Byzantine Ideas of Persia, 650–1461 (Global Histories Before Globalisation) [1 ed.] 9781032070674, 9781032070681, 9781003205197, 9781032524054, 9781032524061, 9781003406518, 1032070676

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The Winged Lion and the Eight-Pointed Cross

The papers reprinted in this volume focus on the extraordinary and multifaceted relationship between two Christian States: the Republic of Venice and the Island Order State on Hospitaller Malta between 1530 and the late 1790s. It was marked by three distinct phenomena – military cooperation along with other Western allies against the Ottoman Empire; direct mutual confrontation, at times even leading to war; and commercial cooperation. A fourth phenomenon, this time involving the wider Mediterranean context within which the two interacted, concerns the idea of decline. Some of the papers that follow question the validity of the traditional view that the Mediterranean and Venice were in decline by the sixteenth century and that the Hospitaller Order, claimed to be in decline by the eighteenth, had given up Malta to the French as a result. This book will appeal to all those interested in Crusading Orders and the history of the Crusades, as well as the history of Venice, Malta, and the Mediterranean in the early modern period. Victor Mallia-Milanes is Professor of History, former Head of the Department of History and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Malta. His special research interests include Venice, the Hospitaller Order of St John, Malta, and the Mediterranean in the early modern period, on which he has published extensively. His publications include Venice and Hospitaller Malta 1530–1798: Aspects of a Relationship; Hospitaller Malta 1530–1798; In the Service of the Venetian Republic; Lo Stato dell’Ordine di Malta, 1630; and Valletta: Malta’s Hospitaller City, and Other Essays.

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The Winged Lion and the Eight-Pointed Cross

Venice, Hospitaller Malta, and the Mediterranean in Early Modern Times Victor Mallia-Milanes

VARIORUM COLLECTED STUDIES

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Victor Mallia-Milanes The right of Victor Mallia-Milanes to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mallia-Milanes, Victor, 1940– author. Title: The winged lion and the eight-pointed cross : Venice, Hospitaller Malta, and the Mediterranean in early modern times / Victor MalliaMilanes. Description: London ; New York, NY : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2024. | Series: Variorum collected studies ; CS1116 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023014180 (print) | LCCN 2023014181 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032070674 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032070681 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003205197 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Malta—History—1530–1798. | Venice (Italy)— History—1508–1797. | Malta—Foreign relations—Venice (Italy). | Venice (Italy)—Foreign relations—Malta. | Knights of Malta— History. Classification: LCC DG992.5 .M353 2024 (print) | LCC DG992.5 (ebook) | DDC 327.45/3110458500903—dc23/eng/20230601 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023014180 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023014181 ISBN: 978-1-032-52405-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-52406-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-40651-8 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003406518 Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC VARIORUM COLLECTED STUDIES SERIES CS1116

CONTENTS

Preface

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Introduction

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I ‘Vol veder di aver Brandizo ovvero Malta’: the Hospitaller odyssey from Rhodes to Malta, 1523–1530 The 1522 Siege of Rhodes: Causes, Course, Consequences, ed. Simon Phillips. Routledge, London, 2022 II The Birgu phase of Hospitaller History Birgu: A Maltese Maritime City, ed. L. Bugeja et al. Malta 1994 III Hospitaller baroque culture: the order of St John’s legacy to early modern Malta The Military Orders, Volume 3: History and Heritage, ed. Victor Mallia-Milanes. Oxford, Ashgate, 2007 IV Society and the economy on the Hospitaller island of Malta: an overview Islands and Military Orders, c.1291–c.1798, ed. Emanuel Buttigieg & Simon Phillips. Surrey, Ashgate, 2013 V Malta and Venice in the eighteenth century: a study in consular relations Studi Veneziani, xvii–xviii (1975) VI The Hospitaller receiver in Venice: a late seventeenth-century document Studi Veneziani, n.s. xliv (2002), pp. 309–326 v

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VII Poised between hope and infinite despair: Venetians in the port of eighteenth-century Malta Méditerranée, Mer Ouverte: Actes du Colloque (Marseille, septembre 1995), vol. i: Du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle, ed. Ch. Villain-Gandossi et al. Malta, 1997 VIII Property, piracy, and pugnacity: reflections on Venice’s attitude towards the order of the Hospital in early modern times The Military Orders Vol. VII: Piety, Pugnacity and Prosperity, ed. Nicholas Morton. London, Routledge, 2019 IX A man with a mission: a Venetian Hospitaller on eighteenth-century Malta The Military Orders, Volume 4, On Land and by Sea, ed. Judi Upton Ward. Aldershot, Ashgate, 2008 X Venice, Hospitaller Malta, and fear of the plague: culturally conflicting views The Military Orders, Volume 6.1: Culture and Conflict in the Mediterranean World, ed. J. Schenk & M. Carr. Oxon, Routledge, 2017 XI Towards the end of the order of the Hospital: reflections on the views of two Venetian brethren, Antonio Miari and Ottavio Benvenuti The Military Orders, Volume 5: Politics and Power, ed. Peter W. Edbury. Ashgate, 2012 XII A living force of continuity in a declining Mediterranean: the Hospitaller Order of St John in early modern times Mediterranean Identities: Environment, Society, Culture, ed. Borna Fuerst-Bjeliš. Croatia, Intech, 2017 XIII Venice, Hospitaller Malta, and the little soldier from Ajaccio: a semi-autobiographical rhapsody Victor Mallia-Milanes, Valletta: Malta’s Hospitaller City and Other Essays. Malta, Midsea Books, 2019 Index

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P R E FA C E

The papers reproduced in the present volume tell the story of the relationship between two Christian States in the early modern Mediterranean – the Republic of Venice and the Hospitaller Order State of Malta. Three distinct yet neatly interwoven realities determined the general pattern of this relationship. The first was military collaboration with other Christian States against the Ottoman Empire, especially whenever the security of Venice’s stato da mar and her commercial interests were at stake – as happened, for example, over Cyprus, Crete, and twice over the Morea. The second reality concerned the mutual confrontation between Venice and the Hospitallers, generally on matters pertaining to piracy and privateering activities under cover of the eight-pointed Cross. In such cases, Venice reacted not only in her own interests, but ironically also in those of the Ottoman Empire. More often than not, in retaliation, the Republic imposed the sequestro over the vast landed estates constituting the Order’s Grand Priory of Venice. Between 1536 and 1741, Venice confiscated the Order’s property in the Veneto eleven times. On two of these occasions, in 1584 and 1741, the two States were at formal war with each other. Commercial cooperation between the two marked the third reality. It was as late as the mid-eighteenth century that the Republic had her first resident ministry established on the Order State of Malta, long years after other kingdoms or principalities had done so. Since then, relations between the two changed solidly for the better, determining healthier mutual understanding. From traditional foes they became trading partners, reaching a fruitful bilateral trade agreement in the 1760s and later renewed. The papers that follow discuss each of these issues in detail. Directly relevant to the main theme of the present collection is a related fourth issue, one that involves not only Venice and the Hospital, but also the Mediterranean, the wider framework within which the two States interacted. It concerns the controversial concept of decline. Historians, including myself at one stage, have almost invariably claimed that all three – Venice, the Hospital, and the Mediterranean – had been in a clear state of decadence from the sixteenth century onwards, a view traditionally taken for granted. Decline is a gradual physical or moral deterioration, or both, a progressive degenerating process of change from within. Applied to the Mediterranean, Venice, and the

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Hospital, this traditional assumption will remain essentially dubious and weak, until new convincing and authentic evidence is produced. Decline and evolution are neither synonymous nor interchangeable concepts. Unlike decline, change is the quintessence of life; only the dead never evolve. History is the unbiased record of life past in all its existing forms. ‘There is nothing I admire more’, wrote Kathrine Rundell, ‘than evolution’.

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Mare Nostrum. Mare Internum. The sea which knows no decline. Today’s sea is yesterday’s sea, the sea of Antiquity. A living soul which has never lost its ‘power of breathing’. A timeless civilising space, ‘of multicultural action’, as recently defined,1 ‘with a shared history, a shared heritage’. Confined, as it has always been, by austere mountains2 and with narrow access through the awe-inspiring Pillars of Hercules, its surrounding coastal and shoreline terrains are, as they have always been, inhabited by communities of diverse languages, beliefs, cultures, and traditions. This great,3 middle4 sea has had since time immemorial its own character, its own personality, with a distinct identity entirely its own. It enjoyed the same features, then as now, ‘its shape, its architecture, the basic realities of its life’5 – peaceful and pronounced tranquility, brilliant sunshine, and serenity; rough, grave, and grim moments of violent turbulence, heavy rains, and instability. Small fishing boats traverse its extensive floating surface, as do luxury liners. Every island, large and small, every inlet, every stretch of sandy beach, every coastal city, exposes its fraught history. Over long centuries, the forceful image of its distant past kept perpetually turning into its present which instantly dissolved once more into the past, revamping it into a different psyche. Thus metamorphosed, it would assume a new role, sustaining its ever youthful spirit – ‘nothing ever disappeared without trace: sooner or later everything surfaced once more’.6 Today’s Mediterranean, the product of all the previous cycles in its evolution,7 is a defiance – audacious, provocative, inspiring – to those narrative historians 1 Berne Thum, ‘The Mediterranean: The Meaning of the Sea’, in Murat Cizakca et al, Europa Bottom Up, no. 18 (2017), p. 28. 2 Fernand Braudel, Memory and the Mediterranean, ed. Roselyne de Ayala and Paule Braudel, trans. Siân Reynolds (New York, 2002), pp. 5–7. 3 See David Abulafia, The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean (London, 2011). 4 John Julius Norwich, The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean (London, 2006). 5 Fernand Braudel, Memory and the Mediterranean, ed. Roselyne de Ayala and Paule Braudel, trans. Siân Reynolds (New York, 2002), p. 3. 6 Braudel, Memory, p. 297. 7 See, for example, Faruk Tabak, The Waning of the Mediterranean, 1550–1870: A Geohistorical Approach (Baltimore, 2008), pp. 299–308.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003406518-1

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who often tell the traditional tale of its decline. This generally shared assumption is pure historical fiction, as is its process of readjustment, claimed to be a dark, gloomy, silent withdrawal. Is this perhaps what Horden and Purcell, in their introduction to The Corrupting Sea,8 chose to term an ‘ignorance of fundamentals’? Decline is a gradual process of internal deterioration in physical or moral strength or in both, not an ever-evolving sequence of conversions. It was not the spread of cancerous cells from within that had caused the loss of the sea’s global preeminence in the sixteenth century, but internal and external coercive forces that gradually drove civilised Western Europe away from the Mediterranean towards the North and the Atlantic. To the great Age of Discovery or Exploration, historians generally attribute such positive features as a wider knowledge of the world, easier means of communication, and extensive trade networks. And perhaps rightly so. But the lure of gold, the determination to gain access to lucrative new resources and markets, the seductive appeal of global supremacy, and the enticement of new vaster territories, turned that same great age into an even more formidable one of exploitation and destruction of indigenous cultures and freedoms, into an age of religious intolerance, slavery, inequality, and imposition, of aggressive economic and political dominance, often violently; indeed, of colonialism. Every stage in life possesses deep within itself seeds of potential long-term structural changes, capable of reproducing a partial or complete conversion from the prevailing phase into another. The end result may not necessarily be a better phenomenon. It may not necessarily be worse, either. It is simply a different product. At every phase in its evolution, the Mediterranean remained as vigorous and as active as ever in a strikingly fresh, unfamiliar, and unprecedented way. At every stage there is indeed ‘the presence of the past’.9 Change is the quintessence of life: only the dead never revamp their image and adapt to new conditions. No change has ever taken the vigour, shine, and lustre off the unique qualities of the Mediterranean Sea, its dynamism and the strong elements of continuity with its traditional vibrant human past – its ‘permanent realities’ and their ‘determining influence’.10 Does it require profound foresight to surmise that by the end of the next century the Mediterranean will almost certainly be different from how it is today? Would that imply that the sea is currently experiencing a process of decadence and degeneration? In a similar fashion, historians have attributed the end of the Venetian Republic in 1797 and the Hospital’s loss of Malta the year after, both at the hands of the vicious little soldier from Ajaccio, to the enervating process of decline which, so they claim, gradually wore them out until it almost paralysed them. Here I have to part company with these historians, for neither the fate of Venice, nor that of the 8 Peregrine Horden, Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (Oxford, 2000), p. 1. 9 Horden, Purcell, pp. 474–484. 10 Jean Giuliane, Pierre Rouillard, ‘Preface to the French Edition of Fernand Braudel’, in The Mediterranean in the Ancient World, trans. Siân Reynolds (Penguin Books, 2002), p. 3.

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Hospital, can be convincingly attributed to any weakening process that sprouted up from within. Napoleon’s vindictive intervention was an event, a purely external and spiteful intrusion, that ushered in the next phase in the city’s, and the Hospital’s, necessary mutation. While Marco Polo was travelling to China, marvelled by the hitherto unknown glories of the East, the Order was attempting to conquer Rhodes, ready to assume a new role. Over the longue durée the fall of Acre in 1291 and the consequent forced exit of the military orders from the Holy Land remoulded, indeed reinforced, the Hospitaller institution, helping it attain an unprecedented larger scope of military, economic, and political action in a wider world. Its settlement on Malta in 1530 marked yet another stage forward in the historical evolution of the Hospitallers, gradually converting their Order State into a near principality. The fall of Hospitaller Malta, as I have had the opportunity to discuss elsewhere, was the direct effect of the French Revolution, its abolition of the French monarchy, which was the Order’s major patron, and its confiscation and sale of all Church lands. These included the Hospital’s vast estates, first in France and then, when the revolution spread beyond the kingdom’s borders, in other European states. These properties had been the Order’s economic lifeblood. Their expropriation temporarily debilitated the institution to the severe extent that it could not offer Napoleon, as it had offered the Ottomans in 1565, hardly any serious resistance. Hospitaller Malta was given up virtually without a struggle. Reduced to its essence, however, the real significance was the destruction of the Island Order State which the Hospital had created first on Rhodes and then had it consolidated further on Malta. For the Hospital, an ever changing and ever evolving institution since the early 1070s, the loss of Malta in 1798 was one other moment of reorientation and redefinition. Its vitality was shown in its response to the consequent crisis that followed. The Order did not look back in an endeavour to grind time to a halt or, worse, to move it back. It understood, as it always did on previous crises, the reality of the time. That understanding prompted its move, as Braudel so excellently remarked, ‘in history’s direction and at history’s pace, instead of trying in vain to slow it down’.11 The real Hospital ‘would survive, it did survive’ to the present day.12 The same claim has also been made for the overthrow of the Venetian Republic. Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade Of that which once was great is passed away. William Wordsworth’s idea behind these lines is shared by several historians. But is that idea sensitively correct? Is it historically accurate? The event of 12 May 11 Fernand Braudel, A History of Civilizations, trans. Richard Mayne (Penguin Books, 1993), p. 363. 12 The quote is Braudel’s on the ‘real France . . . la France profonde’, which survived the disasters of the nineteenth and early half of the twentieth centuries. Fernand Braudel, The Identity of France, vol. I: History and Environment, trans. Siân Reynolds (London, 1989), p. 24.

