role of villains and benefactors. A second memorial brass plaque was later placed in the chapel on the initiative of Emperor Haile Selaisse of Ethiopia, who visited his grave.

The Ethiopian Government in 2007 officially requested the return of the remains of the tragic prince for reburial with his ancestors in Africa, but to no avail. There’s a corner in some foreign land that is, for ever, Ethiop.

The story of Alamayou has been told, lovingly and with the right imagination, by Elizabeth Laird in The Prince who Walked with Lions (Macmillan, 2012). The author does not seem to have been aware of the prince’s stay in Malta. For further insights about Theodore II, I also recommend Philip Marsden’s The Barefoot Emperor: An Ethiopian Tragedy (Harper Perennial, 2008).

THE TRAGIC PRINCE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thanks to Maroma Camilleri and Leonard Callus for assisting my research.

CAPTIONS

P.136 (detail) Studio photograph of Prince Alamayou in high Abyssinian ceremonial dress and accessories, photograph by Leandro Preziosi, from the Saverio Ciantar Preziosi album. (Courtesy of the Marion Camilleri Collection / Reproduction photograph: Kevin Casha)

P.139 (left) Studio photograph of Prince Alamayou in European clothing, photograph by Leandro Preziosi, from the Saverio Ciantar Preziosi album. (Courtesy of the Marion Camilleri Collection / Reproduction photograph: Kevin Casha)

P.139 (right) Studio photograph of Prince Alamayou in high Abyssinian ceremonial dress, photograph by Leandro Preziosi, from the Saverio Ciantar Preziosi album. (Courtesy of the Marion Camilleri Collection / Reproduction photograph: Kevin Casha)

P.141 Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron of Prince Alamayou, albumen print, 1868. (Gilman Collection / Courtesy of the Met Museum, New York)

P.142 Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron of Prince Alamayou and Básha Félika, albumen print, 1868. (Courtesy of the Royal Photographic Society Collection, V&A Museum, London)

P.146 (left) Reproduction after Sir Francis Grant of a portrait of Lord Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Maqdala, published in London by Henry Graves & Co., 1870. (Courtesy of the British Museum, London)

P.146 (right) Shield made of hide, with pendant made of lion’s mane, of Ethiopian make, and part of a collection of material taken from the fortress of Emperor Theodore II at Maqdala during the Abyssinian campaign. The shield appears in an 1870 print of Lord Robert Napier. (Courtesy of the British Museum, London)

ENDNOTES

1 Also Alemayehu, Alunmayahu, and other variants.

2 Portafoglio Maltese, 26 June 1868, 3.

3 Malta Times, 2 July 1868, 2.

4 Portafoglio Maltese, 30 June 1868, 3.

5 Malta Times, 9 July 1868, 1.

6 Malta Times, 16 July 1868, 1.

7 ‘Magdala’, Dizionario delle Battaglie (Milan: Mondadori, 1966–1968), 264.

8 Saul David, ‘Mad King Tewodros of Abyssinia’, The Daily Telegraph, 14 December 2007.

9 Henry M. Stanley, Coomassie and Magdala (New York City: Harper and Brothers, 1874), 449-464.

10 Ibid., 454-462.

11 Richard Pankhurst, ‘The Napier Expedition and the Loot from Maqdala’, Présence Africaine. Nouvelle série, Nos 133/134 (1985), 233-240.

Mankind in the Red-Light District

‘The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward. To have done anything by which you earned money merely is to have been truly idle or worse.’

Henry David Thoreau

My parents never quite resigned themselves to the fact that Strada Stretta was just round the corner from where we lived. When I was ten, I had to cross it daily to reach the Lyceum and back. They made me promise I would only cross at corners where policemen stood on duty and that I would not glance sideways when hurrying over that polluted ground. Such, in the eyes of the bourgeois, was the infamy Strada Stretta inspired after the war.

Hate it or love it, it was one fact of life Valletta inhabitants could not ignore. George Cini, I suspect, rather loves it, and has turned into the modern Virgil of Strada Stretta. He sings its myths and minutes its nostalgia. I was surprised one can think of a red-light district as material for a homely epic, but Cini certainly has, and with very evident success. If you can bring yourself to accept the subjects he writes about as an integral part of a national collective memory you would rather not delete, you will be spellbound by what he records, and the passion with which he records it. Many must have shared that thrill if his first book hogged the bestseller ratings for so long.

Let me say from the outset that Cini’s books on Strada Stretta have given me a rather un-clichéd perspective on Malta’s prime red-light district. Before reading Cini, ‘the Gut’ was just that: a squalid one-street slum, crawling with sad whores and sadder transvestites, reeking of urine and vomit in the evenings and of cresol during the day, a golden mile where the inspectors of venereal disease were on duty round the clock and the rodent-control officers were wrong not to be.

To outsiders, ‘the Gut’ meant dead-drunk British sailors anxious to have their pockets vacuumed and quarrelsome American GIs spoiling for a brawl, both well gratified in their cravings. When they had exhausted their conversation, which rarely strayed far from the f-word, they hollered along with the music, raucous intoxicated mortals, scared they would incur fines if they sang in tune. After that, the blockbuster fistfights.

This was the very obvious side of Strada Stretta that Cini almost takes as a given. He is really more interested in profiling the individual actors, many of them devout churchgoers and contributors to the parish festa, though not

necessarily subscribers to Christian chastity. Here is some of the best musical talent that mostly had its hotbed in ‘the Gut’, and here is the camaraderie, the staunch family bonds, a compelling spirit of enterprise, the sly or crafty survival tricks, the slogging, the discipline.

The main actors are given voices, some of them amazingly articulate: the owners of the bars, the music halls, the lodging houses, the restaurants; the barmaids who were not prostitutes, those who were, and those who left you guessing; the cross-dressers and the un-dressers; and then the tattoo artists, the barbers, the musicians, the singers and dancers, the inspectors who closed an eye and the policemen who closed both; the card sharps—each an engrossing human narrative, often of decay, sometimes of compassion, always of mercantile greed.

For if there is one common thread snaking through every narrative, it is everyone’s thrall to money. Everything, but everything, had a price; everything was calibrated by its commercial advantage, whether it was rents, musical virtuosity, the manipulation of beauty, or love as a passion or a commodity. ‘Jekk iddawwar lira’, it would evidently be good on any ethical scale. A wilderness of integrity.

Strada Stretta mainly recruited its workforce from three popular districts of Valletta: the Mandraġġ, the Arċipiergu and the Dju Balli. True Strada Stretta locals took comfort from their claim that the rotten apples, the horizontal women, were mostly imports from the three cities, Gozo, and other far-away reaches. It may well have been the case.

The provenance of the players reflected the local political divide. The Dju Balli had traditionally been mostly Strickland Constitutional, eventually turning Labour. The Arċipiergu, on the other hand, had housed an old Nationalist fortress. The tattooist learnt he had to translate this fracture in his job: labour stalwarts paid for a tattoo of Mintoff, the nationalists, of the maduma. He inked both willingly, in ecumenical spirit, ‘biex idawwar lira’. Political tattoos went out of fashion—not a devastating loss—with the decline of ‘the Gut’ when the British base finally wound down in 1979.

It seems to me quite amazing that this short stretch of a mostly disreputable road should, over a handful of years, have inspired three committed books: the two Cini ones, which look at Strada Stretta from the inside outwards, the narratives of those who lived it and loved it. Theirs is an unrepeatable, if perhaps sanitised, experience which would otherwise have been buried with them when the last ones pass away.

The third, the 2013 Strait Street by Schofield and Morrissey, looks at the same venue, but from the outside inwards. It records the street’s history, its evolution over centuries, its context, and its abnormal niche in the capital city. Together these three books outline, as consummately as anything human can, unique times and the landscapes of desire.

CAPTIONS

P.150

Review of George Cini, Strada Stretta: Aktar dawl fuq it-triq li darba xegħlet il-Belt (Malta: Allied Publications, 2015), pp. xii + 276.

Entertainment for the armed services when Strada Stretta was in its heyday before and after the Second World War.

P.153 Barman at an entertainment venue at Strada Stretta.

P.154 British sailors in Strada Stretta just after the Second World War.

Photos: Courtesy of the Giovanni Bonello Collection

(More of) Mankind in the Red-Light District

‘… the memory must be, as it were, the stomach of the mind, and happiness and sadness like sweet and bitter food.’

St Augustine of Hippo

This is not the genre of books I am usually asked, or offer, to review, but gladly do I allow for an exception. George Cini seems to have made it one of his life’s missions to preserve in the naphthalene of memory the saga of those the majority of the self-righteous would rather see forgotten.

The fact that Maltese uses the classical Arabic q-ħ-b to denote whoring and whores, indicates conclusively that prostitution was well established in Maltese culture at least since the Arab conquest. But during the times of the Knights, Valletta had no red-light district to speak of. Commerce in women and pretty boys thrived—maybe more than today—if the accounts of visitors are to be believed. A well-informed French author swears that two out of three women in Valletta earned their living horizontally. And when the Inquisitor clamped down on gay sex, no less than a hundred boy-prostitutes fled from Malta in a panic. But the sex industry then worked mostly through capillary dispersion—sex commerce was everywhere and nowhere.

That changed radically with the arrival of the British. The greatest fleet in the world took over the Valletta harbours and the laws of supply and demand reconfigured the current lazy scenario—a geographical segment of the city organised itself to service the thousands of sailors avid for entertainment, liquor, music, and sex. The northern segment of Strada Stretta, later Strait Street, served as an axis to a booming red-light district, with residential quarters and ancillaries crowding its sides.

I described elsewhere how my family lived in Old Bakery Street and, to reach the Lyceum in Merchants Street, I had perforce to cross Strada Stretta. My solicitous parents, fully paid-up members of the self-righteous brigade, made me swear never to stray into the depraved street, to cross only through an intersection where policemen usually stood guard and never even to look sideways when crossing. That, of course made it more pruriently attractive.

This Strada Stretta book, together with the two which preceded it, is a tour de force of nostalgia harnessed to the narratives of the peripheries of life. Narratives of the cores of many lives, shorn of the boredom of social statistics

and pointless moralising. Cini interviewed a considerable number of the survivors of the blessings of post-war Strada Stretta, and they air their daily struggles for assertion or survival.

The author has transcribed, I believe with absolute faithfulness, their unsanitised stories, grammatical howlers and all. Very little individual epic transpires from these confessions, but heaped on top of each other, they end up as the epic of Strada Stretta. Every narrator, a senior citizen by now, records a lifetime of Strait Street experiences, many of their forgettable successes and some of their permanent failures. This is humanity in a minor key, but a very human, loving, caring humanity all the same—the streaks of veritable Christian compassion that run through several of these stories may bring tears to your eyes. They all witnessed the withering of the old riotous ‘Gut’ when the British navy withdrew from Malta in 1979.

Cini has done an impeccable job in prizing this human dimension out of the many workers crowding the microcosm of ‘the Gut’—the mentionable

(MORE OF) MANKIND IN THE RED-LIGHT DISTRICT

and less mentionable entertainment, their sense of belonging, the solidarity that bound many together, their instinct of survival. Many just played supporting roles to the main commodity—sex on offer or, in meagre times, on discount.

Bakers, hairdressers, cooks, entertainers, cabbies, grocers, card sharps, taxi drivers, usurers, tattooists, all gravitated in or round ‘the Gut’. One I recall personally: the affable ‘Pawlu t-Tork’ who pushed his bread cart through the streets of Valletta squealing ‘pasta dura friska friska! ’ at the top of a well-manicured castrato voice and selling scrumptious bziezen which put the most redoubtable French baguettes to shame.

Many of the best light musicians in Malta had their baptism of fire in those haunts and went on to acquire national fame. I feel, perhaps wrongly, that Cini attempts to convey the impression of some glamour embracing the district.

Try as I may, I see more squalor than glamour. Extremely human and empathyfriendly, but overall squalor just the same.

Over twenty surviving veterans of ‘the Gut’ bare their innermost souls, with, I believe, little or no self-censorship. Among the glories figured transvestites, then called impersonators, apparently all-time favourites with British and American servicemen. And bouncers, then called chucker-outs.

Even the artist Paul Caruana, from Triq tal-Franċizi, who illustrated these mini autobiographies with his lovely watercolours dripping charm and sometimes naughtiness too, adds his own personal nostalgia. As a kid, he confesses, he adored from a distance an unapproachable barmaid of incomparable beauty, whom he refers to as ‘the angel’. To this day, almost fifty years later, he believes she would still be unbeatable in any beauty contest. I hate to disappoint him, but today he would have to be prepared to overlook wobbly dentures, varicose veins and poorly dyed hair, and a hearing aid perhaps.

The whole district expressed its own special patois too. The raconteurs all seem to enjoy clipping words of foreign origin. No one lives in Strada Forni or passes through Strada Mercanti. It is always ‘Sada’. The gardens are ‘Hastig’ and a ‘guboks’ blares out music. Plus that, the district seems to have held out as a last stronghold of old-fashioned nicknames, personal and family. You will find scores of them: ‘il-Boqqu’, ‘il-Pasisu’, ‘il-Kuranta’, ‘il-Ganix’, ‘il-Brimbu’, ‘iżŻingla’, ‘il-Futtru’. And distinctive, if not distinguished, family names abound: ‘tar-Razzi’, ‘tan-Napezz’, ‘tad-Dindu’, ‘taż-Żubba’, ‘tan-Nappa’, ‘tal-Gadoffa’. The use of family nicknames has today dwindled, to the point of almost becoming non-U.

A well-organised name index makes this highly readable book also a work of reference. Though it does have has some unexplainable lacunae. Bice Vassallo, the talented pianist wife of the penniless Prime Minister Enrico Mizzi, taught music to some of the child prodigies who later shone in ‘the Gut’. She is cited in the text but omitted in the index. And Dom Mintoff, who seems to have enjoyed a following of worshippers in Strada Stretta and its environs, though referred to

more than once in the text, equally fails to make it to the index. I could mention a few others.

Throughout its 150 years of activity, ‘the Gut’ enjoyed the most ambiguous of reputations, heaven of bliss to its adepts who still moan its passing away, veritable hell for its detractors—one seamless bordello masquerading as an entertainment hub. George Cini’s book tempers some of the romantic fiction haunting the place with his record of its irreversible decline and fall. Both sides end being equally well served.

Review of George Cini, Strada Stretta: Aktar stejjer mit-triq li darba xegħlet il-Belt (Malta: Allied Publications, 2021), pp. xii + 196, illustrated

CAPTIONS

P.156 Strada Stretta in the inter-war years. (Courtesy of the Giovanni Bonello Collection)

P.159 Transvestite entertainers in Strada Stretta before the Second World War. (Courtesy of the Giovanni Bonello Collection)

P.160 The Colonial Restaurant in Strada Stretta was a top-class restaurant known for its elegance. (Courtesy of The Times of Malta / Photograph: Victor Farrugia)

P.162 Frank Camilleri ‘il-Bibi’, who was one of the top pianists of his time, during a training session with his son, Joe, at the Kenner Bar, in South Street, Valletta. Frank and Joe started their careers in Strada Stretta. (Courtesy of The Times of Malta / Photo: Joe ‘il-Bibi’ Camilleri).

Counting on Dishonour among Thieves during Early British Rule

‘If some beggar steals a bridle he’ll be hung by a man who’s stolen a horse. There’s no surer justice in the world than that which makes the rich thief hang the poor one.’

Peire Cardenal

Quite recently I wrote about the exercise of the sovereign prerogative of mercy in Malta during early British rule, limiting myself to cases in which the Governor thought proper to pardon criminals already tried and convicted by the courts.1 Now I will explore ‘amnesties’ or pardons of a different nature—those granted to encourage accomplices in crime to provide information meant to lead to the prosecution of unsolved crimes. I came across several curious cases between 1817 and 1840.

The first British Governor, Sir Thomas Maitland ‘King Tom’ (1760–1824), enjoyed a reputation for being quite ‘amnesty-happy’, though not through the softness of his heart or because of any insatiable thirst for justice. A renowned sadist by nature, those around him were convinced he gloated in letting loose on the population as many delinquents as possible.2

A common trait of these pre-emptive pardons to obtain information was that the principal felon who had actually committed the unsolved crime would not be the beneficiary of the pardon. Only accomplices, aiders, and abettors could profit from this leniency. Obviously, Maitland firmly believed that a bribe or a promise of clemency would grease the vocal cords of partners in crime and induce one offender to snitch on another. He held the notion of honour among thieves in the esteem it deserved.

The first case I found recorded is related to a serious instance of attempted sabotage and arson in the dockyards. During the night of 10 September 1817, one or more persons had maliciously and deliberately placed combustible material and a lighted fuse on the roof of the stores of the new dockyard where explosives were kept with a view to provoking a catastrophic explosion that would have devastated the three cities, with huge loss of life.