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1797, the extinction of the Venetian Republic, was an abortive success, the Corsican soldier’s deceptive achievement. It has one meagre significance. The man whose heart was ‘crammed with arrogancy, spleen, and pride’,13 and whose ambition drove him beyond the limits of human decency, had succeeded in dissolving and extinguishing the Venetian Republic. But the Republic was not Venice, in the same way as the French monarchy, overthrown on 21 September five years earlier, was not France; nor was Venice the Republic, in the same way as France was not the ousted Bourbon dynasty.14 Before the rise, spread, and consolidation of her empire, Venice was there. The Republic was simply the form of government ‘the eldest child of Liberty’ had adopted to govern the city. Admittedly, long before 1797, Venice no longer controlled the trade of the East. Nor were her wealth-laden galleys creeping any more to her shores along the Grand Canal to distribute their rich cargoes to the Latin West. But the power of that city, divested of the Republic, remained extreme. Today, Venice, through her glorious past which Napoleon had miserably failed to obliterate, masters the whole world through a more diffused trade – tourism.15 For Braudel, Venice’s ‘withdrawal’ was not ‘a sudden catastrophe’; nor was it ‘the logical consequence of human errors’ – implying that Venice was not to blame for her fall from the outstanding position she had been enjoying as ‘queen at the heart of Europe’. It was neither determined nor provoked ‘from within’ the Republic. Rather, as in the case of the Mediterranean and the Hospital of St John, it was an unavoidably passive recipient of outside threatening assaults over which the Adriatic city had no control. In 1516–1517, for example, Turkey’s conquest of Syria and Egypt deprived Venice of her ‘direct control of the zone on which depended the very life of the Republic’ – her rich commerce in spices, pepper, silk fabrics, and other similar commodities.16 The world was gradually moving slowly but steadily away from the Middle Sea. There were other devious forces at work, like ‘the growth of the nation states.’17 There was Spain, there was France, ‘both with imperial ambitions’; there was the mighty Ottoman Empire itself, against which Venice had exhausted all its technical resources. There was also the political disunity of Italy (‘a divided Italy, torn apart by internal struggles’). Within this context, her victories, including the battle of Lepanto, ‘the greatest naval triumph [the Venetians] had ever achieved’,18 promised no reassuring future. Cyprus was 13 William Shakespeare, Henry VIII, II, 4, pp. 119–120. 14 For France, see, for example, Braudel, A History of Civilizations, pp. 359–361. 15 See, for example, R. J. B. Bosworth, Italian Venice: A History (New Haven/London, 2014), pp. 213–243 and 244. 16 Braudel, Venezia, p. 71. 17 Fernand Braudel, Il Mediterraneo: Lo Spazio, La Storia, Gli Uomini, Le Tradizioni, trans. Elena De Angeli (Milan, 2016), pp. 259–260; id., Venezia, trans. Giuliana Gemelli (Bologna, 2013), pp. 68–73. 18 A victory ‘of technique, of intelligence, and of courage’, Braudel, Venezia, pp. 71–72.

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lost in 1572, Crete in 1669, and the Morea in 1718.19 But to attribute the event of 1797 to decline is misleading. While Venice’s ambiguous attitude towards Constantinople was neither coherent nor consistent, the Ottoman Empire seemed to exert great influence on its political life and often determined its attitude towards the resourceful military Order of the Hospital. The history of this triangular relationship (Venice, Constantinople, and central-Mediterranean Malta, the Hospitallers’ conventual island headquarters from 1530 to 1798) in early modern times is a polyphony of echoes and contrasts, with destructive tensions provoking the prevailing atmosphere between them. The purpose of the present introduction is in part to reconstruct a profile of this complex relationship, one that is exhaustively documented as the collection of papers that follow will illustrate. To protect their highly ambivalent attitude towards the impulsive and unpredictable Ottomans, the equally impetuous and wily Venetians would distance themselves from the alleged horrors attributed to the Hospitallers’ piratical activities in the eastern Mediterranean and along the North African coast on Muslim trade, merchants, and villages to feed the widely renowned slave and ransom market on Malta. Appearing to be close to the Hospitallers, whom the Venetian Senate once dubbed ‘corsairs parading crosses’, and to their Maltese subjects was too dangerously daring. Propinquity in this sense would trigger, as it often did, an immediate Ottoman reflex. Trade and the islands making up its stato da mar, were potential prey. The distance which the Venetians kept from Hospitaller Malta expanded not only over the widespread corsairing activities, but also on how to deal with plague manifestations. For long years there were abysses separating the two. Relations between them were marked by alternating rising and falling feelings, by good, poor, or hostile attitudes. On two occasions, war between the two darkened the otherwise apparent blue skies. The Order of St John was as devious and shrewd a force as Venice was. ‘Fashioned on a propitious site,’ the Adriatic city grew ‘into an immense spider’s web that extend[ed] across a vast lagoon to form a singular unity’.20 The Order saw the light of day in Jerusalem in the midst of shrines, holy places, pilgrims, and merchants from Amalfi some two decades before the First Crusade until it gradually evolved into a religious-military institution. Like an octopus, it spread its tentacles out across Christian Europe. The history of both is similar in their long-standing determination to move forward whatever the circumstances and in their characteristic obstinacy not to yield to experienced seemingly fatal disasters. In their own ‘unquestionably wondrous’ ways they have survived, like the Mediterranean, to the present day – the Hospital through the retention of its original charitable mission; 19 Braudel, Il Mediterraneo, p. 260. 20 The History of Venice in Painting, ed. George’s Duby, Guy Lobrichon (New York/London, 2007), p. 11.

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Venice through its ever-expanding kaleidoscope of dense touristic swarms. ‘Venice is not dead,’ writes Braudel, ‘it has not fallen into thin air after having gradually and inexorably lost the dazzling colours of its ancient power.’21 Both Venice and the Hospital grew wealthy, militarily mighty, and diplomatically powerful. The former succeeded in building a Mediterranean empire; the latter in turning the same great sea into a living theatre for its unending dramatic performances. It was also on this stage that the two came in endless encounters. Both weathered multiple crises; both considered themselves preeminently ‘a bastion of Christianity against the infidel Turk’.

21 Fernand Braudel, Venezia (Bologna, 1984), p. 73.

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I ‘VOL VEDER DI AVER BRANDIZO OVVERO MALTA’ The Hospitaller odyssey from Rhodes to Malta, 1523–1530

‘Vol veder di aver Brandizo ovvero Malta’. This is Marin Sanudo’s diarised record for 10 April 1523. It refers to Grand Master Philippe Villiers de L’Isle Adam’s immediate response to the fall and loss of Rhodes three months earlier. The plan for recovery was clear in his mind. That day, just before leaving Crete, he thanked the Venetian authorities for their hospitality and referred to his appeal to Emperor Charles V to grant the Order either the southern Italian port city of Brindisi or the central Mediterranean island of Malta, offering him 100,000 ducats in cash.1 L’Isle Adam was quite knowledgeable about both. Brindisi, like the other wealthy Apulian ports, exported a wide range of commodities: ‘grain, wine, salt, oil, vegetables, and saltpetre for their cannons’. Regular trade links existed between Brindisi and Rhodes and Hospitaller galleys were quite familiar with the Italian city port.2 On the other hand, his alternative choice of Malta appears to have been based on an accurate knowledge of what the island could offer the Order: he knew what its strengths and weaknesses were. Like Rhodes, Malta was an island where the Hospitaller institution could establish an Order-State similar to the one it had set up on the Dodecanese island.3 It offered incentives fairly similar to those Rhodes had offered in 1306 – on the one hand, a highly strategic position sufficiently distant from its European patrons, including the papacy, to avoid any political intrusion and direct involvement in too many international complications that would undermine its autonomy, sovereignty, neutrality, and economic independence; 1 I Diarii di Marino Sanuto, ed. R. Fulin et al. (58 vols., Venice, 1879–1903), xlxxiv, p. 98. 2 See David Abulafia, The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean (London, 2011), p. 388. For the Order’s trade with Brindisi, Anthony T. Luttrell, ‘Les Expoitations Rurales des Hospitaliers en Italie au XIVe Siècle’, in id., The Hospitallers of Rhodes and their Mediterranean World (Aldershot, 1992), XII, p. 115. See also Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, trans. S. Reynolds (London, 1972–1973), i, p. 54. 3 On the Order-State, V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘A Living Force of Continuity in a Declining Mediterranean: The Hospitaller Order of St John in Early Modern Times’, in Mediterranean Identities: Environment, Society, Culture, ed. Nora Fuerst-Bjeliš (Rijeka, 2017), pp. 27–45: 35, n. 11.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003406518-2

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and, on the other, a secure base of operations in close geographical proximity to the predominantly Islamic coast of the Maghreb. For the fall of Rhodes had a much deeper significance than the mere loss of an island: it shook the institution to its very foundations. Would the Order now be still in a position to contribute to the military defence of Christian Europe and to the Holy War?4 That appears to have worried the Order most and, indeed, to have in fact determined the possible alternative to Rhodes. That is precisely what in practical terms defined the institution’s continued political relevance to Christian Europe, what justified its privileged existence and its massive landownership.5 All these factors must have favourably counterbalanced in L’Isle Adam’s mind Malta’s military, political, and economic liabilities – the poor quality of the soil, the meagre yields of its crown lands, its dependence for continuous food supplies and raw materials on Habsburg Sicily, the despicable state of the fortifications, and its repulsive exposure to Muslim corsair attacks. There is further evidence of L’Isle Adam’s familiarity with the situation on Malta. In October 1523, nearly a whole year before the eight-man commission had submitted its report on Malta, Gozo, and Tripoli to the council,6 the grand master dispatched two Hospitaller ambassadors to the court of Charles V. They were instructed to seek permission for their Order, firstly, to settle temporarily for three or four years at Syracuse or elsewhere within the Empire until the Maltese islands were adequately fortified to withstand any enemy assault; and, secondly, to be granted the necessary tratte, franchi, liberi, et exempti d’ogni dacio et gabella, for the regular export of wheat, ship-biscuit, wine, and all sort of other victuals from Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples necessary for the upkeep and proper maintenance of the fortress, the Convent, and the rest of the island. The two requests underscored the stark realism inspiring L’Isle Adam’s idea of Malta.7 That idea was subtle. The offer of 100,000 ducats did not reflect the estimated worth of either Brindisi or Malta. At least there is no evidence that it did. But, once the deal was completed and the purchase made, the transaction would have acted as a means to ensure that the values the Order had embraced on Rhodes would be retained and enhanced. L’Isle Adam’s deep-seated aversion to the ‘utter ruin of his revered Order’8 and the potential loss of its Rhodian personality became

4 See Anthony T. Luttrell, ‘Le funzioni di un Ordine militare: Gli Ospedalieri a Rodi (1305–1421)’, in I Cavalieri di San Giovanni e il Mediterraneo: Il Convegno Internazionale di Studi Melitensi, Taranto, 18 febbraio 1996 (Melitensia, 5), pp. 9–22: 12. 5 Anthony T. Luttrell, ‘West-East Attitudes and Ambiguities: The Hospitallers after 1306’, in Dies Amalphitana, I: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, ed. Edward G. Farrugia (Rome, 2009), p. 57. 6 For the eight-man commission’s report, Louis de Boisgelin, Ancient and Modern Malta (London, 1804), ii, pp. 15–19. For the actual donation deed, ibid., iii, Appendix V, pp. 193–205. 7 On this embassy, V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘La donazione di Malta da parte di Carlo V all’Ordine di San Giovanni’, in Sardegna, Spagna, e Stati italiani nell’età di Carlo V’, ed. Bruno Anatra, Francesco Manconi (Urbino, 2001), pp. 137–148, 142–143. 8 John Taaffe, The History of the Holy, Military, Sovereign Order of St John of Jerusalem (London, 1852), iii, p. 241.

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obvious the moment he was faced with the original conditions Charles V attached to the award of Malta, which also included Tripoli, a ‘lurking place of corsairs’.9 It was this fear which apparently inspired and sustained the secret project to try and retake Rhodes and which in fact prolonged this odyssey almost indefinitely. Could it have been this idea too that encouraged Charles V to mitigate the first set of conditions he had attached to the donation? That was the only way to entice the Order and exploit its military and defence capabilities for his otherwise poorly fortified territories in the central Mediterranean.10 **** The loss of Rhodes in 1522 had been unnecessary and could have been avoided, or at least delayed. For the Hospitallers their brief sojourn on Crete, shortly after their eviction, was uncomfortable, and it was even more so for the Venetians. After having been received by the authorities on the island, L’Isle Adam regretted, in a bitter address to those greeting him ashore, not so much the loss of the Dodecanese island which his Order claimed to have defended to the very limits of its strength and ability, as to its having been unscrupulously denied assistance.11 While Western Europe was too deeply absorbed in its own wars, Venice, which since its destabilizing experience at Agnadello had adopted a policy of strict neutrality, simply forbade all forms of military or naval help to leave either Cyprus or Crete. On grounds of neighbourly charity alone, says Giacomo Bosio,12 in an attempt to put L’Isle Adam’s inmost feelings into words, it could have permitted it without fear of implicitly declaring an open war on the Sublime Porte. With Suleyman’s conquest of Rhodes, the Venetian Republic and its maritime empire were as much the losers as the Order of the Hospital was. Time would spell this out more eloquently. Rhodes had been the shield and bulwark of the Serenissima’s stato da mar. On this occasion, L’Isle Adam did not feel he could mince his words. ‘With sixty galleys under his command [in Crete], fully armed and in perfect condition,’ Domenico Trevisan, the Venetian general of the galleys on the island, he is reported to have said, ‘had let slip from his hands the most certain and the most glorious victory he could have ever achieved against the greatest enemy of the Republic.’13 Nothing seemed to favour the Order and its aspirations. For years after having left Rhodes, the Hospitallers traversed by land and sea, but mostly by sea, across 9 On the original conditions attached to the award, Boisgelin, ii, p. 10. 10 See, for example, Gio. Antonio Vassallo, Storia di Malta (Malta, 1890), p. 266; Elizabeth W. Schermerhorn, Malta of the Knights (Surrey, 1929), p. 31. 11 On Venice and the Rhodian episode, V. Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta 1530–1798: Aspects of a Relationship (Malta, 1992), pp. 28–29. 12 Iacomo Bosio, Dell’Istoria della Sacra Religione et Ill.ma Militia di San Giovanni Gierosolimitano, iii, 2nd Imp. (Naples, 1684), p. 3. 13 Ibid. A marginal note in Malta, Cod. 84, f. 22, refers to the records of the deliberations of the ordinary council taken in January and February 1523 on Crete. It reads: Praedicta omnia acta et determinata sunt in civitate Candidae apud Cretam insulam in domo archiepiscopali ubi tunc temporis residebat R[everendissim]us D[omin]us Magnus Magister.

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the entire Italian peninsula, with ‘shiploads of Knights and Greeks and relics and records’.14 These travels constituted one long odyssey of trials and tribulations, with survival and identity constantly at stake. Several conditions prevailed in western, central, and eastern Europe which had helped determine the form and shape of the Order’s destiny. The first was the mutual hostility between Charles V and Francis I and the long devastating wars resulting from their territorial ambitions. The pope, the wavering Clement VII, and most of the minor princes became unavoidably embroiled in the conflict, with disastrous consequences not only for the Church but also for the vagrant Hospitaller institution. The second was the Lutheran revolt. While the internecine warfare between the Emperor and the French monarch had turned Italy into the heart of Europe’s battlefield, the gradual spread of Lutheranism and its derivatives drew the entire continent into a whirling ‘vortex of religious strife’. The Hospitaller trial coincided by and large with the moderate progress of the Reformation, whose devastating effects on the Order’s estates would be experienced in their fullest magnitude after 1530. The third factor concerned the challenge that came from the east, the one offered by the formidable power of a fast expanding Ottoman Empire. It had been evident in recent years in Suleyman’s vociferous military feats – the prestigious double conquest of Syria and Egypt in 1516–1517, Belgrade in late August 1521, and the fall of Rhodes in the winter of 1522. The gamut of Ottoman achievements would soon include the battle of the Mohács in 1526 and the siege of Vienna in 1529.15 There was also a fourth factor, ‘seasonal determinism’, with all its consequent calamities like the all too frequent outbreaks of plague and famine. There can be no doubt that the weather and other climatic conditions characteristic of the sixteenth-century Mediterranean undermined the Hospitallers’ forecasts and aspirations ruthlessly and relentlessly. Navigation in the Mediterranean, especially in its eastern portion, was technically safest from May through October.16 Outside this seasonal span, voyages became increasingly dangerous, rarer, longer, and more expensive. And if the ultimate destination was a distant one, then the voyage would have had to be interrupted at regular intervals, with frequent calls at ports for shelter, repairs, and far greater medical attention than a floating hospital could afford. Moreover, galleys, which formed the backbone of the Order’s squadron, were more prone than the big ships to disaster as they ‘lay too low in the water to resist the heavy swell and winter storms’.17 The Hospitaller armada left Rhodes in the depths of winter, on 1 January 1523, and consisted of three galleys (the Santa Caterina, the Santa Maria, and the San Giovanni), four barcie, one large galleon, one galeonetto, the carrack Santa Maria, a number of brigantines, and other minor craft. By then all shipping would have ground to an almost complete halt. No sooner had the knights sailed out of Rhodes 14 15 16 17

Schermerhorn, p. 30. Mallia-Milanes, ‘La donazione . . . ’. Braudel, i, p. 248. Ibid., p. 252.

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harbour, than raging waters wreaked havoc on their armada, which reached Crete ‘scattered’ by the powerful gale and in complete disarray.18 Although the armada was given a thorough overhaul at the Venetian arsenals,19 on leaving the island the galleys were still inadequately armed (mal’armate).20 New oarsmen had to be recruited as the Order’s slaves had had to be set free before leaving Rhodes. Several crew members had fallen ill too as they would again on their way to Messina, suffering from fatigue. This state of affairs, together with the perils of the hostile sea, necessitated frequent stops along the way – at Zante, Cephalonia, and Corfu. Refreshments, medical supplies, and other rowers were again sought at Gallipoli. It took the Order no fewer than 49 days to reach Messina from Crete. On their way they were forced to sojourn a few days on the island of Cerigo before that could continue with their voyage along the coasts of the Morea and Albania, along part of the Apulian coast and southern Calabria – drifting almost ‘aimlessly’ from one port of call to another as dictated by the weather, taking much longer than they had envisaged.21 Bosio’s detailed account of the Order’s odyssey makes other passing references to seasonal determinism. The weather was fine, he says, on 18 July 1529, at the initial stage of the knights’ voyage from Villefranche to Sicily and Malta. Soon both wind and sea began to contend which of the two was the mightier, causing unavoidable delay, with the Hospitallers reaching the Sicilian town of Trapani on 10 August.22 But the sea and wind were not the only natural phenomena which threatened the existence of the knights and their followers during their years of vagrancy. Dreaded outbreaks of plague, often combined with famine, were as terrifying and as overwhelming. Way back, on 30 April 1523,23 the knights, on reaching Messina, converted the grand prioral palace into a fully equipped hospital, with the large halls transformed into medical wards where all the members of the Religion, the armada, and the Rhodiots could be treated. Even the residents of the city were allowed in for treatment. The concentration of so many forms of disease not only within the precincts of the prioral palace but also in several adjoining houses was a clear indication of an outbreak of plague.24 Bosio calls the plague, which raged also in the Hospitaller ranks and ships, ‘atrocious and cruel’.25

18 See L’Isle Adam’s letter to his nephew, dated 7 February 1523, as reproduced in Schermerhorn, p. 27. 19 Referring to the repairs the armada had to undergo on Crete, Bosio uses such terms as racconciarsi, si calafatassero, and apparecchiarsi. Bosio, iii, pp. 3, 7. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., pp. 72–73. 23 Ibid., p. 7. 24 Ibid., p. 9. 25 Bosio claims that, in these circumstances, the grand master was constrained to embark on the carrack Santa Maria, along with all the grand crosses and councillors. The rest of the Convent and their followers embarked on other vessels. The sick and infirm were accommodated on board the galleon of the prior of Saint-Gilles, which acted as a floating hospital. Provisions were supplied

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Having left the infected port and city of Messina on 22 June 1523, the Order sought refuge at Baiae, on the gulf of Naples, reaching it on 7 July. The Hospitallers were allowed to disembark at the ancient ruins of Cuma, an uninhabited area, some two miles away from Pozzuoli, where several caves were used as accommodation for both the sick and the healthy – an excellent refuge not only for quarantine purposes, but also to avoid the excessive heat of the summer months. Here they protected themselves and others against the further spread of infection by using vinegar as disinfectant. For food and other provisions they paid with money immersed in vinegar.26 The fleet was thoroughly disinfected ‘with the lavish use of sea water and vinegar’, while plague victims had all their belongings destroyed by fire. Full recovery was attained within a fortnight, and they could set sail towards Civitavecchia.27 The Hospitallers were struck by other outbreaks of plague during their longish sojourn at Viterbo (January 1524 – June 1527), where the Convent, the official Hospitaller residence and centre of administration,28 was established after Civitavecchia.29 Shortly after their arrival, late in January 1524, the hospital was the first structure to be identified and made fully operational; next were the auberges. The church of San Faustino was leased to them as a conventual church. On 13 February, the Council decreed the return from Civitavecchia of all relics, including the image of the Madonna of Philermos and all the gold and silver belonging to the Common Treasury, which were then solemnly deposited at San Faustino.30 The plague struck Viterbo in 1525, as it did Rome and Naples,31 and lasted through 1526. At the first signs of the outbreak, attributed to the passage of the Duke of Albany’s troops through the localities surrounding the city, the entire Convent was ‘stunned and stupefied’.32 Very austere measures were again taken to contain it. All city streets were barricaded; infected houses closed and

26 27

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29 30 31 32

from Calabria. Soon the plague reached also the Religion’s carrack, the galleon, and a few other vessels, leaving a number of casualties, including knights. Ibid., p. 15. On 12 June 1523 the complete council was convened apud Messanam Siciliae urbem. Here the grand master and council statuerunt ut fiat impositio quindecim milium scutorum ultra tertiam partem ordinariam super omnibus Prioratibus, Castellania Empostae et eorum Praeceptoriis totius Ordinis S. Johannis pro anno 1523. Malta, Cod. 84, f. 25. Bosio, p. 16. Ibid., pp. 16–17. For the only council meeting to be held in Civitavecchia (apud civitatem vetulam), Malta, Cod. 84, f. 27v, 28 August 1523. On the Order’s sojourn at Civitavecchia, see also O. Tencajoli, ‘Il soggiorno a Civitavecchia e a Viterbo dell’Ordine di S. Giovanni di Gerusalemme e di Rodi’, Roma, vii (1929), pp. 487–498. A papal brief of 20 January 1528 on magistral elections defined the Convent as the place where the eight auberges were situated and where the magistral bulls were sealed. Magistral elections could be held only within the Convent. Outside it, they were invalid. Bosio, p. 62. See Tencajoli. Bosio, p. 25. Both cities were said to have lost nine-tenths of their population. See G. Vivoli, Annali di Livorno (4 vols., Livorno, 1842–1846), iii, p. 268. Bosio, p. 38.

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other suspected structures isolated. The city was cut off from the outside world. Bosio claims that it was the excessive cold temperatures of the winter of 1526–27 that ultimately succeeded in bringing the plague under control.33 And plague was more often than not accompanied by famine, which was not always the direct result of natural phenomena. There were, of course, occasions when, as a result of war and plague, or for fear of both, fields were left unsown. But there were others when harvests were purposely destroyed by the frequent passage of troops in all directions. Italy in 1528 was one such case. The Order’s historian recalls that famine was manifesting itself on so large a scale that ‘one could witness with the greatest pity, all over the countryside, crowds of men, women, and children feeding on grass and roots; several others were miserably falling dead of hunger’.34 This was especially evidenced in Lombardy where some 7,000 German troops, in aid of the governor of Milan, had retaken Pavia from the emperor, while Francis I had dispatched 8,000 fanti and 1,500 horses to stop them. Famine had forced the French to retire towards Genoa and Tuscany. The Germans dispersed, plundering and sacking everywhere they went.35 Famine was no less severe in France than it was in Italy.36 With the threat of famine turning into a devastating reality, with the fear that the approaching summer heat would again revive the dreadful epidemic, and with the warlike situation in Italy growing increasingly precarious, it was resolved at a meeting of the Complete Council to migrate to Corneto. Its greater proximity to the sea offered the knights easier access to the safety of their galleys and carracks. In fact, the Order left Viterbo on 15 June 1527, with each member of the Convent having been given two gold ducats for the transport of his belongings.37 The plague had been following mercilessly on the Hospitallers’ footsteps ever since they had disembarked at Messina. Corneto would be no exception. A wilder form of plague struck this papal little port, driving the knights and their followers out of the spiaggia romana. It was more brutal, says Bosio, more contagious, and more fatal than Viterbo’s.38 As the lesser of two evils, they were constrained to board their armada – Convent and all – and remain afloat until they were offered a firmer place to disembark. They could not stay at sea indefinitely, of course, partly because of the unbearable summer heat and the illnesses it was believed to promote, and partly because of the wild Mediterranean storms in winter. Under both conditions, they would have been courting disaster.39 33 Ibid., pp. 46, 51. 34 Ibid., p. 64. 35 For details of Lautrec’s movements down the Italian peninsula and the siege of Naples where he died of the plague, ibid., pp. 64–66. 36 Ibid., p. 66. 37 Ibid., p. 58. 38 Ibid., p. 59. On the transfer from Viterbo to Corneto, Malta, Cod. 85, f. 28v, 8 June 1527: Propter penuriam commeatuum, bella et pestem, M. Magister et Concilium decreverunt fratres Conventus et subditos Ordinis S. Johannis recedere debere a Viterbio et ire in Cornetum. 39 Bosio, p. 59.

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Prevailing conditions – war, plague, famine, and seasonal determinism – all combined to dictate, as they always do, the pace and rhythm of events. Within the framework of the Order’s trial of strength, the context within which developments occurred was a far more determining force than the grand master’s will or aspirations. The Hospitallers’ search for a permanent place of residence had been indefinitely protracted for reasons entirely beyond their control. The summoning of a general-chapter at Viterbo was one classic symptom of this process of inevitable delay, painful and treacherous. The attempt to realize the reconquest of Rhodes (as will be shown) was another. The meeting of the general-chapter was initially decreed for the first Sunday of September 1524.40 It was not convened before 18 May 1527.41 Among several resolutions taken during the general-chapter, four are of particular significance. First, Charles V’s offer of Malta would be accepted if the original conditions attached to it, which were thought to undermine the Order’s independence, were mitigated. Secondly, considering the dire straits the common treasury was in, the urgent need to fortify the Maltese islands eventually, to build the necessary structures thereon, and to keep the armada in perfect shape and the crusade against the common enemy alive, a tax was imposed on all the Order’s property – three half-annates, i.e. half an annate was to be paid every year for three consecutive years to the treasury, commencing on the feast of St John the Baptist in 1527 and ending on the same feast in 1529, both inclusive. Thirdly, the award of an annual pension of 12,000 scudi to L’Isle Adam (‘trattenimento della persona e della casa del Gran Maestro’), assigned to him on Crete, was reconfirmed. Fourthly, the chapter unanimously decided to offer L’Isle Adam the task of administering the treasury. This was a dangerous precedent as it accorded the grand master greater power. He accepted, with seeming reluctance, the responsibility for three years, commencing on 1 July 1527 and ending on 30 June 1530, when another general-chapter would be due.42 To the long list of factors, already identified, which delayed the summoning of the general-chapter should be added the strong feelings of animosity which the Habsburg-Valois struggle had promoted among the Hospitaller langues, the division created in the Convent by the unfavourable conditions originally attached to the offer of Malta, the pope’s forced confinement to Castel Sant’Angelo, and the devastating march from Lombardy to Naples of the imperial commander, the connétable de Bourbon, and his unruly army of unpaid mercenary troops, punctuated by the infamous sack of Rome. These were in part the features which marked the Order’s odyssey from Rhodes to Malta.43 They were long years of change, tragic spectacle, and drama. To this psychological trauma, physical upheaval, and mate40 Ibid., p. 26. 41 Ibid., p. 53. The chapter came to an end on 7 June. Ibid., pp. 54–56. For the proceedings of the general-chapter, Malta, Cod. 286, ff. i-xxix; Cod. 297, ff. i-xxx. 42 Ibid. 43 See Bosio, pp. 50, 51–53, 57.