The authorities had no clue as to who the authors of this atroce atto could have been. By Government Notice, they promised a free pardon to anyone, except the principals, who provided information leading to the arrest and conviction of the criminals involved.3

Only five days later, the Government Gazette published a Notice aimed at encouraging anyone with knowledge to sing about an act of piracy committed

outside the Grand Harbour by six masked Maltese seamen armed with hatchets on board a dgħajsa tal-pass. The Government offered a free pardon to any accomplices who revealed the identity of the felons, together with a bonus of one thousand scudi if his or their evidence led to the conviction of the accused pirates. These inducements worked and one of the accomplices eventually found it irresistible not to turn informer against his former partners in crime.4

Only one year later, on Christmas Eve, a thief or thieves prized open the door of a storeroom in Old Mint Street, annexed to the house at 91, (Arch) bishop Street, Valletta, rented to James Calvert in 1814. They made off with a substantial haul of cloth—370 bolts of cambric, a fine fabric named after the town of Cambrai, originally linen and later cotton, and nine bolts of coloured striped Nankeen, a cotton from China. These belonged to the British merchants Calvert Bell & Co. who established themselves in Malta around 1815 and mostly dealt in fabrics and exotic spices. James Calvert must have been quite close to the centres of power, as he was appointed Magistrate in 1823 and Acting Magistrate for the Ports the following year.5

Maitland, by Government Notice, offered a free pardon to anyone who supplied information that would lead to the identification, arrest, and conviction of the burglars. There does not seem to have been any follow-up to this enticement.6

In June 1819, the Government was concerned with the flooding of the Maltese market by counterfeit copper coins, principally the old one tarì of the Order of St John. A Notice in the Government Gazette alerted the population to this new menace to public order, condemned as ‘abominable traffic’. The Notice is dated 7 June, 1819, one hundred years to the day of the Sette Giugno uprising of 1919. It promised a reward of one thousand scudi for information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of the forgers, and an exemption from prosecution to any accomplice who squealed on the main perpetrators.7

The unsolved murder of Nicola Saliba by the use of firearms, on 25 July 1822, in the field belonging to his father in the limits of Ta’ Birbagar (or Bur Bagiar), prompted Maitland to offer a free pardon to any informer who would assist in the successful prosecution of the assassin who had pulled the trigger. The victim, only twenty-three-years old, the son of Giovanni Maria Saliba, was

baptised on 20 June 1800. This time round it was only a faceless native who was the victim of petty murder not a British merchant who suffered the theft of some fabric, so the authorities scaled down the award to 500 scudi.8

When Vincenzo Borg (‘Brared’?) from Birkirkara suffered arson in his rooms containing hay in his fields at Ta’ Barumbara (or Ta’ Bwejba), the Governor offered the usual immunity from persecution to any accomplice who would provide evidence to arrest and convict the arsonist or arsonists. A small reward accompanied this offer—only 150 scudi.9 If the victim was the patriot Borg ‘Brared’ (d. 1837), that stinginess would be quite understandable. After his initial enthusiasm for Malta’s British connection, the disillusioned ‘Brared’ had fallen out badly with his erstwhile idols.

It was now the turn of a crime committed in Ħaż-Żebbuġ. In the late evening of 3 January 1825, four hooded men armed with knives forced their way in the home of Martino Abela in Sqaq Santa Marija, trussed him and his son up and beat them pitilessly. They robbed the sum of about 1400 scudi in Spanish doubloons and Sicilian piastre which were buried underground, some silver buckles and other loose money kept in a chest of drawers. The Governor offered the usual free pardon to the person who revealed his partners in crime accompanied by a reward of a hundred scudi, this time to be paid by the victim of the robbery.10

A lawyer, Dr Francesco Teodoro Bonanni (or Bonanno), was strolling leisurely down Strada Reale in Valletta in the evening of 23 September 1825 when two men hurtled towards him and grabbed his gold chatelaine in front of the Auberge d’Auvergne, today the Law Courts. The chain snapped and they made off with it, his fob-watch with a gold seal appended. As this kind of robbery, the Governor affirmed, was increasing in frequency, he was offering a free pardon to any co-thief who provided information leading to the arrest and arraignment of the principal robber. Additionally, the executive police added a reward of 50 scudi to any person who betrayed the delinquent.11 Dr Bonanno had obtained his lawyer’s warrant in 1778 and was considered one of the highest earners in the profession—4000 scudi a year.12

The unexplained homicide of Vincenzo Cucciardi, found lifeless in his home at 3, Tower Alley, Bormla, on 2 January 1829, prompted the LieutenantGovernor to guarantee immunity from prosecution to any accomplice who would reveal the identity of the killer and the circumstances surrounding this murder. As extra encouragement, the authorities also chipped in with a prize of a hundred pieces of silver to the sneak.13

This time round, the official bribe worked wonders. Francesco Attard, a notorious criminal, snitched on, and eventually gave evidence against the four murderers, Lorenzo Bonanno and his wife, Maddalena, Francesco Farrugia, and Luigi Darmanin. The court condemned the three men to death. They were hanged together on 3 February 1830, on the Floriana glacis, participating in the largest mass execution in British times. Maddalena suffered twenty years imprisonment.14

In another homicide in Siġġiewi, committed during the morning of 12 November 1829, Lorenzo Camilleri was found dead in his home at 32, Strada Nuova. The Siġġiewi parish records explain that Camilleri, a clericus (in minor orders), was 85-years old. Again, the clueless authorities, being unable to make any progress in the investigations, offered a free pardon to anyone who had aided and abetted the crime and was willing to provide information about it. A reward of a hundred pieces of silver also helped to persuade any accomplice to unburden his conscience. Differently from previous cases, the Notice makes it clear that the award would not be paid after the information had been given, but only after the accused was actually convicted.15

Burglars introduced themselves in the Valletta home of Fedele Agius, at 105, Old Mint Street, through a hole in the dividing wall of an adjacent property. They made off with about 400 scudi, comprising Spanish doubloons and coins of the Order of thirty tarì, and a considerable booty in gold and silver objects. The Government decreed that any accomplice who revealed information on the principal burglar would benefit from a free pardon. Over and above, Fedele Agius offered a reward of 150 scudi to anyone who provided information leading to solving the crime.16

During the night of 10 November 1831, the quiet village of Għargħur witnessed a burglary (entry using false keys) of a considerable hoard of gold and silver objects and money, from 3, Strada Nuova, the residence of Orazio Aquilina. The investigations made no headway, and the authorities offered the usual free pardon in the expectation that someone involved in the crime would crack. Aquilina himself added a bonus award of a 100 scudi.17

Giovanni Baldacchino who, on the eve of the feast of Santa Marija in 1833, was watching over the fields at Ta’ Birżebbuġa, limits of Gudja, found several unauthorised persons in his territory. He shouted for help and was shot twice with a gun or a pistol. Mortally wounded, he died soon after. The Governor publicised the usual offer of impunity from prosecution to anyone involved in the crime who would give the authorities information that would lead to the conviction of the assassins. A reward of 500 scudi would also be paid by the authorities to the informer, but only after the culprits had been tried and condemned.18

Unknown persons had broken in the safe of the Tripolitanian Brig Meshoud and had taken an impressive cache of jewellery and precious objects belonging to Hagi Mohmed Chalabi Betlemal. The investigation had hit a brick wall and the Lieutenant-Governor promised immunity from prosecution to any accomplice who would reveal the name of the principals. The robbed owner chipped in with a 1000 scudi reward to loosen the tongues of one or more of the culprits.19

The next Government Notice is possibly the most chilling of all. It admits to the impotence of the police in solving serious crime. It lists five homicides and attempted homicides unpunished because the investigators had no clue how to proceed. In the space of less than twelve months, five extremely grievous offences against the person had been recorded and not one had been cracked.

These included the femicide of Antonia Axiaq, found dead with her throat slit in her mezzanine at 94, Strait Street, Valletta, on 1 December 1836; Giuseppe Sultana from Gudja, discovered dead near his village on 1 August 1837, his body studded with wounds from cutting and pointed instruments; Carmelo Psaila from

Ħal Qormi, knifed to death on 8 October in a small farmhouse between Ħal Luqa and Ħal Qormi; Francesco Gristi, knifed concurrently by five assailants who had forced themselves into his residence in the limits of Ħaż-Żabbar; Benedetto Axiaq, assaulted by three persons on the road linking Ħal Luqa and Ħal Kirkop on the night of 11 November 1837. They subjected his person to violence and inflicted five wounds on his body, but he survived, miraculously.

The Governor, disconsolate that not one of these many crimes had been anything but solved, advertised the formulaic pardon to any accomplice who would reveal the names of the principals. The Governor also offered a prize of one hundred pounds sterling to any informer who would ensure a conviction in any of these crimes. This proves the first time that the award is expressed in British currency, stubbornly rejected as a means of exchange by the Maltese until the 1870s.20

And, finally, the murder of a priest. On 16 December 1840, the Reverend Fr Giovanni Claudio Farrugia was found ‘inhumanely killed’ in his residence at

47, Strada Scolastica, Birgu. The Government Notice describes this crime as ‘atroce omicidio’ and made available the usual immunity from persecution to any accomplice willing to spill the beans. A reward of one hundred pounds sterling would also be due to anyone whose spying ensured the conviction of the criminals.21

It is almost impossible to establish how many of these baits worked. Since the Notices never mention the names of unknown suspects, we cannot verify if any successful prosecutions were the result of an aider and abettor squealing following a promise of immunity.

The quest for justice relies on many factors. Sometimes justice has to seek alliances with criminals. Put that down as the lesser of two evils.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thanks to Fabian Mangion and to Anthony Mifsud for his assistance in researching the Siġġiewi parish records.

CAPTIONS

P.164 Thomas Goff Lupton reproduction after a painting by John Hoppner English, Portrait of Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Maitland, mezzotint on paper, 41.3 x 32.4cm. (Courtesy of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery)

P.167 Engraving showing the ‘Erection of the new iron sheers in Her Majesty’s Dockyard at Malta’, from The Illustrated London News. This is the site of an early attempt to blow up the explosives depot.

P.168 Copper 4 tarì coin (obverse and reverse) in circulation during the time of the Order. Counterfeit tarì coins of the Order flooded the market in 1819. Reverse (pictured): Clasped hands within a circle, with the value below, and the date above. Countermarks are randomly placed. The lettering reads: ‘NON AES SED FIDES (‘Not money but trust’), 1637, T.4.

P.172 Early twentieth-century photograph of Victory Square, Senglea. (Courtesy of the Giovanni Bonello Collection)

ENDNOTES

1 Giovanni Bonello, ‘Justice as a present from the Sovereign’, in The Times of Malta, 3, 10 January 2022.

2 See Anthony Zammit Gabarretta, ‘Sir Thomas Maitland and Mgr Ferdinando Mattei’, Melita Historica, Vol. 7 No. 2 (1977), 163-170.

3 Government Notice (GN), 13 September 1817.

4 GN, 18 September 1817.

5 Michela D’Angelo, Mercanti Inglesi a Malta (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1990), passim

6 GN, 29 December 1818.

7 GN, 7 June 1819.

8 GN, 8 August 1822.

9 GN, 21 December 1824.

10 GN, 10 January 1825.

11 GN, 4 October 1825.

12 Albert Ganado, Judge Robert Ganado (Malta: BDL Publishing, 2015), 244.

13 GN, 8 January 1829.

14 Eddie Attard, ‘Past cases of state evidence’, The Times of Malta, 1 May 2021.

15 GN, 8 January 1829.

16 GN, 8 November 1831.

17 GN, 19 November 1831.

18 GN, 17 August 1833.

19 GN, 3 December 1833.

20 GN, 16 November 1837.

21 GN, 16 December 1840.

How Early British Rule Affected the Legal Profession in Malta

‘The Judge should not be young: he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observance of the nature of evil of others: knowledge should be his guide, not personal experience.’

Plato

From a purely administrative point of view, round the turn of the eighteenth century, Malta passed, not quite seamlessly, through four changes of sovereignty.

Over 250-years-rule by the Order of St John gave way to Napoleon’s fleeting French period, on to the enigmatic interregnum when Malta belonged to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, but was de facto administered by British officials, to Britain’s capture of full sovereignty in 1813. A revolutionary roller coaster, all in the lightening space of fifteen years. Administrative continuity more or less prevailed throughout these otherwise turbulent years and this tends to evidence the solidity of the institutions put in place by the Knights and mostly manned by the natives.

This should not be taken to mean that nothing changed. Some things did. This chapter intends to map out how subsidiary legislation (proclamations, regulations, government notices) impacted lawyers. The judiciary, physicians, architects, and engineers in the early years of British rule may form the subject of future papers.

Lawyers continued to be churned out by the University of Malta, founded by the Knights in 1769. An 1816 government notice publicised the fact that an irate judge had recently abused the power to suspend an advocate from the exercise of his profession. The Government disapproved. It asserted that no judge had the right to suspend lawyers, except for ‘notorious, manifest and evident acts of corruption or unseemly conduct or for a positive act of contempt of court’. In all other cases, the judge had to report the lawyer to the Governor who would then deal with him as necessary.1

Various abnormal legal situations required the courts to appoint ‘curators’, for example, for absentees, interdicted persons, minors, prodigals, unborn children, unknown heirs, bankrupts. On these curators fell the responsibility of safeguarding the interests of persons or situations at a disadvantage. They were chosen by the Courts, but, up to 1827, no detailed structures regulated or disciplined them. A Proclamation of 21 July changed all that.

The Lieutenant-Governor, being anxious to see to the appointment of ‘honest and industrious curators … experienced and of integrity’, ordered the head

of the Courts to draw up lists of qualified advocates, notaries, and accountants to serve this purpose. These lists (elenchi) were to be displayed in the Court of Appeal, the Commercial Court and the two halls of the Civil Court. This explains why today, after almost 200 years, curators are still commonly referred to in Maltese as kuraturi tal-elenku.

Whenever the need arose for the nomination of curators, the Court was to name two, of whom one had be a lawyer and the other either a notary or an accountant, according to circumstances. Each lawyer was to be designated in turn by rotation, same for the notaries and accountants. Their fees were be split evenly between the two.

In case of malfeasance by any curator, the court was entitled to remove him and substitute him by the next one on the elenchi, without prejudice to any other criminal or disciplinary action.2

There were then new provisions regarding Advocates for the Poor and Crown Counsels. The Knights had in place a good system of free legal aid for those who could not afford litigation costs. In 1823, new legislation was enacted to regulate legal aid, and a government notice specified that the offices of Advocate and Assistant Advocate for the Poor should be for a term of one year and these should be selected from lawyers eligible ‘and among the most respected practitioners of these courts’ chosen on the recommendation of His Majesty’s judges.

The Notice specifies that the Advocate for the Poor for the next year was to be Dr Rodolfo Felice Vassallo, and his Assistant Dr Filippo Torregiani.3 Shortly later, Dr Torregiani became Advocate for the Poor, to replace Dr Filippo Bugeja who had been promoted to the Commercial Court instead of Dr Giovanni Vella.

Dr Aloisio/Luigi Bardon was to remain Assistant Advocate for the Poor.4

Subsidiary legislation about Crown Advocates appears more copious. The very first Government Notice targets an obvious conflict of interest. Since time immemorial, the Notice states, it had been the custom for the Crown Advocate to act as administrator of intestate property—that is the estates of those who died without a will—and to refer any controversy on his administration to the

Criminal Court of which he formed part. This appeared to the Government to be constitutionally wrong and to defeat the aims of substantial justice.

The Notice ordered the immediate cessation of this malpractice and directed that any complaints against the Crown Advocate regarding his administration of intestate property should fall under the competence of the regular (civil) courts.5

Two subsequent Notices appoint Mr Robert Forrest to act as Crown Advocate in 1815, and Dr Claudio Vincenzo Bonnici to replace Marquis Dr Francesco Alessi in 1817 in the same office.6

In the British period, I found only one official reference to a Fiscal Advocate, the Order’s designation for the lawyer tasked with criminal prosecutions. A Civil Employment Notice informs the public that Dr Francesco Teodoro Bonanno had been appointed to that post in 1814.7 Dr Bonanno is listed as the highestearning law professional in Malta.8 In my youth, the word fiskal was still current in Maltese to denote, in a derogatory manner, someone strict, unpardoning, devoted to formalities— ‘kemm hu fiskal!’

An important Proclamation regarding Crown Advocates was issued in 1832; quite an earthquake in reality: it abolished suddenly and with immediate effect the posts of Fiscal Advocate, Crown Advocate, Assistant Crown Advocate, and Co-Crown Advocates, and instituted instead the office of Crown Attorney General, conferring upon him all the functions previously exercised by the holders of the abolished posts. Those posts had always been held by Maltese lawyers, but the new appointee was British—Mr Robert Langslow (1790–1853).