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rial devastation should be attributed the decline (if not the sudden collapse) of Renaissance humanism, so widely manifested in culturally dominant Rome, and the gradual emergence of Mannerism and the Baroque. This desperate situation explains the Order’s request to the duke of Savoy in 1527 to allow them to sojourn at Villefranche and Nice. A short time earlier, the Order had already been in touch with Villefranche. On 25 June 1525, the grand master had secretly sailed to France from where he proceeded to Spain to meet Charles V and Francis I, the latter being then held in captivity in Madrid. The secrecy enveloping L’Isle Adam’s travels promoted the spread of wild rumours about him – in the Convent and outside it – but especially among the suspecting faction of Spanish knights. Would he resign the magistracy for reasons of old age and ill health and retire permanently to his native land? The Order’s historiographer describes the state of the Convent at this point as ‘a flock of sheep without a shepherd’.44 In his decrepit old age, the shepherd had been forced into exile and transformed into a vagrant.45 He had indeed succeeded in the past in restraining Ottoman designs and ambitions. Now the prevailing spirit of hostility among the Christian powers had allowed the loss of Rhodes to become a reality and given the Sublime Porte complete freedom of action. In August 1526, during L’Isle Adam’s travels in France and Spain, the Ottoman Turks decimated the Hungarian army at Mohács, killing the last Jagiellon king of Hungary Louis II. Budapest fell in the second week of September to the same Muslim forces devastating the country; and Clement VII was besieged in Castel Sant’Angelo.46 With the rapid depletion of the central funds, the Common Treasury was reduced to dire straits, rendering it unable to finance the re-armament of the galley squadron in order to have the grand master transferred from Marseilles to Viterbo. A fully armed squadron would have been too enticing either to the imperial forces or to those of the Holy League, both ‘running along the western shore’ of the Italian peninsula. Fra Luigi del Pozzo, the prior of Pisa and captain-general, offered to arm whatever galleys were necessary at his expense.47 Cardinal Farnese, the future Paul III, offered him a large number of convicts or forzati. A contingent of knights, awaiting to undergo the caravan, were enrolled. The Council issued instructions for the voyage. The squadron would leave Civitavecchia and sail towards Monte Cristo, and thence above Corsica to Villefranche, keeping clear distance from Genoa. To avoid political complications, the prior was expressly forbidden to proceed to Marseilles. From the French port, L’Isle Adam was given safe escort to Villefranche, returning to Viterbo on 21 January 1527.48 Nine months later, on 7 October, the entire naval squadron, transporting the grand master, the Convent, and their faithful Rhodian followers, anchored at the neutral port of Villefranche. 44 45 46 47 48

Ibid., p. 38. Ibid., p. 41. Ibid., p. 46. Ibid., pp. 47–48. Ibid.

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The Order’s relations with the duke were somewhat tense. Like several other kings and princes in various parts of Europe – Portugal49 and Naples50 were two examples; Spain,51 England,52 and the papacy53 were others – the duke of Savoy found Hospitaller property lying within his territory an irresistible source of revenue, which he felt he could employ for his own ends. On leaving Corneto, the Order had understandably felt uneasy to seek some temporary space within his duchy. Fra Ercole di Non was sent as an envoy to the duke for the purpose. A whole set of conditions, subtly disguised in the form of necessary measures for the conduct of the holy war against the infidel, accompanied the original request to the duke. L’Isle Adam’s ultimate objective at this stage was the realization of his secret designs for the reconquest of Rhodes. He had only taken a few senior members of the Council in his confidence about his plans. The pope was of course kept informed of the minutest developments; and so were Charles V and Francis I. L’Isle Adam would soon visit Henry VIII in England and give him a detailed account of what had happened and what was being designed.54 That notwithstanding, the grand master did not feel he could confide in the duke. The Hospitaller envoy therefore informed him it was not the Order’s desire to remain idle or fruitlessly inactive. It was its aim to re-arm and refit the greater possible number of galleys and other craft and to have them sail out in search of the disturbing gang of Muslim corsairs, then widely known to have been infesting the surrounding seas.55 If the duke was prepared to offer them temporary residence in his port and city, the Convent would have to be allowed to exercise the same supreme authority and jurisdiction over all its members and their Greek and Latin followers as it used to do on Rhodes – indeed, as it was permitted to do on Crete, at Gallipoli and Messina, Baiae, Pozzuoli, Civitavecchia, Viterbo, Corneto, and Rome itself. The duke was requested to instruct his officials not to interfere in the exercise of this authority and his other subjects not to charge the Hospitallers or the Rhodiots higher housing rents than was customary. In conformity with its traditional practices and privileges, the Order would need to import all food supplies duty-free, to keep a slaughter-house, windmills, and bakeries. Finally, as the Hospitaller armada was badly short of rowing men, the duke was also asked to order all convicts condemned in his duchy for hard labour to serve their sentences on the

49 Ibid., p. 58. 50 See Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), iv: The Sixteenth Century from Julius III to Pius V (Philadelphia, 1984), p. 351 n. 19. 51 Bosio, p. 38. 52 Ibid., p. 59. 53 Setton, iv, p. 351 n. 20. 54 For L’Isle Adam’s departure for England, Malta, Cod. 85, f. 33v, 5 December 1527. 55 See, for example, Malta, Cod. 84, f. 67v: triremes exeant e portu Civitatis Veteris contra piratas (4 November 1525); ibid., f. 43v: the Hospitaller Caspar Llor was licensed to fit out and sail against the infidel, reservato iure debito et praeda M. Magistro (29 October 1524). Like any other Mediterranean port city, Nice was not immune from corsairs, not even from those of Barbary. See Braudel, i, p. 122.

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knights’ galleys.56 These were the Order’s overriding needs and the duke acceded to all of them. And so did the Order to the only one condition Charles III desired in return: that during their sojourn at Villefranche and Nice, their administration of justice at the Castellania would be entrusted to the Hospitaller Horatio de Torretes, a native of Nice.57 Several members of the Order, who had hitherto kept themselves away from the Convent, began to proceed to the city. The frequent outbreaks of plague had created a number of vacancies which needed to be filled.58 Meanwhile, the Reformation in the Swiss cantons was slowly but steadily gaining ground.59 By the late 1520s Berne and Basel had decided for reform. Geneva would soon follow on similar lines.60 In 1529 Berne and Basel took up arms against the duke of Savoy who immediately sought help from the Hospitallers, offering them 30,000 scudi. The Lutheran heresy, he claimed, was hardly less of a threat to Christendom than militant Islam. However, the state of the Common Treasury and L’Isle Adam’s secret commitment made it impossible for the Order to comply with Charles III’s request. The duke reacted by confiscating Hospitaller estates within his duchy until, through papal intervention, he was given a genuine picture of the Order’s real condition and of its imminent designs. Bosio claims that the duke then became one of the Order’s staunchest patrons.61 During the Order’s stay at Nice and Villefranche several other developments occurred that would prove significant in the short- and long-term perspective. In line with Clement VII’s growing obsession with the urgent need to launch a crusade, the reconquest of Rhodes occupied the highest place in L’Isle Adam’s priorities. The Order needed to regenerate its traditional medieval appeal for as wide a patronage as possible. A fully equipped armada, ready for immediate action, was therefore far more valuable a weapon to help the Order regain its relevance to Christian Europe than any other means. To have its traditional liberties, privileges, and exemptions reconfirmed, to regain as much favour among the Christian powers as was necessary to survive, it was far more useful to demonstrate once more its worth in naval and military action against the common enemy. An efficient naval force employed in defence of Christian Europe was a convincing means to obfuscate the otherwise hostile view, entertained by certain powerful factions within and outside the institution, of the predominantly French influence within the Hospitaller ranks and the Order’s intimate connection with the papacy. The time had come for the Order to call international attention to its dual role once more. From the moment it left Rhodes to the moment it reached Villefranche 56 Bosio, p. 60. 57 On 20 February 1528, Fra Horatio de Torretes was elected Castellanus ad administrandam iustitiam to the Rhodian people and subjects of the Order. Malta, Cod. 85, f. 36v; Cod. 209, f. 109v. 58 Bosio, p. 60. 59 See Christoph T. Maier, ‘Strategies of Survival: the Military Orders and the Reformation in Switzerland’, in The Military Orders, ii: Welfare and Warfare, ed. Helen Nicholson (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 355–362. 60 Euan Cameron, The European Reformation (Oxford, 1991), p. 224. 61 Bosio, p. 71.

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and Nice, it had had several opportunities where its traditional Hospitaller role and duty were visibly performed.62 Indeed the entire tragic odyssey had offered one such uninterrupted occasion. War, the several outbreaks of plague, and famine, especially the lack of bread, had created ample space for the knights to perform their holy works of piety and mercy. With their knowledge of hygiene and medicine and with the charitable character of their institution, L’Isle Adam and other senior members of the Order would go round the wards every day, ministering medicine and food.63 As he and his predecessors had done on Rhodes, and as he and his successors would do again on Malta, L’Isle Adam continued, everywhere the Order sojourned, to serve with his own hands thirteen poor persons every morning in honour of Christ and his twelve apostles, offering bread and wine to the most wretched.64 Circumstances now indicated the need for the Order to exploit its military role too, and there could hardly be a better opportunity to prove its relevance than to attempt a reconquest of Rhodes.65 Initially the original conditions accompanying Malta’s donation had aroused little enthusiasm.66 The unfavourable report of the eight Hospitaller commissioners on Malta, Gozo, and Tripoli combined with reliable news from Rhodes of a possible rebellion being contemplated by sectors of its population against their Turkish masters gave L’Isle Adam serious food for thought. Could the idea of retaking Rhodes be traced back to these developments? Whether the original idea behind this plan belonged to Euthymios, the metropolitan of Rhodes, and the agà of the janissaries on the island, or to L’Isle Adam is of no great import. What is significant is that both kept bringing pressure to bear on Clement VII and L’Isle Adam to take immediate action.67 In several emotional letters addressed to Clement VII, the metropolitan professed his genuine desire to free the island’s population of the misery and brutal captivity they were experiencing under Ottoman rule. Years of apparent inactivity had passed since the knights had first thought of reconquering the island. Of these secret designs nothing appeared to have materialized; nor were there any hopeful indications that these plans were being taken seriously. The delay, wilful or not, he claimed, was aggravating what was already a worsening situation. Were the plans to be discovered, their lives would be at grave risk.68 The pope wrote one long brief after another to exhort L’Isle Adam and his Council to take immediate action.69 To 62 On this tradition, Anthony T. Luttrell, ‘The Hospitallers’ Medical Tradition 1291–1530’, in The Military Orders, i: Fighting for the Faith and Caring for the Sick, ed. Malcolm Barber (Aldershot, 1994), pp. 64–81, but especially p. 80. Also Ann Williams, ‘Xenodochium to Sacred Infirmary: The Changing Role of the Hospital of the Order of St John, 1522–1631’, in ibid., pp. 97–102. 63 Bosio, p. 60. 64 Ibid., p. 26. 65 Bosio calls the Order’s secret negotiations to retake Rhodes il Trattato di Rodi. Ibid., p. 42 ff. 66 For the original terms and conditions attached to the offer of Malta, ibid., pp. 26–27. 67 Ibid., p. 48. 68 Ibid., p. 68. 69 Ibid.

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encourage those whose faith in the secret designs was visibly fading, those who were by now entertaining doubts not only about the feasibility of the project but indeed about its sanity, the pope, explains Bosio, decided to conceal temporarily Charles V’s readiness to mitigate the original terms of the donation. If there were no certain indications that the emperor was prepared to offer milder terms, as the general-chapter at Viterbo had requested, then the reconquest would be the best alternative at that stage. Indeed, that would leave the doubting knights no easy choice.70 In conformity with papal desires, they decided to leave Nice for the whole month of May 1529. To keep their design secret to the restricted few, the grand master and council would let it be understood to one and all that Malta was their destination. Indeed, to make this sound more credible, the squadron would have to spend a few days in the channel between Malta and Gozo, until further news of developments reached them from the Levant.71 At Nice, the Order’s naval squadron increased from three to five galleys. The two newly built ones, the San Giacomo and the San Filippo, were launched in 1528 at Villefranche.72 To arm them, a large number of convicts were obtained from various sources in France, dispatched to Marseilles, and from there to Nice.73 Other oarsmen were recruited on the shores of Genoa.74 The old-time rowers were shared equally among the five galleys. To be in a sounder position to finance naval expeditions, the common treasury sought funds by ordering the felling and sale of a number of trees, grown on French commanderies. Forests were a great strategic commodity, and no commander could fell trees without the express permission from the treasury, and this solely for structural repairs on commanderies.75 Henry VIII awarded the Order the sum of 20,000 scudi d’oro coronati worth of artillery – bellissima e buona, Bosio calls it.76 Among the crews to man the galleys were the caravaners – there was exacting youth here, there was discipline, there was heroism and hardship. Elizabeth Schermerhorn defines the caravans as the six to eight statutory galley cruises which ‘the young probationer’ aspiring to ‘qualify as a fully-fledged Knight’ had to make before he could be awarded a commandery ‘to administer for his own profit and that of the Religion’.77 According to Bosio, caravaners were specifically chosen for this service by their respective langues to render the galleys capable of sailing out safely. It was in Nice in 1528 that the Hospitaller caravaners were distributed for the first time in this manner.78 Hitherto the responsibility had belonged to the Maestro Scudiero (or master equerry) who, 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

Ibid. Ibid., p. 69. Ibid., p. 62. For the names of the two galleys, ibid., p. 65. Ibid., p. 63. Ibid., p. 65. Ibid., p. 64. Ibid. Schermerhorn, p. 22. Electi sunt Commissarii ad distribuendos fratres caravanae galeorum. Malta, Cod. 85, f. 39, 12 May 1528.

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following the grand master’s instructions, would make the necessary distribution. He used to draw up a list of appointments for the caravans, a roster of those knights whose turn it was to serve on the galleys. Not only was this method difficult to accommodate everybody; it had also given rise to abuse. That was why, explains the Order’s historian, the council had decided to entrust each langue with the appropriate selection, depending on the total number required to man the five galleys adequately. Each galley had to have on board the same number of knights from each of the eight langues. They should also include senior members of the Order to assume the more exacting tasks of the Rè and the Cercamare. The former was responsible for the guards and the other functions of the knights and had the duty to see that everything on board was in order and adequately armed. The latter was responsible for the artillery and ammunition on the galleys.79 The Order’s departure from Villefranche and Nice proved more complicated than one would have thought. The decision to leave depended on a vote in council, and the council was made up of diverse nations with a whole range of opinions, attitudes, and innate obstinacies that were not easy to overcome. There was also the councillors’ own private interests. A papal brief of 14 April 1529 went unheeded as well as another, which ordered the knights’ immediate departure to Malta, demanding unquestioning obedience from every single Hospitaller under pain of excommunication and privation of all possessions.80 That notwithstanding, the French knights questioned the legitimacy of the decision to move. They were unaware that the terms of the grant had already been mitigated. They were equally unaware of the secret designs on Rhodes. They feared the move was intended to render their Order subservient to the Habsburg empire, a stance which necessitated yet a third brief.81 This time there was a subtler threat. Only Malta at this point, explained the pope on 9 May 1529, could safeguard the statutory holy exercise of hospitality and the renewal of war against the infidel. Only Malta could protect the Order’s property in Europe from the covetous eyes of princes.82 The threat appears to have been more effective than that of excommunication. Four of the galleys set sail on 18 June 1529. On the morning of 12 July, after the celebration of solemn Mass, L’Isle Adam embarked on the fifth galley at the bay of Nice. From here he sailed to Villefranche where he then boarded the new carrack. On 18 July, they headed towards Sicily and Malta.83 **** To the siege and loss of Rhodes may be attributed all the ingredients of the Order’s internal crisis from 1523 to 1565. Throughout its chequered history, down to the

79 80 81 82 83

Bosio, p. 65. Ibid., p. 70. Ibid., p. 71. Ibid. Malta, Cod. 85, f. 60v; Bosio., pp. 72–74; Elias Kollias, The Knights of Rhodes: The Palace and the City (Athens, 1991).

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French Revolution and the subsequent revolutionary wars, the Order’s survival was intimately woven into its relevance to the contemporary needs of the crowned heads of Christian Europe. Its patronage, the backbone of its existence, relied almost exclusively on the latter’s moral and material acknowledgement of its military contribution to their defence and to the Holy War. This had been the quintessential force which helped to sustain its anti-Muslim performance on land and sea. The experience of 1522 and the Hospital’s endeavour to recover from that trauma in the midst of a worse crisis in international relations constituted the great psychosis about being dismissed by its own traditional patrons as archaically irrelevant to contemporary developments. Would the siege and loss of Rhodes and the long years of vagrancy in search of a stable home render the institution in the eyes of its protectors, on whose territories lay all its massive landed property, incapable of continuing to realize its raison d’être – the holy exercise of hospitality and the holy war against the Muslim infidel? The situation in Europe and the ambiguous and inconsistent role Clement VII was playing in international affairs shook the Hospital’s principle of neutrality and promoted dissension among the national elements of the Order’s composition.84 The traditional ties of communications between the central conventual authority and administration and the peripheral prioral structures were inevitably interrupted and conventual life and discipline gravely undermined. When in 1530 the knights settled on Malta, the latter, which brought to an end a notoriously long journey, ‘the humble little island’ offered them a modicum of temporary safety and stability, away from the rivalries and hostilities of the Christian kings and princes.85 But the trial would continue. After eight full years of chaos, to endeavour to put one’s house in order was no mean task. It was a long-term process of readjustment and concentration of effort, one that would again be interrupted by the demoralizing shock of a second loss in less than thirty years, that of the North African fortress of Tripoli in 1551. It was only through the outcome of the Ottoman siege of Malta of 1565, forty-three years after that of Rhodes, that the Order of the Hospital succeeded in beginning gradually to regain confidence in its innate powers of resilience.86 It emerged stronger, more prosperous, and with a more autocratic magistracy. The change would become evident in the seventeenth century.

84 On this issue, Ann Williams, ‘The Constitutional Development of the Order of St John in Malta, 1530–1798’, in Hospitaller Malta 1530–1798: Studies on Early Modern Malta and the Order of St John of Jerusalem, ed. V. Mallia-Milanes (Malta, 1993), p. 289. 85 Charles V’s original diploma, donating the Maltese islands and Tripoli to the Order is dated 23 March 1530 and is preserved at the NLM: Malta, Cod. 70, Carolus V Imperatur concedit in pheudum perpetuum Ordini S. Iohannis Hierosolimitani insulas et civitates, castra loca Tripolis, Melibeti et Gaudisii. Also Boisgelin, iii, pp. 193–202. 86 See, for example, Anthony T. Luttrell, ‘Malta and Rhodes: Hospitallers and Islanders’, in MalliaMilanes, Hospitaller Malta, pp. 258–259.

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II THE BIRGU PHASE OF HOSPITALLER HISTORY 1

Roberto Valentini claimed that it was not possible to determine from archival documentation ‘how and when’ the idea of turning Malta into a Hospitaller headquarters had first emerged. It would appear plausible to assume, he suggested, that it had originated during ‘the first talks’ which Grand Master Philippe Villiers de l’Isle Adam had held with the Spanish Viceroy Ettore Pignatelli on reaching Messina. At that stage, he continued, it was simply a matter of exchanging views: there was no commitment on either side.21 There is no doubt that the question of Malta had been brought up in these preliminary discussions. However, the original idea of making Malta the Order’s adoptive home, at least for the time being, appears to have belonged to the Hospitallers themselves. De l’Isle Adam had arrived in Sicily on 30 April 1523,3 exactly four months after the Order of St John had been evicted from Rhodes. On 10 April, according to the celebrated Venetian diarist Marino Sanuto, de l’Isle Adam offered Emperor Charles V the sum of 100,000 ducats in cash for the seaport of Brindisi or the island of Malta:4 Vol veder Brandizo overo Malta da la Cesarea Maestà, per poter li far la residentia di Cavalieri di Rhodi, et li manda a offerir 100 mila ducati contadi.

1 Certain aspects of the history of the Order of St John during its sojourn at Birgu, such as the fortifications, architecture, the hospital, naval organisation, and relations with the local Church, have had to be either omitted entirely or simply mentioned en passant, as they form the subject of other chapters in the present book. 2 R. Valentini, ‘I Cavalieri di S. Giovanni da Rodi a Malta: Trattative Diplomatiche’, Archivum Melitense, ix/4 (1935), pp. 140–141. 3 K. M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), iii: The Sixteenth Century to the Reign of Julius Ill (Philadelphia, 1984), p. 214. The Abbé R.A. de Vertot dates the arrival “vers le commencement de mai”. Histoire des Chevaliers Hospitaliers de Saint Jean de Jerusalem, appelè depuis Chevaliers de Rhodes et aujourd’hui Chevaliers de Malte, iii (Amsterdam, 1772), p. 385. 4 M. Sanuto, I. Diarii, ed. R. Fulin et al., vol. xxxiv, Venice 1879–1903, p. 98. No minutes exist of the Order’s Council meetings between 12 March and 1 May 1523.

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003406518-3

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In asking for Malta as an alternative for Rhodes, de l’Isle Adam must have held a realistic view of the central Mediterranean island. Within the context of Hospitaller philosophy, it had its own advantages. Its geographical proximity to “enemy” territory would render possible the continuation of the statutory holy war. It was endowed with spacious harbours that would accommodate the Hospitaller fleet. At the same time, it was conveniently distant from the Catholic mainland to safeguard the Order’s autonomy and neutrality without involving it into too many international complications.5 On the other hand, the grand master must have also been aware of the island’s military and political liabilities, later underscored in the eight Hospitaller commissioners’ report of 1524.6 The disagreeable character of the central Mediterranean island, with its dependence on massive supplies of food and other raw materials from Habsburg Sicily, the poor quality of the land, the meagre yields of its Crown lands, the despicable state of the fortifications, and its repulsive exposure to Muslim corsair raids7 contrasted sharply with the luxurious Dodecanese island. The story of the protracted negotiations over the conditions of enfeoffment and the final deed is too sufficiently well known to need repeating here. Accompanied by the Knights Grand Cross and members of his Venerable Council, Grand Master de l’Isle Adam entered the Maltese harbour on 26 October 1530 and made straight for San Lorenzo-by-the-Sea, the parish church at Birgu. This was taken over by the Order for an annual rent of 20 scudi8 to serve as its conventual church throughout its stay at Birgu. The richly adorned icon of the Madonna of Phileremos was placed, says Bosio, with great devotion in one of the chapels, under the care of the vice-prior Fra Antonio Rigo.9 Within a year-anda-half of their arrival, the church was accidentally burnt down, with everything it contained, including a great part of the Flemish tapestries which depicted the lifestories of St Mary Magdelene and St Catherine. Both tapestries, which were then embellishing the church, were made of silk and rich woollen material in 1493 by order of Cardinal Grand Master Pierre d’Aubusson. The sacristy remained undamaged. Also unimpaired was the image of Our Lady of Phileremos. The church was ‘diligently restored and modernised’, with the roof rebuilt and a larger sacristy, a cemetery, and ‘other comforts’ added.10 In the 1540s there was an attempt by Grand Master Juan D’Homedes to build a new conventual church dedicated to St 5 Valentini, 140. 6 For the report, G. Bosio, Dell’ Istoria della Sacra Religione et Ill. ma Militia di S. Giovanni Gierosolimitano, iii (Naples, 1684), pp. 30–31; L. de Boisgelin, Ancient and Modern Malta, ii (London, 1805), pp. 15–17. 7 See B. Blouet, ‘The Changing Landscape of Malta during the Rule of the Order of St John of Jerusalem 1530–1798’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Hull, 1963), pp. 49–50. 8 J. F. Darmanin, The Phoenico-Graeco-Roman Temple and the Origin and Development of Fort St Angelo (Malta, 1948), p. 27 and corresponding note, p. 126 no. 68. 9 Bosio, iii, p. 89. 10 Ibid., p. 111; A. Ferres, Descrizione storica delle chiese di Malta e Gozo (Malta, 1866), pp. 267, 274.

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John the Baptist and for which a very spacious site was bought, not too far from the hospital, opposite the building which then housed the Auberge de Castile. The project failed to materialise, presumably because the need for a stronger fortress was then felt to be more urgent.11 Birgu was the maritime centre of medieval Malta. Its function was to meet the modest needs of seaborne traffic calling at the island. With the coming of the Order it would assume the role of a fortress to resist all possible aggression.12 Giacomo Bosio, writing some sixty years later, described the militarily threadbare state of Birgu in 1530 in two isolated words: aperto and debolissimo,13 neatly summing up (as it were) two eyewitnesses’ reports. The first had been drawn up by the eight Hospitaller commissioners who in 1524 had described the Castle as ‘quite high’ but one which was ‘nevertheless easy to mine and take especially from the side of nearby Birgu, which consisted of a few mariners’ houses.’ The second was written by Jean Quintin D’Autun,14 who had visited the island a few months before the arrival of l’Isle Adam. He refers to St Angelo as being ‘tota ruinis deformata et caduca,’ and to the ‘considerable inconvenience’ with which the Convent had to be set up at Birgu, exposed as it was to the four winds. Priority was thus, unavoidably, given to the urgent need to surround the ‘new city’ by a defensive wall, flanked by small bastions. These were consciously inadequate, short-term precautions, which offered the Hospitallers’ temporary residence at Birgu a modicum of security, barely sufficient to resist light artillery and to avoid being easily surprised by any shabby Muslim corsair. Their ultimate desire now was to settle on the Turkish fortress-island of Modon in the Morea; failing that, Bosio explains, not without the benefit of hindsight, they would have to build a new city on Mount St Elmo. The town offered little comfort to the dejected Hospitallers. The medieval castle of St Angelo which, despite its inherent, structural shortcomings, was later turned into the residential palace of the grand masters, was too depressingly small to accommodate the Order and what had remained of the 3,000 or so Rhodiots who had followed it loyally all the way from the Levant.15 They had therefore to adapt 11 Bosio, iii, p. 231. 12 See A. Mifsud, Knights Hospitallers of the Venerable Tongue of England (Malta, 1914), pp. 290–291. 13 Bosio, iii, pp. 89, 110. 14 Insulae Melitae Descriptio, in The Earliest Description of Malta (Lyons, 1536) by Jean Quintin d’Autun, trans. and ed. H.C.R. Vella (Malta, 1980). 15 On the Rhodiots who proceeded to Malta with the Order, A. Luttrell, ‘The Rhodian Background of the Order of St John on Malta’, in The Order’s Early Legacy in Malta, ed. J. Azzopardi (Malta, 1989), pp. 5–6. As late as 1718, one Rosa Maioli, presumably a descendent of one of these loyal Rhodiots, petitioned the grand master for what she termed the pane grande di Rodi. This she did on grounds that her father, Pietro Scarpello, had worked for the Order for sixty years, her husband for twenty years, and she had five children to sustain. Her request was granted. NLM, AOM, Cod. 1186, ff. 456/488. Similarly, in 1776, Rosa Fugart, an ‘indigente, discendente di Rodioti, venuti a Malta con l’Ordine Gerosolimitano,’ claimed that she and her two young sons, Francesco and Aloisio, were to be found in ‘uno stato deplorabile’. Her cousins, Teresa, Giovanna, and Diana,

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themselves, for the time being, to the few humble houses and magazines that were ‘not without great difficulty’ available outside the Castle to house the infirmary, the auberges, the tribunal of the Castellania, the rest of the Convent, and the Rhodiots. The security of the Castle was soon put to the test from within. A few months after l’Isle Adam had taken possession of St Angelo, in a brilliant attempt to regain their freedom and sail back to North Africa, the Order’s slaves grasped the occasion of the absence of the grand master from St Angelo and that of any armed vessel in the harbour. L’Isle Adam was residing temporarily at Mdina, the old capital city, partly because of the feast of St Paul, which used to attract huge crowds from all over the island,16 and partly owing to the work then being carried out on the restoration of the Castle itself. The Order’s entire galley squadron and other craft, together with a landing force of well over a thousand men, had sailed out in March on its long mission of pillage to Modon. The slaves had planned to take complete control of the Castle, fully equipped as it then was with stores of arms, artillery, munitions, and abundant supplies of food, seek the help of the Barbary corsairs stationed at Djerba, and await the arrival of the Ottoman armada from Constantinople. The attempt had nearly succeeded: the first boat full of freed slaves was already sailing out when a Knight Hospitaller gave the alarm.17 It was an eye-opener. It would appear from a passing remark by Bosio,18 that, during the last quarter of 1532, once the cumulative effect of physical strain and mental stress on the aging l’Isle Adam, appeared to have eased off,19 the idea of settling permanently on Malta began to take real shape again in his mind.20 Would this render hitherto generally accepted view of the temporary nature of the Order’s first twenty-eight-year sojourn at Birgu dubious or debatable? Had the Order resigned itself to permanent settlement on the island after the débâcle of Modon?21 Or is it Bosio’s reliability here that is doubtful? It is not always possible to determine when the great historian of the Order is writing with hindsight or when his narrative is faithfully following the contemporary records. The question of wheat exports and other food supplies from Sicily had just been settled in Malta’s favour. It had always been Charles V’s will, if Bosio’s Istoria is anything to go by, that the Order and the people of Malta would freely extract as much provisions

16 17 18 19 20 21

presumably living in similar miserable conditions, had recently begun to receive the pane solito di Rodi. In her petition to the grand master, she asked if she too could qualify as a recipient of such poor relief. Her request too was acceded to. NLM, AOM, Cod. 1192, ff. 344/347. Bosio, iii, p. 100. Ibid. Ibid., p. 118. ‘Quietato d’animo’: Ibid. ‘Risoluto di stabilire da vero la Religione in Malta’: Ibid. See V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘Introduction to Hospitaller Malta’, in Hospitaller Malta, 1530–1798: Studies on Early Modern Malta and the Order of St John of Jerusalem, ed. V. Mallia-Milanes (Malta, 1993).