The Proclamation threw at Langslow various prerogatives. In the ceremonial order of precedence, he ranked immediately after the judges and he also had right of audience in all the courts before any other advocate.

The office of Crown Attorney General also gave Mr Langslow a total immunity from suit. No one could sue him for acts or omissions in the performance of his functions. He did not have to take any oath of office, except

for those oaths prescribed by special laws for the assumption of offices of trust in His Majesty’s service.

The third prerogative sounds more problematic still. He was allowed private practice and the receipt of private emolument. He could advise and assist private clients and plead for them in any court, provided this was not in matters affecting the interests of the Government.

The Crown Attorney General was entitled to avail himself of the services of Maltese lawyers, specially handpicked by the Government and to be designated King’s Counsel. These would have right of audience in any court in Malta immediately after the Crown Attorney General, their order of preference established by the date of their appointment. All courts were to acknowledge the King’s Counsel as representatives of the Crown Attorney General, and they were to rank as Magistrates of Malta.

The final paragraph of the Proclamation ordains that nothing contained in it shall be construed as to render invalid or irregular anything done so far by

the holders of the abolished posts, but rather that anything started by them shall be continued by the new holders of office.9

A Government Notice published simultaneously has unusually flattering language. The Lieutenant-Governor acknowledges how zealous and capable Dr Emanuele Caruana and Dr Benedetto Bardon had always been in the discharge of their duties as Co-Crown Counsels and was therefore appointing them King’s Advocates in terms of the Proclamation.10 A Civil Employment Notice published the same day as the Proclamation records the appointment of Dr Emanuele Caruana and Dr Benedetto Bardon as King’s Advocates for Malta and of Dr Odoardo Dingli as King’s Advocate for Gozo.11

Robert Langslow is today in Malta not more than a footnote in legal publications. In his lifetime he was anything but. He came to Malta in 1832 and instantly attracted the admiration of Governor Fredrick Cavendish Ponsonby. Langslow was first cousin of the celebrated Victorian novelist William Makepeace Thackery, author of one of the most immortal English novels, Vanity Fair.

But the next Governor, Sir Henry Bouverie, could not stand him, referring to him as ‘an enemy of all persons in authority’. Contemporaries regarded him as ‘very eccentric, with a tendency to oppose all constituted authority’. Bouverie accused Langslow of having protected his son in the commission of a criminal offence.12

In a confidential dispatch to London, Bouverie wrote: ‘The conduct of Mr Langslow since I have been on the Island … has been one continued attempt to set himself up as a leader of a discontented and factious party, holding forth on all occasions upon subjects most likely to pervert the minds of the people and to embarrass the government’.

Albert V. Laferla, a competent historian who found nothing wrong in colonialism, still has acidic words for Langslow: ‘The two great demagogues in the island were the Chief Justice [Sir John Stoddart] and the Attorney General who were in perpetual feud with the government’. On Langslow he adds:

On one occasion, when his son was prosecuted for insulting the police, Langslow broke into the Police Court to browbeat the

Magistrate; on another, a second son had to be placed in the Main Guard by a soldier for misbehaviour and again there were scenes between the Attorney General and the court. A more improper person was never employed by any Government!13

Bouverie went as far as to abolish the post of Crown Attorney General just to get rid of him. Langslow found himself out of a job in Malta.

While Langslow was on the island, commissions made up of Maltese and British jurists started drafting new Codes for Malta. Langslow led the opposition to the stands taken by the Maltese. He wanted the authentic text to be the English one; he opposed the preference of the Maltese jurists to model the Codes on the new ones of the Two Sicilies and ridiculed their continental style of drafting. This brought the work of the commissions to a stalemate.14

When Langslow left Malta under a heavy cloud, he obtained employment in Ceylon as a judge, and there his legal trajectory mirrored his previous one in Malta. He made enemies everywhere by his turbulent and bizarre behaviour, starting by his advertising in the newspapers shortly after his appointment the sale of his legal library ‘solely because the owner has now ascertained that he cannot any longer afford, out of the small salary paid to him as a judge, to keep up a law library’ for the service of the government and the public. This advert raised a public uproar.

He was continuously at loggerheads with everyone. He reacted to a disagreement with the Attorney General by locking up all the court files and suspending court sittings indefinitely. The last straw was his public comment when the Supreme Court reversed a criminal sentence of imprisonment he had inflicted on Lieutenant Charles Vaughan Pugh for lashing a native with his whip. In no uncertain terms he showed his contempt for the Supreme Court judges who, on appeal, had acquitted Pugh. He could not see how the appeal judges could consider consistent with their oath of office their closing an eye on the accused’s conduct. Were he to try Pugh again, he asserted, he would see to it the accused would serve his term of imprisonment before the appeal was heard.

The Governor of Ceylon took the unprecedented step of suspending Langslow from the judiciary in December 1843; the Home Office then dismissed him in 1844 on charges of ‘dilatory justice, and insubordination and contempt towards the government’.15

Not surprisingly, Langslow did not take it lying down. He returned to England, canvassed some Members of Parliament and wangled the support of leading newspapers, like the Spectator and the Daily News. On 18 July 1847, the House of Commons held a full and heated debate about a motion of disapproval of the Government in the matter of Langslow’s dismissal. Various members from both sides of the House took part—the Hon. Bickham Escott, Benjamin Hawes, Sir John Hope, and Francis Baring. Escott revealed that one of the charges against Langslow’s behaviour in Malta was that ‘Langslow’s eldest son was constantly at issue with the police, whom he annoyed and insulted in every way. In most cases the [Maltese] Magistrates did their duty and fined the son’.

No, retorted Escott, that was a gross exaggeration—the son had only been arrested once, for smoking in the streets. I was not aware that this was a criminal offence in 1840s Malta.

The most interesting intervention was Lord Bentink’s, which contains plenty about Langslow’s behaviour in Malta.16 The House defeated the motion.

This background explains why Ordinance No. 1 of 1839 was enacted by the Governor in Council, following the advice of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, to abolish the posts of Attorney General and Queen’s Advocate and to reinstate the old designation of Crown Advocate.

As from 1 February 1839, the previous Proclamation of 1832 was repealed. A Government officer was to be appointed as Crown Advocate and he would assume all the functions previously exercised by the Co-Queen Advocates. The Crown Advocate was not to be entitled to any private practice or to give advice or to act as pleader in court in private matters. In case of any just impediment to act as Crown Advocate, a lawyer in Malta could be appointed by the Governor to exercise ad hoc the functions of Crown Advocate. Any proceedings already

started by the Attorney General before 31 January would be considered lawful and be taken up and continued by the Crown Advocate.17

A Civil Employment Notice informed that the Government had appointed Dr Giacomo Pantaleone Bruno as Crown Advocate, and Dr Benedetto Bardon a Magistrate for Gozo, instead of Dr Francesco Chappelle, now promoted to Judge.18

An 1842 Ordinance clarified that the prohibition contained in the 1839 Ordinance, whereby the Crown Advocate could not carry out any private practice, only applied to new clients and to legal work proposed after the appointment of Dr Bruno. He could still continue to service the clients he had before his nomination and appear for them in the court cases already opened.19

I will close with the Notice of the appointment of Dr Antonio Micallef to the post of Crown Advocate in 1843.20 Micallef, later Sir Antonio, was the first of a triad of really extraordinary jurists who later became Chief Justices and raised the prestige of the Maltese bench to unparalleled heights. The others were Sir Adriano Dingli and Sir Arturo Mercieca.

CAPTIONS

P.174 Old photograph showing the Castellania on Merchants’ Street, Valletta. The Castellania was the second building housing the Order’s law courts, completed in 1760 and last used in 1853. Everything connected with the legal profession and the judiciary happened here. (Courtesy of the Giovanni Bonello Collection)

P.179 A rare engraving of showing Magistrate Harper during a session at the Castellania, from Richard Taylor’s booklet Il-carnival ta’ Malta tat-Tnein u Għoxrin ta’ Frar Elf Tmiem Mija Sitta u Erbgħin, 22 February 1846. (Courtesy of the Albert Ganado Collection)

ENDNOTES

1 Government Notice (GN), 28 October 1816.

2 Proclamation, 21 July 1827.

3 GN, 24 June 1823.

4 GN, 6 April 1825.

5 GN, 4 October 1814.

6 GN, 27 June 1815, 13 October 1817.

7 Civil Employment Notice, 13 July 1814.

8 Albert Ganado, Judge Robert Ganado (Malta: BDL Publishing, 2015), 244.

9 Proclamation, 14 August 1832.

10 GN, 14 August 1832.

11 Civil Employment, 14 August 1832.

12 John Penry Lewis, List of inscriptions on tombstones and monuments in Ceylon (Colombo: H. C. Cottle, 1913), 237-239.

13 Albert V. Laferla, British Malta, Vol. 1 (Malta: Aquilina, 1976), 140, 150.

14 Hugh Harding, Maltese Legal History under British Rule (Malta: Progress Press, 1980), 335-337, 351353, 370-371.

15 Lewis (1913), 237-239

16 Hansard, 13 July 1847.

17 Ordinance No. 1 of 1839.

18 Civil Employment, 1 February 1839.

19 Ordinance No. 2 of 1842.

20 GN, 14 January 1843.

HOW

Homophobia in the Pre-1850 History of Malta

‘True law is right reason in agreement with Nature’.

Cicero

A chronicle of the evolution of sexual mores in Malta has not yet been written and, perhaps, may never be. Too much self-censorship and prurience attaches to any debate about the extent of the eros, a theme which invades private experience and evades public discussion.

An institutionalised aversion to homosexual behaviour is already recorded in Malta in the pre-Knights’ period. These early pointers leave no doubt that male gay activity officially ranked not only amongst the most grievous of sins in the eyes of the Church, but also amongst the most heinous of crimes in the eyes of the State. Almost invariably referred to obliquely as ‘crimen nephandum’ or ‘nefandum’, its very label is the mark of shame—‘the crime that cannot be mentioned’. Much less commonly the medieval records refer to it as ‘sodomia’ .

The very first mention I have found harks back to 1428. It is in a document relating to Malta housed in the Cancelleria Regia of Palermo. Notary Fridericus Calavà from Catania had been accused and found guilty in Malta after confessing to his misdeeds of the crime of sodomy. Calavà petitioned the Viceroy of Sicily to expunge that sentence, claiming that the Maltese judge was not competent to try him and that he had admitted to the crime after being threatened with torture. He pleaded with the Viceroy for ‘the restitution of his good reputation’. Notary Calavà later appears very active in Malta.1

The Capitoli of Malta to the Viceroy of Sicily, in 1449, also contain a reference to the ‘unmentionable crime’. The Capitoli were the formal vehicle for the local government based in Mdina to update the Viceroy with problems of governance and to request his instructions. They are usually written in old Chancery Sicilian. In the sixth chapter, the jurats of Mdina had recalled that, against payment of an annual sum, they had, in 1446, been granted the authority to try, per inquisitionem, crimes of homicide, ‘crimine nephandi’, treason, and heresy. In the eight chapter, the Mdina jurats petitioned the Viceroy to stop his commissioner from taking action while the appeal of the Università in cases of ‘crimen nephandum’ was still pending.2

HOMOPHOBIA

Nine years later, criminal prosecutions for the ‘crimen nephandum’ again take centre stage: should the ‘lex talionis’ (retaliation) apply to those who accuse others of the crime of sodomy? The jurats believed that this threat was keeping people back from pressing accusations of sodomy. The King of Sicily agreed.3

The new Castellan of Malta, Giovanni de Nava, apparently not a person with an impeccable criminal conduct sheet, in 1475, petitioned the Viceroy for a pardon and remission of all his previous crimes. In his regal generosity, the King of Sicily wiped the slate clean, pardoning every crime and misdemeanour but not those of treason, homicide, counterfeiting money, heresy, and sodomy, if de Nava had ever been guilty of such crimes. Sodomy was one of the few crimes that not even a monarch could pardon.4

The special status of sodomy in the hierarchy of crime is reiterated in a 1488 Maltese official document. Appointing Francesco de Abatellis as General Captain-at-Arms for the relief of Malta during the invasion and siege of the island by the Turks in 1488, the monarch conferred on him the authority to try all criminal offences except treason, heresy, sodomy, and uttering false coinage.5 The Turkish 1488 razzia had created a shortage of manpower in the islands, especially Gozo, and one of the measures to counteract it was a general amnesty of all delinquents, provided they returned to Gozo from wherever they had fled to within a month, and resided there. Quite predictably, this amnesty did not benefit those accused or condemned for crimes of treason, sodomy, or uttering false coins.6

It was Nicholas Lorgne (or Lorgue), the Grand Master who ruled the Order of St John between c.1277 and 1284, who seems to have been the first to classify ‘unnatural’ carnal offences as crimes punishable by expulsion from the brotherhood. He lists capital transgressions in diminishing order of iniquity: heresy, sodomy, murder, robbery, and desertion.7 This sets the scene for what was to come in the future. Homosexual acts are branded by Lorgne as ‘gravissima sceleratezza’

The official homophobia of the Order of St John has to be seen against the backdrop of the fate that befell its bitter rivals: the glorious Knights

HOMOPHOBIA

Templar. The most powerful military order in history had been destroyed, its members arrested and tortured, ostensibly for having fallen under suspicion of unnatural vice.

On Friday 13 October 1306, Philip the Fair, King of France, covetous of the Templars’ huge wealth and jealous of their power, in a police operation honed to perfection, arrested some 15,000 knights and dependents throughout France. The charges against them were absurd: homosexual practices, idolatry, heresy, and black magic. But the aims were ambitious: confiscation of the Templars’ flourishing treasury and estates.

The wily Philip realised that no better way to discredit an effulgent order of chivalry was open to him than by tainting its name with carnal offences ‘against nature’. The king achieved his designs. Friday the 13th became a day of ill omen. And the Knights of St John learned that they could not afford to show any leniency towards homosexuals.

Pietro Aretino (1492–1556) is among the most famous and infamous members of the Order of St John. He is today renowned for his devastating satirical wit and his notable literary achievements, but even more for being the lewdest pornographer since classical times. His lubricous Sonetti lussuriosi first printed c.1522, when other knights were shedding blood in Rhodes, are a riotous celebration of heterosexual copulation.8 But modern scholars also add to Aretino’s erotic menu his affairs with boys.9

No sooner had the Knights settled in Malta than the Order accused one of its members of the abominable crime: crimen nefandum. Fra Marianus Serranus was, in 1541, tried and convicted of sodomy. The Italian knight, the records say, had set the fear of God aside, and his sin merited special treatment. In fact, while previously the chilling ceremony of expulsion had always been carried out in the small chapel of St Angelo, for Serranus a new custom was introduced. For the first time the Assembly convened in the large Conventual church of St Lawrence in Birgu, by the solemn ringing of bells, and there the dejected knight was thrown out ‘like a corrupt and decomposed limb’.

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IN THE PRE-1850 HISTORY OF MALTA

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That was not to be the end of the Serranus story. Shortly later, the Council of the Order was informed that Serranus, after admitting (under torture?) to the unmentionable crime, had escaped from prison; he was expelled from the Order two days later.10

Not long after, another Italian knight incurred the supreme penalty. Fra Nicola Carratello, ‘having neglected the fear of God, invaded by diabolical spirit, lived and behaved so impudently and inconsiderately that he lusted against nature [contra naturam luxuriasse]’. Grand Master de Valette, in 1562, appointed a special commission to apprehend the scoundrel, guilty of such crimen nefandum.11

Shortly after, just two years before the Great Siege, de Valette again had trouble with homosexual members of the Order. He appointed commissioners to investigate ‘the abominable acts against nature, or rather, the horrible crimes committed by some brothers’. Differently from other occasions. the commissioners were expressly ordered to subject the ‘criminal suspects and wrongdoers’ to torture and to have their bodies twisted (‘torqueri faciant’) to extract the truth.12

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From then, up to the end of that century, there is a veritable flood of prosecutions against knights for homosexual practices. In 1564, one year before the Great Siege, Fra Alvaro Fasano stood accused of the unnatural crime before Judge Nicholas De Naro (Denaro?), later substituted by Judge Antonio Bonello.13 My distressed ancestor seems to have had a hard nut to crack. The records later describe Fasano as one ‘convicted of many crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment’. But, like many before and after him accused of serious offences, including sodomy, Fasano fled from jail and disappeared.14 I cannot help feeling that many of these ‘escapes’ from prison, including Caravaggio’s, were a diplomatic stratagem fostered by the authorities, a way out of embarrassing predicaments.

Fra Leonardo Latre comes next in line for prosecution in 1570. He was found guilty of sodomy and deprived of the ‘habit’; so were Fra Iacobo Gucci from Florence and Fra Cesare de Toti, who had helped Latre hide from justice. The good heart of Grand Master Pietro del Monte later forgave the two accomplices.15

The following year, the clumpy hand of justice fell heavily on a trio of knights, together with their boyfriends, all ‘accusatos nefando flagitio’ . They were Fra Luca Garibo, Fra Guillielmum Bier, and Fra Gregorius Iaxi.16 But a fourth knight, Fra Claude de Angeville, separately accused of unnatural offences, met with better fortune: the Council cleared him of all guilt, the indictment being sine causa. Acquittals after formal prosecution were particularly rare.

Not so lucky was Fra Francois de Sodegles (or Sotegles), just then turning eighteen.17 The poor kid was, in 1573, declared guilty of sodomy, publicly disgraced, expelled from the Order, and handed over to the lay jurisdiction for further criminal prosecution. I dread to think what fate awaited him there.18

1573 was certainly not a propitious year for homosexual knights in the Order of St John. Fra Geronimo Solima from Messina, who had only been in the Convent for seven years, was arrested together with his ‘partners’ (not knights; they would otherwise have been mentioned by name). The Council ordered that they should all be tortured until a full confession was extorted.

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The next to suffer the rigours of the current homophobia was another knight, also from Messina, Fra Antonio (Nino) Compagna, expelled ignominiously from the Order for having been caught indulging in the crimen nefandum. 19 His sentence seems, however, to have been commuted as, some years later, in 1596, he was still in Malta, a member of the Order of St John.20

The Carafa family, among the most illustrious throughout Italy, eventually gave the Order one of its Grand Masters and to the Church a Pope, Paul IV, ‘the terrifying old man’, together with various Cardinals, one of whom was executed by Pope Pius IV. This eminence did not save the family from the bane of homosexual humiliation in Malta. Fra Giovanni Tommaso Carafa, admitted as a youth in the Order in 1578, was expelled eight years later and condemned to prison on bread and water ‘propter crimen pessimum, magnum eccessum et flagitium’ . 21

The sixteenth century ended badly for Fra Antonio Piccione. The ‘pessimo crimine’ of his sexual orientation attracted the censure of the then moribund Grand Master Hugues Loubenx de Verdalle.22 Fra Antonio was, at the same time, in trouble with the Inquisition for denouncing the Catholic faith.23

It is difficult not to overlook the fact that the overwhelming majority of those accused of homosexual practices were Italian knights, even though the Italian langue was numerically smaller than the French and Spanish ones. Of course, as in the case of syphilis, every nation enjoyed associating anything deemed negative with neighbouring or rival states. Some countries called sodomy ‘the Italian vice’.24 The Scotsman William Lithgow, who visited Malta in 1611, defined Italy ‘the Mother and Nurse of Sodomy’. An anonymous English pamphlet of 1749 confirms this. Sodomy, says the author, was excused as being fashionable. ‘Damn’d Fashion! Imported from Italy amidst a Train of other unnatural Vices’.25 Not without reason, it seems, if the Maltese experience is anything to go by, sodomy was associated with Italy.

The seventeenth century saw other knights of the Order of St John punished for homosexual behaviour. Fra Hans Heinrich van Closen was imprisoned in Bavaria in 1623 ‘because of his relations with a young trumpet player’.26

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When Bartolomeo dal Pozzo, in 1738, published his roll of all the knights ever received in the Italian langue, most of those convicted of sodomy are ignored and not mentioned by name. Other knights expelled from the Order for grave misdemeanours are, but total oblivion awaited those guilty of homosexual offences.27

Concurrently with the Carratello scandal, the stern Spaniard, Domenico Cubelles, first Roman Inquisitor to Malta, included unnatural vice among the offences against the faith which fell under his jurisdiction.28 Why was the Inquisition, established to deal with heresy and errors of the faith, concerned with homosexual orientation? The answer comes from St Thomas Aquinas, the most influential of the Catholic theologians. Sodomy, he taught, a deviation from the natural order laid down by God (sex programmed exclusively for reproduction) was not only unnatural, but heretical too, and thus good fodder for the Inquisition?29

Very scant evidence survives that the Inquisition actually made use of its sweeping powers to castigate what it deemed unnatural profligacy. But the same William Lithgow claims he saw with his own eyes in Malta a Spanish soldier and his young Maltese boyfriend being burnt to ashes by the Inquisition ‘for the public profession of Sodomy’. The same witness records how over a hundred boy prostitutes (bardassos) escaped precipitously from Malta to Sicily on a small galleon ‘for feare of fire’.30 Fabio della Lagonessa’s reputation of being among the most relentless of the Inquisitors had the desired effect.

In 1534, another knight suffered the rigours of the law for gambling with the hazards of sexual diversity. Fra Joannes Ortis addressed another knight as ‘cornuto e pedicone’ Four and a half centuries have not dimmed the splendours of the first insult; it is still alive and flourishing today. Shakespeare flaunted it, in Italian, in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Not so pedicone, a terrible slur reserved for men who indulged in intercourse with boys. Ortis spent four long months in cavea in Gozo to atone for his indiscretion.31

The renowned German poet Friedrich Schiller based his unfinished dramatic composition, Die Malteser, on the Great Siege of Malta. In it figure two

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heroic knights, St Priest (an illegitimate son of Grand Master de Valette) and Crequi, who lived the hostilities as an ardent gay relationship. One of the few members of the Order who put up a brave resistance to Napoleon’s invasion of Malta in 1798, the daring Commander of Fort Tigné, Fra Joseph Maria von Rechberg, was known as the lover of young Baron von Erdt, and proved inconsolable when his partner died in 1804.32

The same rumours circulated about the well-known knight and popular historian of the Order Fra Louis Boisgelin de Kerdu, reputed hunter of Maltese boys, who always travelled in the company of his army friend, Alphonse de Fortia de Piles.33

Gay liaisons were by no means the prerogative of the Knights of St John. There are also recorded instances of laymen and ecclesiastics. Early records show Nicola Pietro Xuereb, a Maltese law student at the University of Naples, living with Francesco de Buzietta in 1552 ‘like, it is said, one soul in two bodies’.34

The two, as was universally known, ‘committebant crimen nefandum’.35 Xuereb was later to have major problems with the Inquisition; not, primarily, for his sexual orientation, but for his sympathies with Lutheran and Calvinist literature.

The same gay law student happened to be a first cousin of an eminent Maltese lawyer, Dr Francesco Xerri, who became judge and who also fell foul of the Inquisition, suspected of collusion with the Lutherans.36 Finding himself in the net of the fearsome Inquisition, possibly through the machinations of his sworn enemies, the Inguanez clan, Xerri spilled the beans. The judge recounted how Julio Xeibe had tried to influence him in the trial of a man accused of sodomy. But Xerri was above corruption. He still proceeded with the torture of the homosexual, notwithstanding Xeibe’s pressures.37

Dr Matteo Brunet, a turbulent French surgeon employed at the Sacra Infermeria, though a husband and father of two unmarried daughters, was, in 1575, reported to the Inquisitor as a sodomite and heretic. His accusers added that whenever he saw handsome teenage boys he would exclaim: ‘What a choice morsel for the knights and the Pope!’— various popes having been tainted with

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rumours of homosexual excesses. The Inquisitor eventually condemned Brunet to exile in Sicily.38

The Order’s draconian views on ‘unnatural’ offences did not prevent it, in 1607, from welcoming to Malta and into its folds the painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, possibly, though by no means certainly, a lover of men.39

Misdemeanours for which a knight could be expelled from the Order were quite few, and these included the unmentionable sodomy. During his stay in Malta, Caravaggio formed a close circle of friends. These included Fra Giulio Accarigi, who later reached the highest summits in the Order. But, in 1594, before Caravaggio landed in Malta, Fra Giulio had been convicted of having, in Siġġiewi, violated the body of his young servant, Michele Cutajar, ‘in inhonesto et turpi modo’—‘in an indecent and lewd manner’.40 Anthony Mifsud, the Siġġiewi historian, actually traced Cutajar’s birth in the parish registers. He was born on 18 September 1574, son of Leonardo.41

The very year Caravaggio was admitted to the Order, Inquisitor Leonetto della Corbara busied himself investigating a knight charged with blasphemy. Among various revolting oaths the knight was accused of sprinkling his outbursts with, was ‘ buzarrone de’ Dio ’ , meaning ‘Sodomite of God’. 42 The insult buġarrun, still current in Malta, no doubt derives from the obsolete Italian buzarrone.

At that time, sodomy was not only deemed a moral disorder—it could be decreed as a punishment. The renowned corsair Alonso de Contreras was working for the Order of Malta. He captured the Hungarian concubine of Soliman, the Bey of Chios. As rumours spread that Contreras had made her his mistress, the enraged Soliman had the pirate’s portrait displayed in the major ports of Barbary and the Levant, and, in absentia, condemned the corsair to be impaled, but only after having been sodomised by six negroes.43

Another Maltese corsair too, had trouble with homosexual activity on board his ship. Sued on his return in 1661 for incompetence by those who had financed his piracy, Aloisio Gamarra recounted all the difficulties he had

encountered on the trip. One related to his problems with the pilot, who had fallen in love with the cabin-boy, as a result of which he had to dismiss them both.44

Homosexual activities on vessels seem to have been common. The Roman surgeon Stefano Nisi, stationed on the Maltese corsair frigate Santa Croce, reported that a Maltese member of the crew, Lorenzo Stafraci, kept the youth Salvatore Fsadni on board to satisfy his lust.45 A more serious incident occurred on a Turkish caique. The ship’s cook had taken a shine to Joannis, a Greek Christian slave, and had tried to sodomise him with violence. The Greek resisted and stabbed the cook to death. Condemned to be executed, he took the easy way out and converted to Islam. As apostasy was a capital offence against the faith, on Joannis’ return to Malta, the Inquisitor, rather than the ordinary tribunals, had to deal with this case.46

The early period of the Knights’ rule coincided with a spate of sporadic transvestite activity. A great tumult occurred during the 1537 Christmas midnight Mass at the church of the Annunciation in Birgu, when it was discovered that two women who had introduced themselves in the pious congregation were in fact the Castilian knights Fra Pedro de Anaja and Fra Cristophoro Trocha in drag. What could have started as a joke in dubious taste ended in a riot, with duels, bloodshed, expulsions from the Order, and long imprisonment in Gozo.47

In another example, Fra Francois La Douser in 1566 walked around dressed in female clothes. Apprehended, he tried to hide his identity, but with little success, and his penalty was one year in turris.48

Two years later, a repeat of the Christmas fracas—this time during the Holy Saturday functions. Some knights entered the church of the Annunciation at Birgu in female clothing, posing as women. They were arrested and tried.49

The bane of cross-dressings spared no class or profession. In 1574, the Inquisitor hauled before the Tribunal the parish priest of Siġġiewi, Don Jacobo Calleja, who, witnesses swore, roamed the village at night wearing women’s clothes.50 Indeed, cross-dressing appears repeatedly in the records. In 1639, four felons had taken sanctuary in the convent of St Dominic, Valletta, where the

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police authorities could not arrest them. A group of knights took the law in their hands and anyway violently broke into the convent. They apprehended the delinquents. One, a Sicilian murderer by the name of Giacomo Calli, was wearing female clothes.51

The archives do not always give a clear indication whether these transvestites strutted around in female attire for the kick of it, or in the hope of mixing unobserved with the ladies, or even as a disguise to evade recognition or capture. At a time when the Church strictly segregated the men from the women in places of worship, knights might have resorted to cross-dressing to be able to rub shoulders with the ladies without undue hazard. Any disguise in clothing was considered an offence. Later, when Grand Master De Rohan codified the statutes, special regulations were introduced to stem this abuse.52

Malta achieved international fame in the nineteenth century with a case of cross-dressing that made European headlines, when it was discovered, during the 1865 autopsy of Dr James Barry, the principal medical officer of the British military services in Malta for almost five years, that the cadaver was in fact that of a woman who had masqueraded all her life as a male. She had proved a very competent physician and surgeon, and she was, in fact, the first British female ever to graduate as a doctor. Barry had managed to keep up the deception from her university days up to her death at the age of seventy.53

There is a marked shift from the austerity of the moral codes of the first and those of the last centuries of the Order’s presence in Malta. While homosexual activity seems to have been actively repressed in the earlier times, the laxity of the Baroque era reflected itself even on the way different sexual orientation was treated later. This relaxation defied the officially uncompromising stance of the Roman Church. In 1665, Alexander VII, the Chigi Pope, formerly Inquisitor in Malta,54 published his famous ‘condemned propositions’. The twenty-fourth deals with sodomy.55 No doubt, his delegate in Malta, the Holy Inquisitor Mgr Galeazzo Marescotti, was directed to give maximum publicity to the Pope’s injunction.

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In this, Alexander VII was following the lead of Pius V, the great benefactor of the building of Valletta, who went on wearing his monk’s frock under the pontifical robes and survived on vegetable broth and molluscs. One of his very first acts on election to the papacy immediately after the Great Siege of Malta was an edict against sodomy and concubinage.

St Carlo Borromeo, whose relics are venerated in St John’s Co-Cathedral, uncle of the Maltese Inquisitor Federico Borromeo, seems to have been the first to distinguish between the moral turpitude of male and female homosexual sin. Sodomy was a sin against nature liable to seven to fifteen years penance; lesbian intimacy, only a sin of lust, subject to just two years spiritual punishment.56

Giacomo Capello, the Venetian envoy to Grand Master Perellos, in his secret report on the state of the Order in 1716, observes that ‘Pride, concubinage, adultery and sodomies … are the order of the day’. Among his acquaintances in Malta, Capello lists Fra Oratio Zandedonio (Sansedoni) from Siena, of ‘beautiful appearance’, popularly known as ‘buco d’oro’ (‘golden anus’).57

The rule laid down by the wayward Grand Master Raymond Zacosta, elected in 1461, that knights were not to sleep naked in the galleys during the Order’s caravans, was revived in 1782.58 It had been suppressed in the 1676 edition of the Order’s statutes.59 Incidentally, Zacosta is the only Grand Master to have his tombstone in St Peter’s, Rome. Maybe the rule was meant to safeguard personal morality in the crowded, all-male confines of the ships, or perhaps the lawmaker wished to ensure that the knights were always at the ready for combat when on the high seas.