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from his kingdom of Sicily as it was deemed necessary for their needs. The stringent quota system had in fact been imposed by overzealous ministers feigning suspicion of possible frauds in the hope of endearing themselves to the royal exchequer. L’Isle Adam’s recent acquaintance with the truth about the emperor’s real intention, says Bosio, made a noticeably positive impact on his belief in the gradual recovery of his institution. It made it look realisable. The undeserved illfortune that had struck the Hospital so deeply was now being slowly distanced from his mind. The Holy Infirmary at Birgu was a comprehensive expression to this growing conviction.22 Several Maltese houses, ‘occupying one of the most beautiful sites at Birgu,’ opposite Salvatore Hill, were bought and demolished to make way for the construction of the new hospital. The site was blessed with usual Hospitaller solemnity on 1 November, the foundation stone laid likewise the next day.23 The Birgu phase in the history of the Order marked a process of Hospitaller rehabilitation, a gradual recovery of spiritual and material strength, a necessary return to the statutes. The urgent need for internal reform was a recurring theme whose importance was duly emphasised in each successive Chapter-General held at Birgu.24 The loss of Rhodes, the fear of the Knights’ dispersion (which was as real), the long years of vagrancy amid the cold indifference of warring Catholic Europe, a declining papacy whose universal stature was being undermined by the ‘religious rebels’ in the North, and the inevitable discontinuity of monastic life had all contributed to a general slackening of Conventual discipline, still evident in the early days at Birgu. The case of the youthful Fra Bernardo Valviati, Grand Prior of Rome, was one classic example, when fighting in the narrow streets of Birgu between members of the different Langues, ‘assumed the aspect of civil war’.25 It was not surprising, therefore, that at the Chapter-General held at Fort St Angelo in 1533 it was felt necessary to ordain the setting up of a collacchio, an exclusive area reserved solely for the Hospitallers, surrounded by a wall about five metres high,26 which would seclude them and their major public buildings (like the conventual church, the hospital, the magistral palace, the treasury, the auberges, the bakeries, and other such buildings) from the rest of the population as was used to be observed on Rhodes.27 There is no documentary or archaeological evidence, however, of such a wall having ever been erected in Birgu, although contemporary records of the mid-1530s speak of the town as being divided into two distinct

22 ‘Sperando che la benignità dell’Imperatore, nell’antica, e libera franchigia sua, la Religione à poco à poco restituita haverebbe; si determinò di dare principio alla fabbrica della sacra Infermeria.’ Ibid. 23 Archivum Coll. Canonicorum Vittoriosae, Fondo Lanzon, iv, p. 703. 24 See, for example, Bosio, iii, p. 121 (for 1533), and p. 183 (for 1539). 25 Ibid., p. 395. E. Schermerhorn, Malta of the Knights (Surrey, 1929), p. 43. 26 G. Porsella-Flores, ‘Il Collacchio a Malta’, Il Delfino, xvi/89 (1986), p. 21. 27 Bosio, iii, pp. 121, 184.

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zones.28 It was only as late as 1562 that their respective boundaries were officially defined,29 and apparently identified by stone-markers.30 Although Bosio claims that in 1535 the galley Santa Caterina was built in Malta, it would still appear from a document of 1538 that during its first eight years at Birgu the Order had no arsenal of its own. Naval repairs were generally carried out at Messina. In the Chapter-General held that year, it was resolved to find a suitable place for the building of an arsenal which would be supplied with all the necessary provisions and equipment for the construction, maintenance, and repair of the fleet.31 It is not clear, says Ettore Rossi, where the first arsenal was built, but he claims that it must have been sited in the vicinity of San Lorenzo where others were eventually to be built. Bosio is more specific on this point: ‘edificandosi quasi in mezo della strada della marina del Borgo’.32 In 1541 a new quay was constructed, stretching from the ditch of Fort Saint Angelo to the walls of the town below the gate leading out from Birgu to Bormla; along the wharf mooring places and other related facilities were constructed, including the heavy iron rings used in mooring the galleys. The walls of the quay were such that they could provide cover and shelter from any surprise assault by sea. They could be easily closed by earth-filled crates, barrels, and boats.33 In 1545 the art of making sail cloth of cotton fibre was introduced in Malta for the galleys and other vessels, under the direction of one renegade, Pietro della Calibia.34 That year, too, a new public building (di bella e commoda architettura) was constructed on the marina close to the arsenal. Its ground floor was sufficiently spacious to house the Order’s bakeries, while the upper storey accommodated the Camera dei Conti of the Common Treasury. Housing at overcrowded Birgu posed a very acute social problem. With the unrestrained ambitions of an expanding Ottoman Empire and the prodigious activity of the Muslim corsairs in the central Mediterranean, the presence of the Hospitallers on Malta had drawn an increasingly hostile attention to the new strategic significance of the island. By the 1550s, partly as a result of the recent devastating experience of Dragut’s raid on the Maltese islands, the problem was aggravated by certain knowledge that Birgu and Mdina, the old capital, were the 28 Porsella-Flores, p. 22. 29 ‘Ordinamo et dechiaramo ch’ il collachio et suoi limiti siano et s’intendano dal ponte del Castello insino alla Cantonera delli forni della Signoria quali sono al fronte spicio della casa del quandam Dottor Navarro, montando per quella vanella dretta lassando le Case che vengono alla banda dretta fuor del collacchio et questo tirando la strada sino alla Cantonera della Bottega di Paulo Borlo quandam Naydi andando alla chiesa di santo Nicola tirando per dritto sino alla casa del Com[mendat]or fra Giovan de Eguaras per la Cantonera della Casa di Giulio de Avella, et de ivi passando per la strada delle case de Anna gallega et de Brayto per dretto sino alla muraglia di questa nuova Città.’ NLM, AOM, Cod. 91, f. 80. 30 See, for example, Porsella-Flores, pp. 22–23. 31 E. Rossi, Storia della marina dell’Ordine di S. Giovanni di Gerusalemme di Rodi e di Malta (Roma-Milan, 1926), p. 103, citing NLM, AOM, Cod. 286, f. 89. 32 Bosio, iii, p. 184. 33 Ibid., p. 214. 34 Ibid., p. 242.

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only two centres which offered some sense of (psychological) security. It was to these two weakly walled cities that the entire population began steadily to retire. The few houses that could provide any modicum of comfort at Birgu had been taken over by the Order to accommodate its immediate needs. Some twenty years earlier, Jean Quintin had described the dwelling places at Birgu as being in a state of utter poverty. Most of them were neglected, the rest falling apart. He drew attention to their crumbling and unfinished walls and to the fact that they had been built on weak foundations. These houses had no attics, and their rough roofs were covered with either tiles or reeds. Quintin called the great majority of these structures ‘African huts’. Most of the Knights were therefore constrained to live in dormitories (camerata) in small houses, each offering shelter to from ten to fifteen Hospitallers. It was a compassionate sight, lamented Bosio, to see some twelve thousand inhabitants, almost half the population of Malta, with the wives and children and the rest of their families with all their belongings, compelled, for lack of houses, to live and sleep out in the open, exposed to the extreme summer heat during the day and to the pernicious humidity during the night, lying in open squares, suffering all sorts of hardship, not least that of thirst, and of having to keep up with the unbearable stench of foul breath, perspiration, and other similar inconveniences of crowds of temporarily homeless people and multitudes of animals living together: conditions that were quite amenable to the outbreak and spread of plague.35 Bosio makes reference to Jean de la Valette’s early affection towards the people, which he deduces from what he calls the grand master’s desire to get to know them better at first hand by living in their midst instead of remaining isolated at Fort St Angelo.36 An ordinary house, hitherto occupied by the Conventual Conservator, in one of the most prominent sites at Birgu was accordingly repaired and turned into a more decently habitable structure. The grand master moved into it on 27 February 1558.37 Two-and-a-half decades earlier, l’Isle Adam too had succeeded in winning over the common folk through his lavish charities, the provision of well-paid labour, and the protection he offered them against the arrogance of his noble men.38 But in 1558 there was more to the transfer of the magistral residence than Bosio would have us believe. It was more than simply a positive side comment on the nature of the magistracy in the late 1550s. Here, among his loyal people, the grand master felt necessarily safer than among the large numbers (gran quantità) of infidel slaves that surrounded him on all sides at Fort St Angelo. Here, too, he was in a better position to allay any tumult that might occur between factions within the Convent or indeed on the lower popular level.39 Also in 1558 the

35 36 37 38 39

Ibid., p. 297. Ibid., p. 395. Ibid. Schermerhorn, p. 40. See Bosio, iii, p. 395. On 6 June 1547, for example, Castilian Hospitallers rebelled against their Prior and, with the support of the younger members of the Langue of Aragon, Catalonia, and

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Venerable Council, meeting on 17 June, resolved to build what expert military engineers had been consistently suggesting over the years – a new city on Mount St Elmo.40 If financial exhaustion was one important factor which had confined the Order to Birgu for so long, the growing Ottoman threat would again delay the realisation of La Valette’s decision by another eight years. Was it not also in June 1558 that Piali Pasha, commander of the Turkish fleet, had seized Ciudadela, the small coastal town on Minorca, throwing ‘Valencia into a state of alarm, with fears of a rising among the Moriscos’?41 It would have been both risky and dangerous to venture on such an ambitious project as the building of a new city precisely at a moment when the mighty Turkish armada, after years of notable absence, appeared again in the central and western Mediterranean.42 Dragut’s devastation of Gozo in 1551 and the subsequent siege and loss of Tripoli made the Order’s unwavering resistance to the Turkish onslaught on Malta fourteen years later all the more viable. With a newly engendered sense of urgency43 and with a more concentrated military effort now made possible, the Order was alerted to a more realistic rethinking on the state of the fortifications at Birgu which appeared more patently inadequate as the likelihood of a Turkish invasion increased. This belated awareness on the part of one that was twice bitten in less than 30 years resulted eventually in the construction of ‘an interlocking pattern of smaller works’ around the town.44 A ‘grand cavalier’ was raised on Fort St Angelo, high enough to control the entrance to Marsamxett Harbour; a wide ditch was excavated to separate the fort from its suburb; two new forts were built: one at the tip of Mount St Elmo, the other, Fort St Michael, on the neck of the Isola peninsula, where a new town was also founded to ease the population pressure at Birgu. All this helped to create ‘a more compact block of fortifications

40

41 42 43 44

Navarre, outnumbering the Prior’s supporters, made an armed assault on his person with intent to kill him. Ibid., p. 249. NLM AOM 90, f. 19v; Bosio, iii, p. 398. Ten years earlier, in the Chapter-General of 1548, there had been an overwhelming pressure on the Signori Sedici to have the entire body of the Order transferred to Tripoli. To remain in Malta, it was indispensable to build the oft-recommended new city on Mount St Elmo, a project which would have involved the Order in exorbitant expenses at a time when it could least afford it. A garrison of Knights and soldiers, it was suggested, would be left behind to defend St Angelo, and a Hospitaller captain-at-arms as Governor of Mdina. It would have been less expensive, it was argued, to fortify the city of Tripoli, which was militarily more capable of being rendered impregnable as it was surrounded on two sides by the sea rather than by dangerously high ground on all sides, as St Angelo and Birgu were. The suggested transfer to Tripoli would force the Emperor and his ministers to get more directly involved in Malta’s defence in case of attack, owing to its proximity to his territories. According to Bosio, the driving force behind such pressure on the Sixteen appeared to have been Jean de La Valette, who was then governor of Tripoli. Bosio, iii, pp. 255–256. F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, trans. S. Reynolds (London, 1972–73), p. 944. Ibid. A. Hoppen, The Fortification of Malta by the Order of St John (Edinburgh, 1979), p. 25. J. McPartlin, ‘The Defences of Malta’, Journal of the Faculty of Arts, Royal University of Malta, iii, 1 (1965), pp. 10–17.

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round the harbour in Galley Creek on which the Order’s navy depended’.45 Across the entrance to Galley Creek, from Isola Point to Fort St Angelo, a huge iron chain was drawn. It had been ordered by the Common Treasury from Venice and was brought over to Malta on board the Venetian Contarina in 1554. It was meant to save the bother and expense of using instead a whole train of vessels and wooden planks across the entrance every time there was a rumour of a Turkish armada.46 During their first 35 years at Birgu, the Hospitallers’ naval intrigues in the Levant and their wild piratical operations on Muslim trade and territory, especially on the sensitive Alexandria-Constantinople crossing, not only constituted a blatant defiance of the ‘solemn oath’ which de l’Isle Adam had sworn before leaving Rhodes that his Order would never again fight Suleyman. They undermined the security and strategic advantage which the Ottomans had gained for their empire by their conquest of Syria (1516) and Egypt (1517) and consolidated by that of Rhodes in 1522.47 A punitive expedition to the new Hospitaller stronghold was, sooner or later, unavoidable. After nearly two years of preparations in Constantinople and North Africa, the full-scale campaign against Malta came in 1565 with hardly any surprise, either to sixteenth-century political observers or to later historians. It lay clearly in the logic of contemporary Ottoman imperial expansion to enhance ‘the TurcoMuslim position on North Africa, where Ottoman ambitions extended as far west as Morocco’.48 So it was both punitive and political. ‘The siege of Malta,’ writes Kenneth Setton,49 whose narrative, based on an impressive amount of documentary sources and firmly integrated within its wider European and Mediterranean context, is by far the best modern account of the siege,50 had been an exciting, fearful drama. Few events of the stormy century ever caught such widespread attention or evoked such admiration, at least in Europe, as did the success of the Hospitallers and the Maltese in defending their island against almost four months of Turkish assault. Fernand Braudel, too, attributes Malta’s victory to the ‘determined resistance’ of the Hospitallers.51 But the successful defence of Malta was as much the result of Hospitaller and Maltese valour and audacity as it was the outcome of a fortu45 46 47 48

Ibid. Bosio, iii, p. 245. D. Hoffman, Izmir and the Levantine World, 1550–1650 (London, 1990), p. 67. A. C. Hess, The Forgotten Frontier: A History of the Sixteenth-Century Ibero-African Frontier (London, 1974), p. 84. 49 Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, iv: The Sixteenth Century from Julius III to Pius V, p. 877. 50 For an eye-witness account, Francesco Balbi de Correggio, La Verdadera Relacion de todo lo que el anno de MDLXV ha succedido en la Isla de Malta, de antes que llegasse l’armada sobre ella de Soliman Gran Turco, hasta que llego el soccoro postrero del Rey catholico nuestro senor don Phelipe segundo d’este nombre (2nd edn., Barcelona, 1568). For the text relating to Birgu, infra. 51 Braudel, p. 1017.

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itous combination of factors both within and outside the besieging Turkish forces. Such were, for example, the lack of co-ordination within the Turkish leadership; the belated arrival of the North African corsairs; the unnecessarily long interval between 19 and 28 May, which gave the defenders ample time to improve the fortifications; and the eventual arrival of the two Spanish relief forces: the piccolo soccorso on 2 July and the gran soccorso on 7 September. Moreover, that Malta’s vital link with neighbouring Sicily remained open during the siege, allowing communications and the free movement of troops between the two islands, can hardly be credited to the military genius of the Hospitallers and to their naval strength and expertise. Rather, it was the Turks’ costly failure to recognise, first, the superior military qualities of the walled city of Mdina and the strategic potential it would have offered them had they given it priority over the siege of St Elmo,52 and, secondly, the advantage they would have gained had they attempted an immediate attack on Birgu the moment they arrived. Braudel assigned the Turkish siege of Malta a permanent place among the ‘great events’ of the century.53 Contemporary observers and later historians of the siege have all given it, with perhaps too much alacrity, rare attributes of greatness. None have questioned its importance, except for Braudel, in whose vision of history the term event lends itself to a precise, though highly unorthodox, definition: ‘crests of foam that the tides of history carry on their strong backs’,54 with all the obvious connotations that the metaphor so neatly conveys. It would not be pointless, therefore, to reconsider the issue. But how would one set about measuring the importance of the siege? I suggest that its long-term significance in the historical development both of the Mediterranean and of Malta itself, the role (if any) it played in bringing about a permanent, structural change in either geographical entity, would be a valid criterion for objective assessment. Let it be said at once without trepidation: in its vast Mediterranean context, the siege of Malta constituted no significant turning-point. Like the siege of Rhodes, it was highly charged with the dreadful fear of the unknown, dramatic, full of atrocity and heroism, intense religious passion, and much loss of life. Within three months of the Turkish retreat, when the full ecstasy of victory gradually subsided and all the sermons and celebrations in the major capitals of turbulent Europe had come to an end, the Turkish peril remained as threatening, the arsenal at Constantinople as brisk and resourceful, as they had been before the armada had set out on its politico-punitive mission. Hospitaller Malta did not break Turkish morale: after all, their ‘chief losses’ were ‘merely in replaceable men’;55 indeed, it ‘strengthened the desire for revenge’.56 In April 1566 they took Chios, bringing to an end the 220 years of Genoese rule over the island; on 8 September, after prolonged 52 53 54 55 56

This, to Francesco Balbi di Correggio’s eye-witness relacion, had been a serious tactical error. Braudel, p. 1014. Ibid., Preface to the First Edition, p. 21. After Setton, iv, p. 879. Braudel, p. 1021.

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resistance, they seized the fortress town of Szigeth in the southwest of Hungary; in 1571 they captured Cyprus from the Venetians. The strength of the Ottomans at sea had remained formidable. Neither had the ‘bonfires of rejoicing’ at the Turkish defeat, once these were spent, inspired any crusading zeal to follow up the victory of 1565 – whether in the form of an alliance between Spain and Venice, or one between Spain and France. When the league eventually came, it was the product of a different climate, of circumstances unconnected with the victory at Hospitaller Malta. It was a painfully delayed reaction to the renewed vigour of the Turks. In the Ottoman imperial strategy of extending Turco-Muslim influence as far west as Tlemcen the repulsion sustained in 1565 was, therefore, a temporary setback, a ‘surface disturbance’ Braudel would have called it. So was the humiliation at Lepanto. Neither had succeeded in forestalling the grand design.57 Tunis was seized in 1569, lost briefly to Don Juan in 1573, and taken permanently the following year. In 1576 Morocco, too, fell under Ottoman influence, which was consolidated at Alcazar two years later. Like Lepanto and Tunis, the Christian victory at Malta in 1565 was a ‘victory without a morrow’. On the other hand, a good case could be made for the long-term importance of the siege in its narrower Maltese context. The successful outcome of the siege did mark an important turning-point both in the history of the Order of St John and in the social and economic history of Malta. It reconfirmed the decision which La Valette and his Council had taken eight years earlier to stay in Malta, one that was implied in their resolution to build a new city on Mount St Elmo. In the last quarter of 1565 it entailed the more formidable task of reconstruction in its dual phenomenon. First, the siege had left behind a total devastation, both material and demographic. The Turks [recorded Viperano58], when all their force and engines of war were landed, began to devastate hamlets and fields, to burn houses and ravage everything with fire and sword, so that for three days and nights they wretchedly destroyed nearly the whole island. This was immediately followed by the four-month siege, with an extensively disastrous effect on the landscape:59 crops ruined, walls broken, villages looted and wasted. When the peasants returned to the land their numbers had been depleted, their houses wrecked, the livestock eaten, equipment and seed gone. The processes of land abandonment and decay of the Middle Ages had come to a climax – Malta was a ruin and a wilderness. 57 Hess, pp. 89–90. 58 I. A. Viperano, De Bello Melitensi Historia (Perugia, 1567), p. 8: quoted after Blouet, p. 52. 59 Ibid., p. 53.

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The island had therefore to be rebuilt in both spheres. The Order slowly recovered its morale. After the humiliating defeats of 1522 and 1551, with the intervening eight-year odyssey around Europe, the institution was soon to regain its strength, its purpose, its sense of direction; indeed, its selfconfidence which proved psychologically indispensable not only in its relation with Islam, but also in its persistent endeavour to justify its relevance to Christian Europe. The complete, structural transformation which Malta experienced from the late sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth century, neatly epitomised in the new city of Valletta, bears witness to the importance and significance of the Turkish siege of 1565 as a powerful force of change within the Maltese context:60 Sprung up into existence within the haunting shadow of Suleyman, the city of Valletta, in all its eloquent dimensions, was, by the late eighteenth century, an outwardly dilated expression of prowess, glory, and prosperity. It was the Order’s tribute to its own achievement. From a barren, uninhabited peninsula, with foul smells of burning dung and thistle blowing from the sparsely populated countryside, the Order of St John, brought to its shores by accident and with great reluctance, had succeeded through the ages in transforming it into an epitome of all the courts of Europe. To the native inhabitants, the Knights were a powerful Europeanising force which turned the dullness of their archaic way of life, ‘withdrawn and insecure’, into colour and brightness. The Order’s style of government, benevolent and despotic, unintentionally stirred their growing, restive consciousness of a promising future. Four distinct cycles marked the fortunes of the town of Birgu in early modern times. From the scanty evidence so far produced, and notwithstanding indications of a slowly rising demographic trend, Malta’s medieval ‘centre for external trade’ appears, albeit hazily, to have gone into ‘rapid decline’ from about the third decade of the fifteenth century, when the massive corsairing activity in the Mediterranean began to render trade difficult in the area.61 The strategic importance of Malta, lying on none of the great Mediterranean trade routes, had yet to be established. After 1530 there was a clashing juxtaposition of two cultures, two widely different traditions. The arrival of the Hospitallers radically disturbed the old patterns and gave the town an entirely new life. The newcomers generated an enormous activity in all spheres (political, social, economic, and religious), changed the rules and style of government, and with their ideals, values, and inordinate taste for luxury created new demands, new expectations, and new problems. Then, after the initial depression it unavoidably sustained in the immediate aftermath of 60 V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘Valletta: Malta’s Hospitaller City: An Epitome of Europe’, in id., Valletta: Malta’s Hospitaller City and Other Essays (Malta, 2019), pp. 35–36. 61 See, for example, Blouet, p. 243.

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the siege and the subsequent building of Valletta – sadly witnessing the solemn migration of the Convent and the painful transfer of the auberges, the service industries, and the hospital – Birgu was again to experience a revival. In contrast to its demographic decline, which was simply the natural result partly of a relocation of the central administration and partly of the periodic outbreaks of plague, it would again assume a relative importance in the social and economic life of the country, an active, if not flourishing, state determined as much by the Hospitaller naval establishment and its servicing industries as by the permanent pressure there after the mid-1570s of the Tribunal of the Inquisition. It was ironically through the building of Valletta62 that the military revolution of early modern Europe, especially the qualitative and quantitative improvements in artillery and the consequent transformation in fortress design,63 freed Birgu of its ‘parochial security’. The role the town was destined to play at least down to the end of the eighteenth century was determined by Valletta’s development into a port city which gradually grew into a ‘complete unit’ of which the Grand Harbour on the southern side of the peninsula and Marsamxett harbour on the northern side were to become an integral part.64 More perhaps than Marsamxett, the Grand Harbour was intimately related to the rest of the new city as its fortifications were purposely designed to meet the military and naval needs of the Order and the demands of the economic expansion of Valletta. Though a second shipbuilding yard was built in the Valletta side of the harbour in the early half of the seventeenth century (destroyed by fire in the 1680s65), the galley sheds and the main arsenal, modified, enlarged, and rebuilt over the years to meet current exigencies, were retained at Birgu. Galley Creek remained the base of the Hospitaller squadron and, when the latter was made up of six galleys, three were moored on the Birgu side, three on the Senglea side. But the arsenal for the ships-of-the-line was sited on the opposite shore of Senglea. Was this change in policy an important factor in further aggravating Birgu’s decline? Other structures ‘associated with the construction, provisioning and administration of the galleys’ were retained where they had been before the siege,66 together with other major service industries. In this sense, the town succeeded in saving its inherent character as a centre of artisans. Was it perhaps the long-term consequence of this phenomenon that a ‘better’ class of citizens survived in Birgu until the Second World War? Moreover, it was in stately buildings at Birgu that the General of the Galleys, together with three captains and other officials of the arsenal, continued to reside. Other galley captains built

62 Ibid., p. 179. 63 See G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800 (Cambridge, 1988), p. 24. 64 On port cities, J. W. Konvitz, Cities and the Sea: Port City Planning in Early Modern Europe (Baltimore, 1978). 65 Descrittione di Malta, Anno 1716: A Venetian Account, ed. V. Mallia-Milanes (Malta, 1988), p. 64, note to line 259. 66 Blouet, p. 219.

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themselves elegant houses in Senglea.67 The gente delle galere lived in these two towns.68 The building of the S. Margerita lines, the Cottonera lines, and Fort Ricasoli in the seventeenth century not only embraced the Three Cities; they created of both sides of the Grand Harbour ‘a whole in which each part [was] related to the other’.69 It is not surprising, then, that the Venetian Giacomo Capello, visiting the island in 1716, described Valletta, Birgu, and Senglea as composite parts of a whole, collectively constituting the capital city of Malta.70 As yet we know very precious little that is authentic about the grim realities of everyday life in early modern Birgu. The seventy-odd suppliche or petitions submitted to the grand master by the residents of Birgu or by ‘outsiders’ with a special interest in Birgu, during the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will perhaps allow me to make some valid generalisations. The voluminous collections of suppliche in the Hospitaller Archives are among the few available primary sources which shed some light on the lot of the island’s average inhabitant.71 The magistracy, to whom all these petitions were addressed, was, of course, no gullible institution. Each petition had to be accompanied by supporting documentary evidence. Considered in isolation, as they have been for the purpose of the present paper, they can serve only one objective – to give an idea of the general climate that permeated social life at this small maritime city under Hospitaller rule. It is therefore the purpose of what follows to present a narrow outline of the problems, strains, and sufferings, the hopes, fears, and hunger of segments of Birgu’s inhabitants, one which future research, based on a broader base of Church, State, and private documentation, will probably modify. Little do these petitions speak of prosperity as, perhaps understandably, very few (if any) wealthy or prestigious citizens feature in them. The petitions under survey hailed from a fairly wide cross-section of the city’s population, including sailors, soldiers, physicians, tradesmen, widows, notaries, master craftsmen, watchmen, small merchants, nuns, tailors, and one chaplain assigned to Fort St Angelo. Their needs, as they emerge from the petitions, may be grouped into four categories. The first was employment. The petitions provide ample, useful information in this regard. Their notation as to the petitioner’s previous occupation, or his social status at the time of submitting his petition, indicates that the Hospitaller navy, the militia, and other related services constituted the major sources of employment. A good number of the people of Birgu, for example, had held service, some for quite a long time, within the Order’s naval organisation. By 1637 Giovanni

67 Schermerhorn, pp. 214–215; G. P. Badger, Description of Malta and Gozo (Malta, 1838), pp. 274–275. 68 Mallia-Milanes, Descrittione di Malta, p. 47. 69 Konvitz, pp. 9–10. 70 Mallia-Milanes, Descrittione di Malta, p. 22. 71 See J. Mizzi, V. Borg, A. Zammit Gabarretta, Catalogue of the Records of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in the Royal Malta Library, viii (Malta, 1967). See also Mallia-Milanes, ‘Introduction to Hospitaller Malta’.