Bishop Davide Cocco Palmieri, in the Synod of 1703, classified reserved mortal sins: those with the penalty of excommunication, and those without. Only cohabitation before marriage and abortion carried automatic excommunication. Sodomy, incest, carnal intercourse with heathens, and rape, were still mortal sins to be absolved by the bishop personally but did not incur any special penalties.60

In 1716, Malta was shocked by a particularly prurient scandal. Twelve (some say sixteen) French knights had set up a secret society variously called The

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IN THE PRE-1850 HISTORY OF MALTA

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Order of the Drinking Glass or Edamus et titamus. Wild rumours spread about this ‘diabolical sect’. Not least, the people believed that the members had taken an oath that they would only have sex with boys. The Inquisition got wind of the secret confraternity and started a painstaking investigation. Only one of the members was eventually disciplined. The records preserve the names of some of these knights, among them a certain ‘Santre Commander of the Warships’. This is probably Fra Jean Francois Chevestre de Cintray, who achieved fame as a naval warrior. Perellos appointed him Ambassador to Rome; he appears to have cultivated a refined taste for music. Balì Chambray put up a splendid marble tombstone in St John to preserve his memory.61

This ‘Maltese’ club for homosexual knights could have taken inspiration from a like-minded institution founded in Paris by the Duke de Gramont at the end of the seventeenth century, of which the French knights of Malta, De Fillodet, Manicamp, and the Marquis de Bizan, had been admitted as members.62

Men in holy orders, priests, friars, and monks are sometimes mentioned in the records charged with or suspected of homosexual liaisons. In fact, the early registers of the Inquisition show that between the years 1561 and 1575 four persons were investigated by the Inquisitors of charges of sodomy. These included the monks Fr Battista Agliarda of Valletta, charged in October 1574 with carnal relations with a Gozitan worker, and Fr Geronimo from Catania, Guardian of the Friar Minors, for his affair with Fr Agostino.63 Fr Giacinto Maggi, parish priest of Porto Salvo, St Dominic, Valletta, kissed and fondled a youth ‘with an impure love’ and, later, ‘with words and actions’ which showed his ‘dishonest intent’ towards another young man.64

More significant are the misadventures of Padre Pasquale Vassallo, a turbulent Dominican friar from Ħaż-Żebbuġ. The Inquisition tried him in 1584 for having wounded his superior, Fr Damiano Buttigieg, and for indulging in sex with the Mdina youth Andrea Castelletti. His grooming included writing love poems, in Maltese and Italian, to various handsome lads of the leading families of Mdina: Giovanni Maria Cassia, Giacomo Leonardo Surdo, Giovanni Maria

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Zammit, Girolamo Attard, and his toy boy Castelletti. Admitting the charges of sodomy, the Inquisition found him guilty and exiled him from Malta. Sadly, it also ordered the destruction of the quaderno of love poems in Maltese, the second set of verses in Maltese recorded after Caxaro’s Cantilena. 65

Another Dominican friar, Padre Menzionat, took the young Domenico Vella to a room overlooking the yard of the convent and started kissing him and ‘trying to know him carnally’. On a different occasion, he tore down the trousers of Antonio Farrugia and forced him on a bed to sodomise him. Padre Rosario Bugeja, also a Dominican friar, was in the Inquisitor’s book on charges of sodomy. In another instance, the Capuchin Padre Fortunato di Malta spontaneously confessed to the Inquisitor, in 1786, that he regularly had anal intercourse with his friend, the surgeon Dr Michel’Angelo Garroni, in Gozo. Elsewhere, Padre Serafino waited for the other friars to return to their cells after Matins and then visited another friar furtively to copulate with him.66

A curious case of clerical incontinence is recounted in 1603. Salvator Lombardo from Valletta was in Mdina to visit his sister in a nunnery in the old capital, together with his young friend Gioanne Battista Aurisi. Since darkness had fallen, they decided to request permission to sleep at the Augustinian convent in Rabat. They were given a bed to share, while the prior and a foreign friar shared a bed nearby. At some time, the foreign friar left his bed, snuggled close to Aurisi and attempted to sodomise him.67 That Augustinian convent then had an unsavoury reputation. The Prior, Padre Vincenzo Carnisi, was reputed implacable in sodomising the young novices entrusted to his care.68

If there was a relaxation in the official attitudes towards gay activity by members of the Order, there certainly was none where lesser mortals were concerned. In 1611, a freed Jewish thirty-six-year-old slave recently converted to Christianity, Luis de Mendoza Gonzales, was condemned to death charged with sodomy. He was then serving in the house of his master, Don Pietro Gonzales, in Valletta. He vehemently denied guilt and refused the Christian rites as he wanted to die in the Jewish faith, asserting his innocence to his last breath.69

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The vast colony of Muslim Ottoman slaves, mostly Turkish and African, also created recurrent problems for the State’s unrelenting war on homosexuality. In 1691, Grand Master Adrien de Wignacourt issued a formal Bando criminalising any intercourse between Christians and slaves to prevent ‘the execrable crimes that are wont to be committed through the intercourse and friendships which such infidels had with young beardless youths and with dishonest and scandalous women’.70

In the late seventeenth century, the mother-in-law of Michele Farrugia denounced him to the Inquisition for preferring to be buggered by infidel slaves rather than fulfilling his marital duties with her daughter. His entertainment resulted in being infected with anal venereal disease.71

In 1742, the adolescent Gio Batta Calamatta was arrested together with a slave who worked at the foundry of the Order while they were in the tavern of Antonio Sammut, known as ‘il-bar’ . The authorities charged the three of them with sodomy. Calamatta suffered perpetual exile in France, and the slave a lifetime rowing in the galleys. Sammut was deemed an accomplice but succeeded in escaping and seeking asylum in a church. But he was then apprehended in Santa Venera and also condemned to perpetual exile.72

On 8 August 1744, Deli Manset, a slave working at the Order’s bakery, made overt advances to a young clerk, Alessio Lauron, attempting ‘l’enorme delitto della sodomia’ . On being rejected, Manset brandished a knife ‘senza però gran danno’ . Pinto had him hanged publicly that very day, by direct order, without trial.73 The Inquisitor Paolo Passionei, who had a lot to be forgiven for where the frailty of the flesh was concerned, sent a detailed account of the incident to Rome; this varies only slightly from that of the diarist Reboul. According to Passionei, the blow was so vicious that the knife broke in Lauron’s shoulder blade.74

Shortly later, in October, a Maltese inhabitant stood accused in court of ‘indecencies with slaves’. The judge, to avoid reviving unpleasant memories, condemned him to ten years exile in Gozo without hearing the evidence. The Grand Master disapproved of the lenient sentence and changed his penalty to serving ten years hard labour in the ditches.75

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The handsome and ripped black slave Harrat was welcome at the house of the spouses Antonio and Maria Psaila in Valletta. Taking advantage of this familiarity, he sodomised in turn each of their three sons. Some slaves ended passive receivers. Two baptised Muslims, Ignatio Calleja and Natale Vassallo, became popular minions at the Bagno degli schiavi, offering sexual favours to Turks and Christians alike, entirely without discrimination.76

A slave features again in a homosexual incident shortly later. It is recorded that, in February 1745, a judge was about to acquit a slave at the end of a trial for sodomy, owing to conflicting evidence. Grand Master Pinto came to know of this and would have none of it. He ordered that the slave be sent to row in the galleys during the Grand Master’s pleasure.77

Grand Master Pinto took steps to avoid gay abuses. The Inquisitor had long protested against pages and young knights playing female roles in the theatre. That was seen as unbecoming and a source of scandal.78 But Pinto himself was not above suspicion. An anonymous French moralist, writing in 1790, accused him of organising ‘coccagne’ behind closed doors at the Palace, in which naked young men took part:

Pinto often enjoyed staging these coccagne, but of a different nature. In the Grand Hall of the Palace, he constructed a trellis, similar to the one used in the Square. Instead of farm-animals (as prizes), gold and silver trinkets of all kinds were hung. The doors of the Palace were firmly locked after the persons who had to take part in the games were introduced. All these, stark naked, raced at a certain signal, climbing from all sides, and thus gave spectacle to the sensual Portuguese. You can guess what followed the pillage.79

Of course, the accuracy of this libel remains highly suspect. It was maliciously written and deliberately circulated to destroy the authority and the credibility of the Order at a time when the French Revolution saw in the autocratic enclave a

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challenge to its political goals. Professor Alain Blondy has, rather convincingly, attributed the two volumes by Carasi to a group of freemasons from Lyon, who, in a joint venture, set out to discredit the Order.80 Whatever the authorship, the phantom ‘Carasi’ has always to be handled most critically, particularly when he postulates moral indignation, as when he describes the sexual habits of the knights at the time of De Rohan:

There is then a far more serious offence which these false defenders of Christianity, these models of all virtue, do not blush from indulging in. I am not saying that all of them are guilty of a crime for which nature shows indignation; what I am saying is that some are guilty of these contradictions. There are some beardless Italians, so low, so corrupt, as to struggle for the eminence of being the darling of a Balì.81

‘Carasi’ ends his exposé by reproducing in full a harrowing sonnet, in Italian, current at that time, in which Malta is referred to as ‘di Sodoma e Gomorra esempio vero ’ . ‘If you do not set Malta on fire’, the poet exclaims addressing the Lord, ‘then I will say that you are a treacherous God who shuns the just and exalts the evil’.82

The author also includes in the same work the story of Pichon la Saone, a soldier of the Regimento di Malta from Macon who had to be treated for venereal disease which the soldier Taumaré had infected him with during their intimacy.83

The Muslim slave community in Malta seems to have disapproved of gay sex as much as its Christian counterpart. In 1745, a prominent slave who had been in command of a galliot before his capture spontaneously reported to the public prosecutor of Malta that two young Muslim slaves who worked in the cotton mill had been seduced by a co-slave twice their age who worked in the same cotton mill.84

Another victim of a violent homosexual assault was a ten-year-old boy, raped by the Manoel Theatre’s carpenter, in 1771, during a comedy. The child ended badly hurt by the dreadful sodomia, and the carpenter was condemned to row in the Order’s galleys for life.85

Fortunately, it was not all grim tragedy. Occasionally some black humour lightens the dreary scene of prohibited sex. A 1759 diary records the bawdy trick played by two local painters on a Turkish Maronite priest. Wanting to give himself a noble coat of arms, he commissioned a local artist to create one for him. Imagine his surprise when the painter, Fortunato, having consulted a fellow artist, presented him with a coloured sketch of his new heraldic device. This consisted of the façade of a house against a blue background, showing a huge male organ rising from the door and other smaller ones dangling from the windows. The unfortunate Turk’s name was Zobbaddar, and this the painters interpreted very literally in Maltese. Not at all amused, the irate Turk reported the mishap to Grand Master Pinto who locked up the two impenitent artists in jail.86

Lesbian relations did not attract the heavy censure that all-male affairs did. They were either dismissed as not sinful or criminal at all, or as wrong, but to a far lesser degree. Don Pietro Paolo Callus, a debauched priest from Senglea, claimed that such intimacy amongst women is not sinful.87 A woman from Siġġiewi echoed the same view: ‘it is not a sin to mix two women carnally’.88

In 1702, the thirty-one-year-old Anna Zammit from Ħaż-Żebbuġ, who enjoyed a reputation of a living saint, ended in front of the Inquisitor’s tribunal accused of a bisexual relationship with the priest Don Bartolomeo Bonnici, and with his sister, the tertiary Suor Rosaria. Zammit was charged with having intimacy with both, together and separately, caressing, masturbating, and touching the intimate parts of her body with those of Don Bartolomeo and with Rosaria. Anna justified herself that those threesomes would free them from the evil passion of lust. Suor Rosaria, on her part, said she had such unshakeable faith in Anna’s sanctity that it did not occur to her that they were doing anything sinful.89

The Inquisition had to deal with another case of lesbian ardour in 1755. Anna Vassallo from Balzan was concurrently having sex with three unmarried women, Catarina ‘ta’ Navarina’, from Valletta, Vittoria, daughter of Giuseppe ‘ta’ Misbalna’, also from Balzan, and Maria, known as ‘ta’ Ittruscia’. She had

HOMOPHOBIA

HOMOPHOBIA IN THE PRE-1850 HISTORY OF MALTA

been told that such ‘dishonest touchings’ were not sinful and so saw no reason to stop her same-sex practices.90

A human concern for the grave psychological problems of transsexuals was evidenced by the authorities in 1774. Rosa, or Rosaria, Mifsud, from Luqa, about seventeen-years old, had, at birth, been baptised as a female. Her voice was, however, masculine, and her torso showed no signs of mammary development. Rumours had been circulating that Rosaria made passes at women who came to her father’s shop to buy cereals. ‘She used to choose the prettiest of the girls and then caress her. She gave them gifts to be intimate with them. She took the female shoppers to a room, accosted them, and offered them wares for free … there was great fear she could easily get one of the women pregnant’.91 Mifsud petitioned the Grand Master to decree that she be recognised as a male. Ximenes set up a board of surgeons who examined Mifsud minutely. They left a very detailed account of their findings, describing abundantly the various male and female genital peculiarities they observed. The surgeons concluded that ‘we are of the opinion that the male sex is the dominant one, though the person examined is incapable of procreation’. A second opinion was sought, and a commission made up of seven eminent medics examined Mifsud again, reaching the same conclusions. Instead of having to go through the humiliation of inconclusive human rights proceedings, the Grand Master sanctioned the sex change, ordering Mifsud henceforth to wear only male clothes.92

A far more shocking case of ‘pseudo-hermaphroditism’ concerned one of Malta’s leading scholars, Mgr Onorato Bres, author of Malta Antica Illustrata, the first serious survey of our pre- and early history. Bres (1753–1818) had a brilliant ecclesiastical and juridical career, making a name for himself as a savant and a patriot. In his old age he was accused in Frosinone, where he was Apostolic Delegate, of ‘lewd acts against nature’. His defence was that the charge could not be true as he was a ‘hermaphrodite’, and he submitted himself to a medical examination. The man died shortly after in Viterbo, heartbroken.93

Intersex individuals evoked the same morbid curiosity in Malta as they did in the rest of Europe. The library of the knights housed at least two scientific

HOMOPHOBIA

works dealing with the phenomenon, one in English, dated 1741, and the other in French, published in 1765.94

If ‘Carasi’, mentioned earlier, had helped to destroy the Order in Malta, it was only to have it replaced by the British domination. As far as tolerance to same-sex attraction was concerned, nothing much changed. Lord Byron could, in 1811, come to Malta and flaunt his boyfriend, Nicolò Giraud, to all and sundry.95 That provocation does not seem to have disadvantaged him in any way in official eyes.

The stigma of homosexuality, however, persisted. In the 1830s, the Reverend Fr Giuseppe Carmelo Gristi composed a fictional catalogue of books said to have been written by eminent Maltese, his contemporaries.96 The titles of the books turn into perfect giveaways for the persons satirised. The Reverend Provincial Conti is credited with a History of Sodom and Gomorrah, while Don Giuseppe Lanzon is the author of two books: Sequel to the History of Sodom and Gomorrah by Father Conti and On the Beauty of Boys. But Gristi reserves his cruellest barb for the Marquis Gioacchino Ermolao Barbaro, the effete poet. Gristi attributes to him a grand epic, named Il Culiseo, a vulgar pun on the Roman arena, il Colosseo.

When good, caustic Gristi wrote his poisoned satires, a book called The Medicine against Passions was enjoying a wide run in Malta. It was a standard moral guidebook, designed to deflect the masses from the tyranny of lust. ‘In vain’, writes the author about deviant sex, ‘did the fires of heaven fall on Sodom and Gomorrah, in vain did the anger of God burst out in new punishments: shamelessness never ceased to wreak havoc’. The abominable sin97 spread throughout Greece; the schools of philosophy became the homes of lust and the grand models of friendship left by paganism often turn out to be nothing but infamous depravity hiding behind fair appearances.98 This moralist, a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Paris, had a ready remedy for every evil. Parents, he instructs, should tie up their children’s arms and hands at all times, if they cannot be properly watched, to prevent any likelihood of self-abuse.

HOMOPHOBIA

One would have thought that with the change of flag, the new British regime would have proved less homophobic and more liberal than the previous theocracy of the Order. Nothing of the sort. By a formal Proclamation, issued on 4 April 1823, Governor Sir Thomas Maitland confirmed the death penalty for homosexual acts committed with violence, and solitary confinement and perpetual exile for consensual ones. The chilling wording of the Proclamation deserves to be repeated: His Excellency the Governor is pleased to order and decree as follows: that all lewd, abominable and nefarious acts of incontinence, being acts against nature, shall, if performed with violence, be punished with death of the person who has used violence; if otherwise, with the lash and with solitary confinement on bread and water for one year, followed by perpetual exile; and any accomplice or abettor of such crimes, if present when they are being committed, shall suffer the same penalty as the principals, and if not present, imprisonment for one year on bread and water.99

Thankfully, as history would come to show, the 1823 Proclamation was not to have the last word.

CAPTIONS

P.184 Richard Westall, Portrait of George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (Lord Byron), oil on canvas, 91.4 x 71.1cm, 1813. (Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London

P.189 Titian, Portrait of Pietro Aretino, oil on canvas, 99 x 82cm, c.1536 (Courtesy of The Frick Collection, New York – The Henry Clay Frick Bequest)

P.190 Doodle in the margin of the entry against the

knights Carratello accused of sodomy. A visual pun on his name. (Courtesy of the National Library of Malta / Source: AOM 429, f. 131r)

P.199 Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Portrait of Pope Alexander VII, oil on canvas, 93 x 82cm, seventeenth century. (Private Collection / Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

P.206 Lithograph designed by G. Calleja depicting Mons. Onorato Bres. (Courtesy of the National Library of Malta / Source: L’Arte)

HOMOPHOBIA

ENDNOTES

1 Stanley Fiorini, Documentary Sources of Maltese History, Part II No. 2 (Malta: University of Malta, 2004), 249-251.

2 Fiorini, Documentary Sources of Maltese History, Part III No. 2 (Malta: University of Malta, 2014), 106, 108.

3 Fiorini (2014), 164.

4 Fiorini, Documentary Sources of Maltese History, Part II No. 3 (Malta: University of Matla, 2007), 311.

5 Fiorini, Documentary Sources of Maltese History, Part II No. 4 (Malta: University of Matla 2013), 149.

6 Fiorini (2013), 188.

7 Statuti della Sacra Religione di San Giovanni Gerosolimitano (Genova: Borgo Nuovo, 1676), 224.

8 Also in this volume, see the chapter: ‘Mischievous Books in the Times of the Order’, 63-95.

9 Reay Tannahill, Sex in History (London: Abacus, 1989 [1980]), 276.

10 AOM [Archivum Ordinem Melitense] 86, f. 122.

11 AOM 429, f. 131r.

12 AOM 91, f. 98v.

13 AOM 91, ff. 133v-134. Also in this publication, see the chapter: ‘Lawyers and Lawyering in Malta before 1600’, 13-43: here at 24-25.

14 AOM 96, ff. 61, 66v.

15 AOM 92, ff. 223v, 225.

16 AOM 93, f. 21v.

17 Ibid.

18 Tannahill (1989), 152.

19 AOM 93, f. 153v.

20 AOM 97, f. 171v; AOM 99, f. 115v.

21 AOM 99, ff. 57, 89.

22 Ibid.

23 AOM 99, f. 193v, and AIM, Criminal Proceedings, Vol. 169, Case 69.

24 Tannahill (1989), 279.

25 William Lithgow, The Total Discourse of the Rare Adventures … (Glasgow: Glasgow University Press, 1906). The anonymous pamphlet is entitled Satan’s Harvest Home.

26 Thomas Freller, The Sword and the Boudoir: Amorous Deeds and Misdeeds of the Knights of Malta (Malta: Midsea Books, 2018), 210.

27 Bartolomeo dal Pozzo, Ruolo Generale (Turin: Gio Francesco Antonio Mairesse, 1738).

28 Carmel Cassar, ‘The First Decades of the Inquisition’, Hyphen, Vol. 4 No. 6 (1985), 207-238: 211.

29 Tannahill (1989), 152.

30 Lithgow (1906), 335.

31 AOM 85, f. 124.

32 Freller (2018), 213.

33 Ibid.

34 Also in this volume, see the chapter: ‘Lawyers and Lawyering in Malta before 1600’, 13-43: 40.

35 Archives of the Inquisition quoted by Mario

Borg Olivier, ‘A Maltese Legal Library in the XVIth century’, Melita Historica, Vol. 5, No. 4 (1971), 282-297: 285.

36 In this volume, see the chapter: ‘Lawyers and Lawyering in Malta before 1600’, 13-43: 40.

37 Carmel Cassar, ‘The Reformation and SixteenthCentury Malta’, Melita Historica, Vol. 10 No. 1 (1988), 51-68: 63.

38 Roger Ellul-Micallef, ‘Sketches of Medical Practice’, in Paul Xuereb, ed., Karissime Gottifride: Historical Essays presented to Professor Godfrey Wettinger on his seventieth birthday (Malta: Malta University Press, 1999), 102-120.

39 Paul Cassar, ‘Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio: The creative psychopath’, Melita Historica, Vol. 10 No. 2 (1989), 157-172: 165.

40 AOM 98, f. 198v.

41 Personal communication to the author.

42 AIM [Archivum Inquisitionis Melitensis], Processi Criminali, Case 88, No. 169.

43 Peter Earle, Corsairs of Malta (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1970), 206.

44 Ibid., 216.

45 Frans Ciappara, Society and the Inquisition in Early Modern Malta (Malta: PEG, 2001), 177.

46 Ciappara (2001), 253.

47 AOM 86, f. 43.

48 AOM 89, f. 80.

49 AOM 90, f. 11v, and AOM 2237, unpaginated.

50 Carmel Cassar, ‘The First Decades of the Inquisition, 1546–1581’, Hyphen, Vol. 4 No. 6 (1985), 207-238: 216.

51 William Zammit, Kissing the Gallows (Malta: BDL Publishing, 2016), 198. See also in this volume, the chapter: ‘A 1636 Murder in Birgu … and its Fall-Out’, 45-61: 59-60.

52 Diritto Municipale di Malta (Malta: Stamperia del Palazzo, 1784), 311, 328.

53 Charles Savona Ventura, ‘Dr James Barry: an enigmatic army medical doctor’, Maltese Medical Journal, Vol. 8 No. 1 (1996), 41-47.

54 The image on page 56 in this publication represents a bronze portrait bust of Fabio Chigi, modelled by Melchiorre Cafà (or Gafà) and cast by Giovanni Piscina. There are strong indications that the greatest Maltese sculptor ever, Cafà lived a long-lasting homosexual relationship with a fellow artist, Michelangelo Marullo. They cohabited and travelled together, until the sculptor’s tragic death, thirty-one years old, in 1667. Keith Sciberras, Melchiorre Cafà (Malta: Midsea Books, 2006), passim

55 Decree of 24 September 1665.

56 Judith C. Brown, ‘Lesbian Sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern Europe’, in Martin B. Duberman, Martha Vicinus, and George Chauncey, eds, Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past (London: Penguin Books,

HOMOPHOBIA

1991), 67-75.

HOMOPHOBIA IN THE PRE-1850 HISTORY OF MALTA

57 Victor Mallia-Milanes, ed., Descritione di Malta. Anno 1716: A Venetian Account (Malta: Bugelli Publications, 1988), 95, 105.

58 Codice del Sacro Militare Ordine Gerosolimitano (Malta: Stamperia del Palazzo, 1782), 313.

59 Ibid., Note No. 1.

60 Synodus diocesana Fr. David Cocco Palmieri (Rome, 1703), 36-37.

61 William Zammit, ‘A Secret Society in Early Eighteenth-Centruy Malta: The Troisi Connection’, Melita Historica, Vol. 12 No. 3 (1998), 309-322: 311.

62 Freller (2018), 211.

63 Cassar (1985), 220, 237-238; Carmel Cassar, Daughters of Eve: Women, Gender Roles, and the Impact of the Council of Trent in Catholic Malta (Malta: Mireva Publications, 2002), 226.

64 Ciappara (2001), 150-151.

65 Mikiel Fsadni, Id-Duminkani fir-Rabat u fil-Birgu (Malta: Stamperija il-Ħajja, 1974), 218, 222. This is partly addressed in another article ‘Gregorio Xerri’s Poem of the Great Siege’, published in two parts in The Sunday Times of Malta, on 23 and 30 March 2014. This article will be republished in a forthcoming volume of More Histories

66 Ciappara (2001), 177-178.

67 Cassar (2002), 231-232.

68 Charles Cassar, ‘Homosexuality and Moral Values in Historical Perspective: The Case of Malta in a European Context’, in Paul A. Bartolo and Mark G. Borg, eds, Homosexuality. Challenging the Stigma: Proceeded of The V Malta Conference of Psychology (Malta: Agenda, 2003), 103-122: 113.

69 Cassar (2003), 111-112.

70 Godfrey Wettinger, Slavery in the Islands of Malta and Gozo (Malta: PEG, 2002), 521.

71 Charles Savona Ventura, Caring for Calypso’s Daughters: A History of Maternity Care in a Central Mediterranean Island (Malta: Malta University Press, 2013), 29.

72 Cassar (2003), 118.

73 Gaetano Reboul, in Vincenzo Laurenza, ed., Giornale de’ Successi (Malta: Empire Press, 1939), 64.

74 Alexander Bonnici, Storja ta’ l-Inkiżizzjoni ta’ Malta, Vol. 3 (Malta: Franġiskani Konventwali, 1994), 184.

75 Zammit (2016), 270.

76 Ciappara (2001), 177.

77 Zammit (2016), 363.

78 Roderick Cavaliero, The Last of the Crusaders: The Knights of St. John and Malta in the Eighteenth Century (London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 1960), 68.

79 Carasi, L’Ordre de Malthe Dévoilé ou Voyage de Malthe (Lyon, 1790), 27.

80 Alain Blondy, ‘Un Pamphlet Scandaleux contre Malte et l’ordre de St Jean: L’ordre de Malte dévoilé’, Melita Historica, Vol. 11 No. 1 (1992), 59-76: 59.

81 Carasi (1790), 185.

82 Ibid., 187.

83 Ibid.

84 Wettinger (2002), 532.

85 NLM [National Library of Malta] Lib. Ms. 1146/2, f. 97.

86 NLM Lib. Ms. 13, f. 216. Reference supplied by Dr Carmel Testa.

87 Ciappara (2001), 176.

88 Ibid., 177.

89 Cassar (2003), 107.

90 Ibid., 110.

91 NLM Lib. Ms. 466, Cap. VIII, published by Dr Robert Attard in The Malta Independent, 7 March 1999.

92 NLM Lib. Ms. 429, f. 80, quoted by Dr Paul Cassar in British Medical Journal, 11 December 1954, 1413.

93 Old manuscript in the author’s possession. His death certificate, dated 12 November 1818, kept in the parish church of SS Giacomo e Martino, says he had gone to Viterbo, suffering from advanced tuberculosis, in an attempt to recover his health, but had there ended his ‘travagliata vita’ The parish priest, Don Francesco Gaesi, noted that he was buried in the church of St Ignatius, now an institute for drug addicts.

94 Dr James Parsons, A Mechanical and Critical Enquiry into the Nature of Hermaphrodites (London: J. Walthoe, 1741); Claude Champeaux, Reflexion sur les Hermaphrodites (Lyon: Claude Jacquenod, 1765).

95 Peter Vassallo, ed., Byron and the Mediterranean (Malta: University of Malta Pres, 1986), 29.

96 MS Private Collection, Malta, Diversi dialoghi satirici, Fasc 121.

97 ‘La sodomia’, in the Milan edition (1853,) 339, infra.

98 Jean Baptises Félix Descuret, La Medicina delle Passioni (Florence: Lardinois, 1851), 36.

99 Repertorio di Proclami, Ordinanze, Notificazione …, Vol. 2 (Malta: Francesco Cumbo, 1844), 131.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Giovanni Bonello served as a Judge at the European Court of Human Rights for twelve years, after a career as a constitutional and human rights lawyer, in the course of which he defended 170 human rights lawsuits in domestic and international courts. He is a founding member of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (The Venice Commission); drafted the European Convention Act in 1987; chaired the National Commission for the Reform of the Administration of Justice and the Drugs Offenders Rehabilitation Board, and the University Board for Discipline and Ethics, the Notarial Archives Foundation, and the Bank of Valletta Art Committee. He also served as President of the Malta Historical Society.

Presently, Bonello is General Editor of Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, and chairs the Strickland Foundation. He is Cavaliere della Republica of Italy and was a member knight of the Sovereign Military Order of St John. He was awarded gold medals by the Malta Society of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce, and by the Judiciary of Moldova, and the insignia of merit by the Russian Federation. He was made Companion of the National Order of Merit and, most recently in 2023, he was awarded a Doctorate of Literature Honoris Causa by the University of Malta. His interests include archival research, non-figurative photography, African art, and Baroque music, and has written extensively on these topics and on human rights and constitutional law, publishing no less than thirty-six volumes, five of which were awared ‘Best Book of the Year’ award by the Malta National Book Council. Five books about his career and achievements have been published independently.

PROVENANCE

The chapters included in this volume, many revised and augmented, were first published as shown in brackets:

STOM – The Sunday Times of Malta

TOM – The Times of Malta

A 1588 Homicide by a Knight of Malta (STOM, 2 April 2017)

Lawyers and Lawyering in Malta Before 1600 (Id-Dritt XXXI [Malta, 2021], 191-217)

A 1636 Murder in Birgu … and its Fall-Out (STOM, 4 and 11 December 2016)

Mischievous Books in the Times of the Order (Awaiting publication in a forthcoming Festschrift)

Thefts from Churches in Malta (STOM, 11 January 2015)

Tragic Tales of Slaves in Malta (TOM, 4 November 2022)

Caterina Scappi Revisited (STOM, 29 September 2019)

The 1832 Beheading of a Young Woman in Senglea (STOM, 29 November 2020)

The Tragic Prince of Abyssinia in Malta (STOM, 17 July 2016)

Mankind in the Red-Light District (STOM, 14 February 2016)

(More of)

Mankind in the Red-Light District (STOM, 24 April 2022)

Counting on Dishonour Among Thieves during Early British Rule (TOM, 28 February and 7 March 2022)

How Early British Rule Affected the Legal Profession in Malta (STOM, 17 April 2022)

Homophobia in the Pre-1850 History of Malta (Konrad Buhagiar and James Licari, eds, Breaking the Silence. Homosexuality in Maltese History [Malta: Midsea Books, 2024], 9-25)

INDEX

AAbel, Placido 20

Abela (Habel)

Gian Francesco 86

Guglielmo (Bartolomeo) 24

Joan 5

Martino 169

Abyssinia, Kingdom of Ethiopia 137, 139, 143, 144, 146

Accarigi, Giulio 195

Acciard, Michele 81, 82, 94, 109, 111

Acciauoli, Onofrio, Fra 28

Acts of the Apostles 64

Agius, Fedele 170

Aglata

Geraldo 15

Mariano 15

Agliarda, Battista, Fra 200

Agostino, Fr 200

Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen, Germany) 83

Alessi, Dr Francesco, Marquis 178

Alexander VII (Pope) 53, 61, 74, 197-198, 209

Alexandria (Egypt) 138, 140

Alfieri, Martino 74

Allegritto, Michele 19

Anastasio, Giovanni Angelo 20

Aprile, Teresa 110

Aquilina, Orazio 171

Arboreo, Giuseppe, Fra 38

Archbishop Street (Valletta) 167

Arcipiergu (Valletta) 155

Aretino, Pietro 74, 94, 188, 209

Ariadne v

Arpal, Antonio, Fra 93

Arrighi, Alberto, Fra 28, 38, 40

Arrigo, Alberto, Fra 119

Attard

Eddie 99

Francesco 170

Girolamo 201

Auberge d’Auvergne (Valletta) 169

Auberge de Provence (Valletta) 140

Augusta (Sicily) 74

Augustine of Hippo (Saint) 157

Aurisi, Gioanne Battista 201

Avogadro, Girolamo, Fra 117

Axiaq

Antonia 171

Benedetto 172

Azzopardi

Baptista 121 (Zoppard) Pietro 119, 122,124

BBalaguer, Miguel (Bishop) 52-54, 57, 60-61

Baldacchino

Gio Nicolo 10

Giovanni 171

Ball, Alexander, Sir 69

Balzan (Malta) 205

Barbaro Ermolao, Gioacchino, Marquis 208

Barbary 195

Barberini, Francesco (Cardinal) 53, 55 Barbieri, Giovanni 71

Bardon

Aloisio (Luigi) 131, 177

Benedetto 180, 183

Baring, Francis 182

Barry, James, Dr 197

Bartolo, Leonardo 14

Básha Félika 140, 149

Bassa Mustafa 94

Battle of Lepanto 31 Bavaria (Germany) 83, 192 Benedict XIV (Pope) 94

Bentink, Lord 182

Bergamo (Italy) 77

Bernizzone, Cassano, Fra 6-7

Betlemal, Hagi Mohmed Chalabi 171

Biblioteca Maltese 73, 94

Bier, Gullielmum, Fra 191

Birgu (or Vittoriosa; Malta) 24, 27, 30, 32, 34-37, 46-47, 50-52, 54-55, 61, 64-65, 84, 86, 90, 93, 100, 102, 108, 173, 188, 196

Birkirkara (Malta), 169

Blue Chapel, National Museum of

Montenegro 103

Boccaccio 69-70, 77

Bodin (Bodino), Jean 70

Bologna (Italy) 21

Bonanni (or Bonanno), Francesco Teodoro 169, 178

Bonanno

Lorenzo 170

Maddalena 170

Bonaparte, Napoleon 102

Bonavita, Vincenzo 41

Bonello

Antonio 15-16, 19-21, 24-25, 34-35, 38, 191

Bartolomeo 25

Gio Maria 69

Giovanni v, vii, 213

Bonnich(i), Nicola 119

Bonnici

Don Bartolomeo 205

Claudio Vincenzo 178

Margherita 41

Suor Rosaria 205

Ugolino 41

Victor 117, 125

Bono, Antonio (de Bono) 16

Borg

Agostino 60

Gianpatist 59

Martino 6

Nicola /Cola 3, 5-6

Vincent (Monsignor) 19, 50, 61

Vincent (Professor) 19

Vincenzo (‘Brared’) 169

Borromeo

Carlo (Charles; Saint) 198

Federico 198

Boschetto (Rabat) 9

Bosio

Antonio 20, 25

Giacomo 86-88

Bouverie, Henry, Sir 180-181

Bracalona, Antonio, Fra 37

Bres, Onorato, Mgr 207, 209

Britain 145, 176

Brunet, Matteo, Dr 194-195

Brunetta from Chiazze 121

Bruno

Gaetano 41

Giacomo Pantaleone 183

Bugeja

Filippo 177

Padre Rosario 201

Buttigieg, Damiano, Fr 200

Byron, George Gordon, Lord 208, 209

CCaccialepre, Antonio, Fra 6

Cadamusto, Galeazzo 21, 25

Cafà (or Gafà), Melchiorre 61, 210n54

Cagliares

Baldassare (Bishop) 26, 71

Melchiorre 20-21, 26, 28, 39

Cagliari (Sardinia) 26

Cagliola, Fabrizio 21

Calafato, Paolo 120

Calamatta, Gio Batta 202

Calavà

Fridericus 186

Giovanni 27 Calleja

Antonio 51

Grazio, Don 51

Ignatio 203

Jacobo, Don 196

Calli

Giacomo 59, 197

Giovanni (U.J.D.) 21, 27-28, 34, 38-40, 119-120, 124

Michele 28

Callus

Leonard 149

‘Mattew’ 86-87, 89

Pietro Paolo, Don 205

Calvert Bell & Co. 167

Calvert, James 167

Cambrai (France) 167

Cameron, Julia Margaret 138, 149

Camilleri

Frank ‘il-Bibi’ 163

Joe 163

Lorenzo 170

Cancelleria Regia of Palermo 186

Candia (Crete) 117

Cangialanza, Gio Andrea 14

Cannava, Giuseppe 124

Cantilena 9, 201

Capaci, Fra Nicolò 85-86

Capello, Giacomo 71, 198

Capitoli 186

Carabott, Giovanni 28

Caracciolo, Innico (Inquisitor) 78

Carafa

Giovanni Tommaso, Fra 192

Gregorio (Grand Master) 78

Carasi 81, 204, 208

Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi 191, 195

Carbonesi, Evangelista 64-65, 69, 84

Carceppo, Domenico 38

Cardano, Girolamo 64-65

Cardenal, Peire 165

Cardinal of Santa Severina 70

Carmelite church (Valletta) 52, 116

Carnero

Gaspare?, Balì 107

Giuseppe 107

Carnisi, Padre Vincenzo 201

Carracci, Annibale 113

Carratello, Nicola, Fra 190, 209

Carratello Scandal 193

Caruana

Emmanuel 131, 180

Francesco Saverio 69, 135n1

Paul 161

Casati, Paolo Camillo, Fra 90

Casenate, Girolamo (Inquisitor) 70-71

Cassar

Alfonso 29, 36

Carmel 71

Paolo 25, 29

Pietro 16, 25

Salvatore Lorenzo 135

Cassia, Giovanni Maria 200

Castellania 2, 5, 11, 17, 22, 32, 34, 37-38, 49, 51-52, 55, 57, 82, 121, 131, 183

Castellania Regia 14

Castelletti, Andrea 200-201

Castile (Spain) 88, 90

Catania (Sicily) 21, 24, 186, 200

Catarina ‘ta’ Navarina’ 205

Catholic Church 57, 78

Cavalevecchio, Giovanni Vincenzo 29

Cavendish Ponsonby, Frederick 60, 132, 135, 180

Caxar, Cipriano 20

Caxaro, Pietro 9, 15, 210

Cecy, Salvatore 129

Centorio, Giovanni Angelo, Fra 90

Cesarino, Filippo, Fra 6

Ceylon (Sri Lanka) 181-182

Chambray, Balì 200

Chapel of St George (Windsor Castle) 148

Chapel of the Virgin Mary (Birgu) 102

Chappelle, Francesco 183

Charles V (Emperor) 14, 27, 87

Cheltenham College (Gloucestershire, England), 147

Chigi, Fabio (Inquisitor) 50, 53-55, 57-58, 60, 61, 70, 74, 77, 197, 210n54

China 167

Church of Porto Salvo (or St Dominic, Valletta) 5, 7, 9, 102, 200

Church of SS Giacomo e Martino (Viterbo) 211n93

Church of St Anthony (Birgu) 35, 100

Church of St Lawrence (Birgu) 52, 88, 102, 188

Church of St Paul (Valletta) 9, 26

Church of the Annunciation (Birgu) 36, 196

Church of the Carmelite Friars (Birgu) 52

Church of the Minor Observants (Valletta) 49

Ciambanin

Andrea, Fra 3, 5, 7

Caterina 9

Maria Teresa 9-10

Pietro 5, 9, 11, 11n4; n11 Pirro 5

Trophimo Deodato 9

Cianferli, Giuseppe 106

Ciantar, Giovanni 16, 37, 40, 87

Ciantar Preziosi, Saverio 149

Ciardi, Nicolò 46-47, 49-55, 57-58, 60

Cicero 185

Cini, George 152, 155, 158-160, 163

Clement XI (Pope) 94

Clement of Alexandria 97

Cocco Palmieri, Davide, Fra (Bishop) 198

Codice de Rohan 84, 91

Collaert, Jan 125

Cologne (Germany) 83

Colonial Restaurant 163

Colonna

Ascanio (Cardinal) 7, 9

Prospero, Fra 70

Compagna, Antonio (Nino), Fra 192

Condo, Stamati, Fra 100, 103

Conti, Rev. Provincial 208

Convent of St Dominic (Valletta) 58, 196

Conventual Church of St John the Baptist (Valletta) 11, 198

Conventual Church of St Lawrence (Birgu) 188

Copernicus 77

Cotoner, Rafael (Grand Master) 79-80

Corpus Christi (Confraternity; Valletta) 5

Correa, Giorgio, Fra 26

Corsi, Rainaldo (Inquisitor) 70

Corte Capitanale (Mdina) 19, 22, 37, 39-41

Cortes Garcia, Fra 88

Cospicua (or Bormla; Malta) 130, 170

Council of the Order 3, 22, 31, 36, 51, 78, 190

Crequi 194

Cubelles, Domenico (Inquisitor) 25, 33, 193

Cucciardi, Vincenzo 170

Cumbo

Agostino 29-30, 39

Camillo 31

Giulio (or Julio; Judge) 21, 47, 110

Pietro 31

Cutajar

Leonardo 195

Michele 195

D’Agatha

Nicola 31

Luigi SJ, Fra 31

D’Andrea, Giovanni 112

D’Aragon, Giuseppe, Fra 7

D’Armagnac

Anna 10

Giovanna Maria 10

Teresa 10

D’Arpino, Cavalier 11, 155

D’Homedes, Juan (Grand Master) 29, 30, 33, 81

D’Inguanez, Angarau 87

D’Orleans, Philippe 10

Dal Pozzo, Bartolomeo 193

Darmanin, Luigi 170

Dasti, Lanza 14

De Abatellis, Francesco 187

De Anaja, Pedro, Fra 196

De Angeville, Claude, Fra 191

De Astis, Bartolomeo 15

De Basilico, Jacobo 15

De Bello Melitensi 42n75, 81

De Beniamino, Andrea 14

De Bibanco, Ferdinando, Fra 89

De Bizan, Marquis 200

De Bonetiis, Magnifico Bartolomeo Bonaventura 124

De Buzietta, Francesco 40, 194

De Calava, Leonardo 16

De Chiambaly, Andrea, Fra 3

De Cintray, Jean François Chevestre, Fra 200

De Contreras, Alonso 195

De Fillodet, Fra 200

De Fleury, Fra Pontius Francois, Balì 73

De Foissy, Fra Philip 36

De Fortia des Piles, Alphonse 194

De Franchis

Pasquale 31, 38

Pietro 111

De Funes, Fernando, Fra 93

De Gabot 6

De Giovanni, Pietro 32

De Gramont 200

De Gromo, Federico 32

De Guevara

Joanella 27

Joseph, Fra 39

De Humanis Corporia Fabrica 64

De Kerdu, Louis Boisgelin, Fra 194

De la Cassiere, Jean l’Evesque (Grand Master) 71

De la Sengle, Claude (Grand Master) 100

De Lorgue, Nicholas (Grand Master) 78

De Lorraine-Armagnac

Louis-Alphonse, Balì 9

Phillippe 10

De Martine, Andre (‘Pellubier’), Fra 28, 39

De Mendoza, Petro Urtado, Fra 89

De Mendoza Gonzales, Luis 201

De Naro, Nicola 24, 191

De Nava, Giovanni 187

De Ovando, Didaco, Fra 6

De Paule, Antoine (Grand Master) 79

De Penna, Juan, Fra 89

De Rangiffo, Ludovico, Fra 88

De Resseguier, Clement, Fra 77

De Rohan-Polduc, Emmanuel (Grand Master) 82, 84, 91, 197, 204

De Sacconay, Pierre, Fra 17

De Sade, Marquis 109

De Sancier, Andre, Fra 87

De Sbach, Domenico, Fra 38

De Sodegles (or Sotegles), François, Fra 191

De Soldanis, Gio Francesco Agius 81

De Spulchi, Antonio 37

De Toti, Cesare, Fra 191

De Valette, Jean Parisot (Grand Master) 33, 36, 69-70, 86, 88-90, 190, 194

De Valies, Gaspar, Fra 29-30

De Vallee, Louis 88

De Vega, Antonio, Fra 28

De Verdalle, Hughes Loubenx (Grand Master) 5, 7, 9, 11, 24, 28, 32-33, 117, 155, 192

De Vertot, Abbé (also René-Aubert Vertot) 65, 80

De Vilhena, Manoel (Grand Master) 87

De Villegaignon, Nicholas Durand, Fra 29, 80

De Villegas, Juan, Fra 89

De Villiers Labardiere, Charles, Fra 106

De Wael, Cornelis 113

De Wignacourt, Alof (Grand Master) 37, 49, 202

De Zarlo, Nicola 14

Debono

Giuzeppe Calcedonio 131 Nicola 73

Debra Tabor (Ethiopia) 144

Decameron 70

Del Monte, Pietro (Grand Master) 90, 191

Deli Manset 202

Della Bella, Stefano 94

Della Corbara, Leonetto (Inquisitor) 195

Della Lagonessa, Fabio 193

Delle Forbici (Valletta) 110

Desguanez, Antonio 19

Di Bonaiuto, Giovanni 15

Di Modica, Pietro 14

Die Malteser 193

Dialogo 75, 94

Dingli Adriano, Sir 183 Odoardo 180

Doria, Giovanni (Cardinal) 54

Dostoevsky, Fyodor 127

Douillier and Riegnauld 61

Due Balli (Valletta) 110

Dumez, Salvatore 46, 51

Durante, Pietro 70

Durini, Angelo Maria (Inquisitor) 77, 85

EEbejer (Hebeier), Gio Luca, Fra 79-80

Edamus et Titanus (or Order of the Drinking Glass) 200

Eggelkraut, Johann Friedrick 83

Egypt 140

Elettionario 79

England 67, 70, 74, 78, 140, 147, 182

English, John Hoppner 173

Epictetus of Hierapolis 137 Erasmus von Rotterdam 70, 77

Escott, Bickham 182

Europe 9, 17, 46, 67, 69, 74, 77, 111, 128, 143, 207

European Court of Human Rights vii, 213

FFabri, Giovanni 94

Falzon

Andrea 15

Lorenzo (Notary) 15-16

Famigliomeno, Giuseppe, Fra 6

Far Headingley (Leeds, England) 147

Farrugia

Antonio 201

Francesco 170

Giovanni Claudio, Rev. 172

Giovanni Francesco 87

Michele 202

Fasano, Alvaro, Fra 24, 35, 191

Favray, Antoine 41

Fedele, Giovanni 128-130, 132, 135, 135

Florence (Italy) 21, 28, 94, 191

Floriana (Malta) 47, 52, 135, 138, 170

Forrest, Robert 178

Fort St Angelo (Birgu) 188

Fort St Elmo (Valletta) 79

Fort Tigné 194

Fortunato di Malta 201

Francesca (la puttana) 119-122, 124

Francis of Assisi (Saint) 109

Fredrick Street (Valletta) 138

French Revolution 77, 203

Frendo, Bartholomeo 119

Frias de Lara, Gabriel, Fra 24

Frosinone 207

Fsadni, Salvatore 196

GGalea, Pietro 10

Galilei, Galileo 67, 75, 77, 94

Ganado, Albert 14

Ganado, Robert (Judge) 14

Gardun, Alexander, Fra 77

Gargallo, Tommaso (Bishop) 26, 33, 91

Gargantua 65, 94

Garibo

Francesco 31

Luca, Fra 191

Garroni, Michel’Angelo, Dr 201

Garsia, Paolo, Fra 74

Gasparro, Giovanni 61

Gatto, Francesco 107

Gaesi, Francesco, Don 211n93

Gauci, Giovanni Luca 64

Gaulli, Giovanni Battista 209

Geneva (Switzerland) 77

Genova (Italy) 6

Geronimo, Fr 200

Għajn Qajjet (Rabat) 27

Għargħur (Malta) 171

Ghimes, Pietro 111

Gianpieri, Giorgio 31-32

Gibraltar 147

Giraud, Nicolò 208

Giuseppe ta’ Misbalna 205

Giustiniani, Pietro, Fra 31

Gladstone, William (Prime Minister) 146

Gomorrah 208

Gonzales, Pietro 201

Gospels 64

Gozo 14, 22, 24-25, 29, 31-32, 34, 36-37, 54, 57, 89, 91, 131, 155, 180, 183, 187, 193, 196, 201, 202

Gran Corte della Castellania (Valletta) 82

Grand Harbour (Valletta) 47, 52, 61, 100, 138, 167

Grant, Francis, Sir 149

Gratioso, Giulio 25

Gravagna, Luigi 129

Great Siege 6, 30, 38, 41, 88, 100, 190-191, 193, 198

Grech

Alessandro 111 Angelica 107

Antonio 107 Enrico 111

Grazia 128-129, 131, 135

Greece 208

Greek Church (Birgu) 51

Grioli, Joannello 120

Gristi

Francesco 172

Giuseppe Carmelo, Rev. 128, 208

Gucci, Iacobo, Fra 191

Gudja (Malta) 171

Ħal Kirkop (Malta) 172

Ħal Luqa (Malta) 172, 207

Ħal Qormi (Malta) 172

Harper (Magistrate) 183

Harrat 203

Hastings Gardens (Valletta) 191

Hawes, Benjamin 182

Ħaż-Żabbar (Malta) 172

Heine, Heinrich 63

Henry Graves & Co. 149

History of Sodom & Gomorrah 208

Holmes, Richard Rivington 146

Hope, John, Sir 182

Hussein Ogli Aglali, Ram 111

IIaxi, Gregorius, Fra 191

Il Cortigiano 77

Il Culiseo 208

Il Principe 65

Implomaceri, Raimondo 14

Index of Prohibited Books (or Indice Librorum Prohibitorum) 63, 74, 79-81, 94, 111

India 147

Infermeria 120

Inquisition 21, 24-25, 29-31, 33-41, 50-51, 55, 64, 67-68, 74-75, 84, 192-194, 200202, 205

Isle of Wight (United Kingdom) 139, 147

Isolde 31

Istruzzioni 83

Italy 19, 82, 87, 119-120, 122, 192, 213

JJames II, King of England 78

Joannis 196

John the Baptist (Saint) 102, 103

KKalafrana (Birżebbuġa) 130

Karl Theodor, Duke Elector 83

Kenner Bar 163

Kircher, Athanasius 71

Knights Templar 187-188

LL’Isle-Adam, Philippe Villiers (Grand Master) 27

La Douser, François, Fra 196

La Pulcelle d’Orleans 77

La Speranza, Francesco 10

La Surda, Filippo, Fra 7 Laferla, Albert V 180 Lagunna, Leonora 41 Laird, Elizabeth 148

Lancia, Blasco 16 Lancza (Lanza), Gioseppe 118 Langslow, Robert 178, 180-182 Lanzon, Giuseppe, Don 208

Lascaris, Giovanni Paolo (Grand Master) 5255, 57-58, 61, 79

Latre, Leonardo, Fra 191 Lauron, Alessio 112, 202 Laus

Girolamo 135 Paolo 128-132, 135, 135

Le Caron, Pierre 84

Leggi e Costituzzioni Prammaticali 24, 28, 32, 91

Lewis, C. S. vi

Libri Conciliarum 2, 17, 29, 31, 33, 35-36

Licata (Sicily) 60

Lithgow, William 192-193

Livingstone 145

Lo Perno, Jacobo 32

Lombardo, Salvator 201

London (England) 143, 149, 180

Lorgne (or Lorgue), Nicholas 187

Loubbes (Lopez?), Pedro, Fra 102

Louis XIV, King of France 10

Lubrano, Giovanni Vincenzo 20

Lucilius 105

Lupton, Thomas Gaff 173

Luqa (Malta) 172, 207

Lutheran 25, 30-31, 40, 69, 194

Luyken, Jan 125

Lyceum (Malta) 152, 158

Lyon (France) 81, 204

Machiavelli 65

Macon 204

Maestro delle case 120

Magdala/Maqdala (Ethiopia) 139-140, 144147, 149

Maggi, Giacinto, Fra 200

Mahnuq, Antonio (also Maccunuzio) 32, 37

Maitland, Thomas, Sir 166, 168, 173, 209

Malaga (Spain) 10

Maldonado, Antonio, Fra 89

Mallia, Fra Gio Batta 85

Malta v, 1-2, 5-7, 9-10, 13-17, 19, 21-22, 24, 27, 29-31, 33-34, 36, 38, 40-41, 46-47, 49-51, 53-55, 57-58, 60-61, 64-65, 67, 69-71, 73-74, 77-80, 82-84, 87-88, 93, 97, 99-100, 105-106, 110-111, 116-118, 120, 122, 124, 128, 131, 135, 137-140, 144, 147-148, 152, 155, 158-160, 166-167, 169, 173, 175-176, 178-182, 185-188, 192-198, 200-201, 204, 207-208, 213

Malta Antica Illustrata 207

Malta Government Gazette 128 Mamo

Giovanni Maria 24, 32

Gregorio 33

Nardu 34

Mandraġġ (Valletta) 155

Manicamp, Fra 200

Manoel Island (Malta) 86

Manoel Playhouse (Malta) 85

Manoel Theatre 77, 85, 204 Marescotti, Galeazzo (Inquisitor) 197

Maria ta’ Ittruscia 205

Marsa (Malta) 108

Marsaxlokk (Malta) 130

Marsden, Philip 148

Marullo, Michelangelo 210n54

Marzilla, Francesco, Fra 38

Mashesha 144

Massingberd, Oswald, Sir 93

Mathematics of Ptolemy 64-65

Mattei

Ferdinando (Bishop) 60

Polidoro Bernardino 28

Mazara del Vallo 31

Mdina (Malta) 19, 22, 26, 28, 31-32, 34, 3637, 39, 87, 90, 93, 107, 186, 200-201

Mdina Cathedral Archives 15

Mediterranean Sea 138

Mego, Francesco 33

Mehmet, Delil 112

Menzionat, Padre 201

Merchants Street (also Strada Mercanti, Valletta) 131, 161, 183

Mercieca, Arturo, Sir 183

Messina (Sicily) 28, 31, 34, 38, 100, 191192

Metaxi, Aloysetta 75

Micallef

Achille 41

Antonio 183

Valerio 20-21, 25, 33-34

Micci (Mizzi)

Giovan Paolo 28. 34

Valerio 34

Mifsud

Anthony 195

Ignazio Saverio 21, 24, 39, 73

Francesco Saverio 28-29, 33, 36

Rosa (or Rosaria) 207

Milan (Italy) 90

Minali, Matteo 35

Minardo, Vincenzo, Fra 25

Mintoff, Dom (Prime Minister) 155, 161

Mizzi

Enrico (Prime Minister) 161

Valerio 20

Montana, Pamerino 49

Moretto Affair 33

Morrissey, Emily 155

Mousi (Moysi), Francesco, Fra 93

Muscat

Christine 117

Gio Nicola 34, 41

Nicola Antonio 20 Pietro 25, 34

Mustafa Bassa di Rodi 81, 94

Mutio, Girolamo 65

Napier, Robert, Lord (Baron Napier of Magdala) 145, 147-148, 149

Naples (Italy) 19-21, 40, 81-82

National Library (Valletta) 51, 61, 135

Nicco, Girolamo 35

Nicola (lo bucchieri) 122

Nisi, Stefano 196

North Africa 15, 108

Nostradamus 65, 77

Notabile (Malta) 24-25

Notarial Archives (Valletta) 5, 7, 11, 50-51, 61

Noto (Sicily) 6

Old Bakery Street (or Strada Forni, Valletta) 158, 161

Old Mint Street (Valletta) 167, 170

Old Testament vi, 100

Old University (Valletta) 49

On the Beauty of Boys 208

Order of Malta 2, 51, 55, 64-65, 83, 99, 195

Order of the Drinking Glass (or Edamus et Titanus) 200

Order of St John of Jerusalem 2, 5, 14, 16, 22, 39, 46, 53, 117, 168, 176, 187-188, 191-192

Ortis, Joannes, Fra 193

Osborne House (Isle of Wight) 147

Ottomans 25, 29, 81

Our Lady of Damascus (Birgu) 52

Our Lady of Graces Chapel (Valletta) 7

Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Birgu) 61

Our Lady of Philermos 100, 103

Our Lady of Sorrows (Pietà) 58

PPalace Square (Valletta) 9, 26

Palace of the Grand Masters (Valletta) 3, 120, 203

Palermo (Sicily) 14, 21, 49, 54-55, 71, 186

Pankhurst, Richard 146

Pantagruel 65

Pantaleon, Henri 65

Paris (France) 80, 200, 208

Passionei, Paolo (Inquisitor) 202

Paul IV (Pope) 192

Pawlu t-Tork 160

Perdicomati, Agostina 9

Perellós y Rocafull, Ramon (Grand Master) 198, 200

Pesaro, Vincenzo, Fra 34, 102

Petrarca, Giovanni Bernardo 16

Petrucci

Annibale 74

Domenico (Inquisitor) 25

Philip II of Spain 86, 89

Piccione, Antonio, Fra 192

Picenino, Giacomo 78

Pichon la Saone 204

Pinto de Fonseca, Emanuel (Grand Master) 59, 61, 81, 85-87, 109, 111, 131, 202-203, 205

Piscina

Giovanni, Fra 201n54

Girolamo, Fra 24-25, 61

Pius IV (Pope) 192

Pius V (Pope) 198

Platamone, Ludovico 20, 29, 36

Plato 175

Ponsonby, Fredrick Cavendish, Sir 60, 132, 135,180

Pontremoli 38

Portelli, Gavino Patrizio 129

Portugal 26

Prestigiacomo, Michele 135

Preti, Mattia 60, 106, 113

Preziosi

Amadeo 138

Leandro 138-140, 149

Luigi, Sir 138

Promotori Fiscali 22

Psaila

Antonio 203

Carmelo 171

Maria 203

Ptolemy 64-65

Pugh, Charles Vaughan, Lieut. 181

Pulis, Martino 119

Queen Bianca of Sicily 14

Queen Victoria 138, 143-148

Queiroz, Pedro, Fra 28

Quinones, Alvaro, Fra 89

Quintavalle, Pasquale 77

Quran 84

Rabelais, François 65, 94

Raficano, Nicola 14

Raimondi, Marcantonio 94

Ralli, Michele 49-50

Rapetti, Andrea 73

Raspa

Giulio Cesare, Fra 6

Mutio, Fra 90

Reboul 202

Regensburg (Ratisbon, Germany) 83

Regimento di Malta 204

Republica 70

Rhodes 33, 100, 188

Ricciardo, Padron Cola 51

Ripentite 75, 117

Rizzo, Petruzzo 124

Rogadeo, Giandonato (or Gio Donato) 2, 73, 82-83

Romano, Giulio 94

Rome (Italy) 6-7, 17, 19-21, 32, 37, 47, 50, 53-55, 57, 65, 70-71, 75, 77-81, 87-88, 111, 122, 155, 198, 200, 202

Ros, Laurencio 100

Rosarianti 135

Rugby School (Warwicksire, England) 147

Rull, Bartolomeo (Bishop) 59, 61

Russell, Bertrand 45

Russia 144

Russian, Federation 213

SSacra Infermeria 194

Saliba

Giovanni Maria 168

Nicola 168

Salonika (Greece) 31

Salvatore, Andrea, Fra 32

Samano, Gaspar, Fra 89

Sammut, Antonio (‘Il-Bar’) 202

San Giovanni 26

Sandelands, John James, Sir 34

Sandhurst Royal Military College (United Kingdom) 147

Sant, Gustu 131

Santa Croce 196

Santa Venera (Malta) 202

Satan’s Harvest Home 210n25

Satariano, Gio Batta 131

Saverio, Don 85-86

Savoia 38

Savona, Nicola 85-86

Scala, Giorgio 29 , 37

Scappi, Caterina (also La Senesa and la Senese) 115-117, 119-120, 122, 124, 125

Scarlatta, Francesco 46-47, 50-51, 57-58

Sceberras (Malta) 88

Scerri, Rolando 36

Schaep, M. 113

Schiller, Friedrich 193

Schirò, Joseph 64

Schofield, John 155

Sciortino, Nicola 6

Sconero, Giovanni 65

Second World War 155, 163

Secretia 27

Selaisse, Emperor Haile of Ethiopia 148

Seneca 105, 115

Senglea (or Isla, Malta) 109, 127-128, 130, 135, 173, 205

Senglea Point (Malta) 132

Serafino, Padre 201

Serranus, Marianus, Fra 188, 190

Sguardio 2, 22, 47

Shakespeare 193

Sicily (Italy) 14-16, 24, 41, 52, 54, 57, 60, 86, 193, 195

Siena (Italy) 116, 124, 198

Siġġiewi (Malta) 170, 173, 195-196, 205

Sixtus V (Pope) 7

Sliema (Malta) 128

Sodom 208

Solima, Geronimo, Fra 191

Soliman, Bey of Chia 195

Sommaia, Francesco, Fra 26

Sonetti Lussuriosi 94, 188

South Kensington Museum (London) 143

South Street (Valletta) 163

Spain 7, 86-87, 89

Spatafora, Ortensio 21, 36

Speedy, Tristram, Cpt. 140, 147-148

Sqaq Santa Maria (Ħaż-Żebbuġ) 169

St Angelo (fort) 188

St Peter’s Basilica (Rome) 198

St George’s, Kalafrana 130

St Julian’s (Malta) 130, 135

St Philip Street (Senglea) 128

St Priest 194

St Thomas Aquinas 193

Stagno, Filippo, Fra 100, 102

Stamamu 144

Stanley, Morton 145

Starkey, Oliver, Fra 69-70, 89

Stoddart, John, Sir 180

Strada Nuova (Għargħur) 171

Strada Nuova (Siġġiewi) 170

Strada Reale (Valletta) 169

Strada Scolastica (Birgu) 173

Strada Stretta (or Strait Street; Valletta) 152, 155, 155, 158-159, 161, 163, 171

Strafaci, Lorenzo 196

Strickland Foundation 213

Statuta Hospitalis Hierusalem 11, 155

Sunday Times of Malta 215

Strickland, Gerald, Lord 9 Suleyman 88

Sultana, Giuseppe 171

Supplica 11

Surdo

Ascanio (Judge) 20, 32-33 37, 49 Francesco 20, 37 Giacomo Leonardo 200

Switzerland 65, 67

TTa’ Barumbara (or Ta’ Bwejba, Malta) 169

Ta’ Birbagar (or Bur Bagiar, Malta) 168

Tabone, Bartolomeo 20, 37 Tacitus 13

Taumare 204

Taylor, Richard 183

Tertullian 1

Testaferrata

Giacomo 37

Gio Domenico 37 Paolo 37

Tewodros, Alamayou 144, 139, 149

Thackery, William Makepeace 180

The Illustrated London News 173

The Levant 195

The Medicine Against Passions 208

The Merry Wives of Windsor 193

The Venice Commission 213

Theodore II, Emperor of Abyssinia (or Tewodros II) 139, 144, 148, 149

Thoreau, Henry David 151

Thurlow, Edward Howard 135

Times of Malta 215

Torregiani, Filippo 131, 177

Torrense, Francesco (or Rocchione) 21, 25, 28

Tower Alley (Bormla) 170

Tramontana 124

Trimarchi, Gian Biagio 46, 51, 57-60, 61n11

Tripoli (Libya) 29, 31, 39, 81, 88, 108

Triq tal-Franċiżi 161

Trocha, Cristophoro, Fra 196

Turrense (or Torrense)

Francesco 31, 37-38

Giuseppe 20

U

U.J.D. degree 15, 17, 19

Union Club (Old Auberge de Provence, Valletta) 140

United Kingdom 138

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) vi

Universitas 14-16

University of Malta 176, 213

University of Naples 194

Urban VIII (Pope) 55

Ustinov, Peter, Sir 144

V

Valletta (Malta) 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 11n4, 24, 26-27, 32, 34, 39, 49, 51, 54, 58, 61, 71, 73, 90, 102, 108, 110-111, 116, 118, 120-121,

128, 130-131, 135, 138, 152, 155, 158, 160, 163, 167, 169-171, 183, 196, 198, 200-201, 203, 205

Van Closen, Hans Heinrich, Fra 192

Van Straubenzee, Charles, Sir 139

Vanity Fair 180

Varisano, Signorello 16

Vasco, Bartolomeo, Fra 36-37

Vassallo

Anna 205

Aurelio 20

Bice 161

Giovanni 19-20, 28-29, 33, 38-39

Leonora 33

Natale 203

Paolo 38

Pasquale, Padre 200 Rodolfo Felice 177

Vatican, Archives 50

Vayni, Antonio 107

Vella

Alessandro 121 Domenico 201

Gaspare 39

Gio Domenico 28, 39

Giovanni 131, 177 Melchiorre 39

Paolo 28, 40

Venice (Italy) 67

Verallo, Fabrizio (Inquisitor) 70

Vercelli (Italy) 6, 90

Verdala Palace (Rabat) 9

Vertoa, Gio Batta, Fra 97

Vertot, René-Aubert (also Abbé de Vertot) 65, 80

Vesalius, Andreas 64

Viceroy (Sicily) 15-16, 29, 36, 186-187

Victory Square (Senglea) 173

Virgil 152

Vitale, Caterina 25, 36, 107-108

Viterbo (Italy) 207, 211n93

Vittoria 205

Voltaire 77-78

Von Erdt, Baron 194

Von Rechberg, Joseph Maria, Fra 194

Von Rotterdam, Erasmus 70

War Memorial (Floriana) 135

West, Clement, Sir 93

Westall, Richard 209

Wettinger, Godfrey 16, 106

Wube, Tiruwork (Empress) 144

Xara

Giovanni 20

Giuseppe 40

Orlando 40

Xeibe, Julio 40, 194

Xerri

Francesco 20-21, 40-41, 194

Gregorio 40

Nicola 19

Orlando 40

Salvatore 17

Ximenéz de Tejada, Francisco (Grand Master) 207

Xuereb, Nicola Pietro (also Colapietro) 20, 40-41, 194

Yedju Galla 144

Zabbara, Giacomo 15

Zacosta, Raymond (Grand Master) 198

Zahra, Francesco 41

Zammit

Anna 205

Giovanna Maria 201

Margherita 38

Martino (‘ix-Xudi’) 20

Zandedonio (Sansedoni), Oratio, Fra 198

Żebbuġ (Malta) 34, 169, 200, 205

Ziguchi, Imperia 15

Zobbaddar 205

More Histories - Falling in Eden

HISTORIES

Falling Eden in

AN ANTHOLOGY OF STORIES ON CRIME IN MALTA

Falling Eden in

GIOVANNI BONELLO

Falling Eden in

AN ANTHOLOGY OF STORIES ON CRIME IN MALTA

ABOUT THE NEW SERIES

ABOUT THE VOLUME

C.S. Lewis, from ‘The Adam Unparadised’

A 1588 Homocide by a Knight of Malta

A 1588 HOMICIDE BY A KNIGHT OF MALTA

CAPTIONS

ENDNOTES

Lawyers and Lawyering in Malta before 1600

DR NICOLA PIETRO (COLAPIETRO)

Captions

ENDNOTES

A 1636 Murder in Birgu … and its Fall-Out

A 1636 MURDER IN BIRGU … AND ITS FALL-OUT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CAPTIONS

ENDNOTES

Mischievous Books in the Times of the Order

INTOLERANCE AND FEAR

‘ABOMINABLE PRINCIPLES OF LIBERTY’

BOCCACCIO AND PROTESTANT BOOKS

LOW LEVEL OF CULTURE IN MALTA

NO BOOKSHOPS IN MALTA

NO KNIGHT COULD PUBLISH

HISTORIES OF THE ORDER ON THE ‘INDEX’

DESTRUCTION OF SEDITIOUS BOOKS

WRITINGS BY INFIDELS AND JEWS

STIFLING POLITICAL DISSENT

JAIL FOR CRITICISM

POSTERS AGAINST DE VALETTE

MORE POSTERS AGAINST DI MONTE

DEATH PENALTY FOR LIBEL

CRIMES OF OPINION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

CAPTIONS

ENDNOTES

Thefts from Churches in Malta

THEFTS FROM CHURCHES IN MALTA

THEFTS FROM CHURCHES IN MALTA

CAPTIONS

ENDNOTES

Tragic Tales of Slaves in Malta

TRAGIC

TRAGIC TALES OF SLAVES IN MALTA

Caterina Scappi Revisited

The 1832 Beheading of a Young Woman in Senglea

The Tragic Prince of Abyssinia in Malta

THE

THE TRAGIC PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA IN MALTA

THE TRAGIC PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA IN MALTA

THE

THE TRAGIC PRINCE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CAPTIONS

ENDNOTES

Mankind in the Red-Light District

(More of) Mankind in the Red-Light District

Counting on Dishonour among Thieves during Early British Rule

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CAPTIONS

ENDNOTES

How Early British Rule Affected the Legal Profession in Malta

Homophobia in the Pre-1850 History of Malta

IN THE PRE-1850 HISTORY OF MALTA

IN THE PRE-1850 HISTORY OF MALTA

HOMOPHOBIA IN THE PRE-1850 HISTORY OF MALTA

CAPTIONS

ENDNOTES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PROVENANCE

INDEX

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