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Calabro had served the Order for 40 years, 20 of which were spent on Hospitaller galleys, where he had been wounded on several occasions; the other 20 at Fort St Angelo.72 In 1732 Luciano Spadaro claimed to have spent 43 years as soldier on the galleys.73 By 1654 Giulio Farrugia had worked in the Order’s navy for 12 years.74 In 1760 Ignatio Formosa referred to his 14-year service as sailor.75 In their petitions to the grand master, two sought what appears to have been less strenuous employment. Farrugia applied for the post of sergeant at Birgu,76 Formosa for an unspecified job at Fort Ricasoli.77 Spadaro was already serving as sergeant at Fort St Angelo, with a salary of 4 scudi 6 tari a month,78 as a result of earlier petitions.79 In his 1732 petition he sought to have his son Guillelmo enrolled as soldier with the Birgu regiment.80 Calabro, who was described as old and blind, asked to be replaced by his son and be awarded a pension of 10 scudi.81 Antonio Scale, a soldier approaching old age, stationed at Fort St Angelo and with no other source of income except for the meagre emoluments he obtained from the Order, had a ‘virgin daughter’ whom he feared poverty would force her to prostitution. He was given to understand that one Antonio Naudi was prepared to marry her if Scale relinquished his post in his favour. Scale petitioned the grand master to employ his would-be son-in-law as a soldier at Fort St Angelo.82 Thirty-three petitioners, or 42.8 per cent of those consulted, were either employed or sought employment with the Order’s land regiments. In 1761 Vincenzo Pasca, having served for 22 years in the Birgu militia, sought to take over the post of first sergeant, currently occupied by one described in the petition as an infirm octogenarian, Ignazio Borg.83 Ignazio Camilleri, from Senglea, was for 14 years employed as comito delle galere and for eight years as sergeant major. During these years he also acted as sindaco. During the last years of his employment he claimed to have received no stipend. In his 1792 petition he asked to fill the post of lieutenant of Birgu.84 In 1793 Felice Seracino, first corporal in the Birgu regiment, applied for promotion to sotto-sergente.85 Applying for employment, transfer, or promotion by way of petitioning the grand master appears to have been standard practice on early modern Malta. It

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

NLM, AOM, Cod. 1184, ff. 189/190. Ibid., Cod. 1187, ff. 330/348. Ibid., Cod. 1185, ff. 68/79. Ibid., Cod. 1190, f. 107. Ibid., Cod. 1185, ff. 68/79. Ibid., Cod. 1190, f. 107. Ibid., Cod. 1187, ff. 330/348. See ibid., Cod. 1186, ff. 204/211, 206/209. Ibid., Cod. 1187, ff. 330/348. Ibid., Cod. 1184, ff. 189–190. Ibid., Cod. 1187, ff. 210–211. Ibid. Ibid., Cod. 1197, ff. 5/14. Ibid., ff. 80–81.

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was not restricted solely to members of the humblest stratum of society. A number of petitions, with a similar objective, were in fact submitted by members of the professions. Nicola Papadobla, chirurgo of the poor at Birgu, asked to be transferred to the Holy Infirmary to fill the medical post about to be vacated by Paolo Fiteni.86 Salvatore Vitale, a public notary of Birgu, had received his training under Antonio Pace. In 1736 he wished to take over the notarial duties of Francesco Pisano, who had been ill for over a year and was no longer able to exercise his profession.87 When Salvatore died in 1784, his son Emanuele, who had had six years’ training in the profession, sought to succeed him. He claimed that, since his father’s death, there was no resident notary in Birgu. Notary Gio. Maria Zammit was indisposed and unable to exercise his profession, with the result that the people of Birgu were constrained to seek legal advice from notaries in Siggiewi. Emanuele Vitale, one of the future ‘leaders of the Maltese’ during the insurrection against the French in 1798, was appointed public notary on 7 June 1785, after having been examined by the university authorities and issued with a certificate of competence signed by P. Angelo Moncada, Giuseppe Bartolomeo Xerri, and Comm. Fra Antonio Micallef.88 Requests concerning housing accommodation, requisition orders, and building permits formed a second group of petitions. In 1639 an ‘outsider’, one Giorgio Bonavia, petitioned the grand master to provide him and his family with a more decently habitable space at Birgu. The reply he received appears to be a plausible indicator of the current housing situation in the city. His request would be met, he was told, as soon as a vacancy occurred.89 Were no vacant houses available at Birgu at that particular point in time? Had the density of the population in Birgu in the late 1630s reached saturation point? Mario Cavallino owned a site in Birgu close to the bastione della Porta. In 1641 he sought and obtained permission to have this site developed as, he claimed, it would pose no harm either to the fortifications or to the residents living in the vicinity.90 In 1736 Stefano Erardi, grandson of the artist Stefano Erardi (1630–1716), wrote on behalf of a widow, Antonia Manduca, whose late husband he had just succeeded in the post of lieutenant of Birgu. He petitioned the grand master to have Antonia compensated for the loss of some of her property, including an orchard which had been requisitioned for military training.91 In 1639 Giorgio Camilleri complained about the inconvenience created by the building of the new archi dell’Arsenale in the street where he lived. This caused one of his two doors to be practically barred because of the

86 Ibid., Cod. 1189, ff. 166/171. For similar petitions, ibid., Cod. 1191, ff. 110/119, 111/118. 87 Ibid., Cod. 1188, f. 18. For similar petitions from the inhabitants of Birgu, ibid., Cod. 1196 (Giovanni Antonio Spiteri), ff. 109/114 (16 October 1790); ff. 122/125 (23 December 1790). Ibid., Cod. 1198 (Giovanni Antonio Spiteri), ff. 121/146. 88 Ibid., Cod. 1195, ff. 23–26, 108–111. 89 Ibid., Cod. 1184, ff. 229–230. 90 Ibid., ff. 283/302. 91 Ibid., Cod. 1188, f. 13.

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large quantities of building material lying outside it and denying him access to his property. He asked for access space of about one cane.92 A petition, involving another widow, sheds some valuable light on the question of indigence at Birgu. Ever since her grandmother’s time, Margherita Spiteri claimed to have lived in a small tunnel or archway adjoining one of the churches in Birgu. She was a widow with two children and described as ‘extremely poor’. Her husband had served the Order for 22 years and died while serving on one of the Hospitaller galleys. In 1728 she successfully petitioned the grand master to reconsider an order which had been recently issued to vacate the tunnel.93 Security was a third category. In 1638 Don Grazio and Antonio Calleja, both from Birgu, complained about the incidence of criminality and disorderliness in their street. Such vicious behaviour, which was becoming habitual, was perpetuated, or so they claimed, by what they called certain malandanti che non hanno il timor di Dio. They advocated increased watchfulness and the regular maintenance of public order.94 Within the fourth category is comprised a wide range of miscellaneous requests that do not permit a thematically unified classification. These range from an occasional request by a Birgu resident to be allowed to return to Malta after having visited her son in Palermo,95 to an application by Gerolamo Valles, a Spanish soldier at Fort St Angelo, for leave of absence to travel abroad to see his wife and children;96 from Stefano Erardi’s 1736 petition requesting the grand master to reserve a more adequate place, somewhere in Birgu, Bormla, or Senglea, where owners of small ships could have their cargoes disembarked more easily and more efficiently than at the place presently allotted them at the Manderaggio (presumably of Bormla),97 to Demetrio Sacco’s desire to learn a grade and become a useful citizen. As he had not yet mastered the art of ropemaking, he wished to be allowed to spend some time as an apprentice with his father who worked in that trade at the jetty of Birgu apparently with the Hospitaller arsenal. Demetrio was currently stationed at Fort Ricasoli and was much worried about his three younger, motherless sisters.98 In June 1769 Bartolomeo Venzales, chaplain at Fort St Angelo, with a salary of 20 tari a month, complained that whereas what appeared to him to have been an excessive number of guards were employed at the entrance gate to Fort St Angelo, the post of sexton remained vacant, with the result that he had to recruit temporary cleaners at his own expense.99

92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99

Ibid., Cod. 1184, ff. 231/260. Ibid., Cod. 1187, ff. 184/203. Ibid., Cod. 1184, ff. 216/225. Ibid., Cod. 1185, ff. 282/287. Ibid., Cod. 1189, ff. 35/40. Ibid., Cod. 1188, ff. 39/48. Ibid., f. 38. Ibid., Cod. 1191, ff. 270–271.

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Although the percentage of the petitioners to the whole population of Hospitaller Birgu at any point in time was extremely small and cannot in this sense claim any reliable representation, the subject matter of these requests, which were generally acceded to, provides insight, nevertheless, not only into the State interest in the socially distressed (like widows, invalids, the indigent, and the unemployed) by providing a modicum of social welfare in the charitable sense of the term, but also into the poor-relief system and other State social services available to the local inhabitants. The service of an attendant State-salaried physician for the poor – one that was extended to the residents of Senglea, Bormla, and presumably to other areas in Malta and Gozo – was one such. The free distribution of loaves of bread and meals to the needy was another.100 A third was the State-maintained institution offering accommodation to the old and the poor. This is illustrated by Michele Campisciano’s petition to the grand master, dated January 1645. At the end of a 54-year service with the Order (he was currently a bombardiere at Fort St Angelo), he wished (and was allowed) to retire in ‘un pezzo di casa di quelle stanze della Infermeria della Città Valletta solite date ai habitanti poveri’.101 The unrestricted personal dependence of the inhabitants of early modern Birgu, like those of the rest of the island, on the benevolence of the Hospitaller State, indeed their unthinking submission to the undisputed magistral authority extended to practically all areas of social life, tended to reduce them to ‘a common level of powerlessness’. The system helped to strengthen further the highly centralised authority of the magistracy and render it securer. The charitable distribution of supplicated favours was common practice in nearly all the States of early modern Europe. In the Republic of Venice, as on Hospitaller Malta, it assumed ‘such a central social role that it could fairly be termed an institution in its own right’.102

100 See, for example, Ibid., Cod. 1184, ff. 239/252 (16 June 1639); Cod. 1186, ff. 206/209 (10 September 1705); ff. 402/420, 403 (9 March 1716); Cod. 1187, ff. 196–197 (12 July 1729). 101 Ibid., Cod. 1184, ff. 413/420. 102 R. C. Davis, Shipbuilders of the Venetian Arsenal: Workers and Workplace in the Preindustrial City (Baltimore-London, 199, p. 184).

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III HOSPITALLER BAROQUE CULTURE The order of St John’s legacy to early modern Malta

It has only been fairly recently that the significance of the term baroque began to assume proportions much wider than those attributed to it traditionally to define seventeenth-century art and literature in all their stylistic manifestations.1 Initially inspired by an overwhelming Counter-Reformation sensibility and expressing the emotional aspirations of the Catholic church, today the term is used to denote a social reality, to comprehend the development of a whole society, a collective and individual way of life which spread from the Mediterranean to far beyond its shores. It reached maturity during the general crisis of the seventeenth century, when society was dominated by a strong sense of fear and instability.2 Indeed, crisis was the quintessence of the European scene. Chaos, claims Pierre Chaunu,3 had been let loose. On both the collective and individual levels, the age was marked by conflict whose intensity and wide diffusion had been decisive in transforming contemporary thought and action. On the first level, the clash of political and religious ideas and ideals, the spread and continuity of war, the growth of social antagonism, revolution, and not least ‘the resentful disposition behind issues of precedence in daily ritual – administrative or ecclesiastical’ – all were among the turbulent features of the epoch. On the other level, the peculiarity of the ‘baroque conflict’, observes Rosario Víllari, is not so much to be found in the contrast between diverse individuals or social groups, as in ‘the presence of apparently incompatible or evidently contradictory attitudes within the same person’: Traditionalism and the search for the novel; conservatism and rebellion; the love of truth and the cult of disguise; wisdom and folly; sensuality 1 See, for example, the introduction to R. Víllari (ed.), L’Uomo Barocco (Rome-Bari, 1991), pp. vii–xv. 2 For the general crisis of the seventeenth century, T. Aston (ed.), Crisis in Europe 1560–1660 (London, 1965); G. Parker, L. M. Smith (eds.), The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1978). See also P. Clark (ed.), The European Crisis of the 1590s: Essays in Comparative History (London, 1985). 3 L’Uomo Barocco, p. ix.

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003406518-4

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and mysticism; superstition and rationality; austerity and consumerism; the affirmation of natural rights and the exaltation of absolute power.4 This is precisely what Víllari means by ‘the cohabitation of opposites’, an appropriate qualification of the inherently conflicting cohesion of baroque culture, a projection of the new aesthetic beauty that emerged from the heterogeneity of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s bel composto. Renaissance art had focused ‘on pleasing a small, wealthy, cultural élite’. Baroque would appeal to the senses in a way that would ‘touch the soul and kindle the faith’ of the common man, of the ‘ordinary churchgoer’, and at the same time ‘proclaim the power and confidence of the reformed Catholic church’. This was the culture of the Mediterranean. ‘Perhaps the extravagance of a civilization,’ points out Fernand Braudel, ‘is a sign of its economic failure.’5 Cultural peaks are often reached in moments of radical change. Can a similar claim be made for the Order of St John on early modern Malta? At one time I was inclined to believe that the Hospital’s resort to the full effervescence of baroque culture was a tendency to detach itself from reality, its only chosen alternative to escape temporarily the trauma of the process of its own irreversible evolution and conceal its symptoms from itself and the rest of the outside world. Today I view the crisis which had begun with the Ottoman conquest of Damascus (Syria) and Egypt in 1516–1517 not so much a manifestation of decadence and decline as that of ‘an agitated interlude’, however unsettled and unsettling. Notwithstanding the Rhodian crisis, notwithstanding the consequences of the Reformation, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and the suppression of the Langue of England, which sapped the Hospitaller institution of much of its financial strength, there was a fairly rapid recovery after the ‘defensive victory’ of 1565 when ‘a new stasis’ gradually set in, metaphorically ‘followed by a long spell of warmer weather, whose good harvests fed an ever-increasing population’.6 The evidences of this, I am now prepared to admit, were visible in every single branch of the Order’s activities. This is sufficient testimony to the claim that the Order of the Hospital had retained ‘a great deal of its original vitality’. A medieval charitable institution born and bred in the true spirit of the Mediterranean, the religious military Order of St John settled on Malta at the very moment when Charles V’s German mercenaries, with their horrendous sack of Rome (May 1527) and Florence (1530), eclipsed almost completely the Renaissance and unwittingly ignited the creative explosion of the baroque after a brief mannerist interlude.7 The Hospitallers, still struggling through their worst crisis, 4 Ibid., pp. ix–x. 5 F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (London, 1972–73), pp. 826–835. On the phenomenon of decline, J. K. J. Thomson, Decline in History: The European Experience (Oxford, 1998). 6 The quote belongs to Gregory Hanlon. 7 Braudel, p. 828ff. On the origins of the Order of St John, J. Riley-Smith, The Knights of St John in Jerusalem and Cyprus, c.1050–1310 (London, 1967). There is no standard modern history

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would break late medieval Malta’s isolation – splendid or unfortunate – and steer the island through momentous changes, breathing fresh life into it.8 The inevitable cultural shock of the initial encounter between them and the local population was short-lived. The natives were essentially peaceable, their confidence fairly quickly gained. The Hospitallers’ restrained and tranquil approach to them at the outset contained the seeds of subsequent harmony. There is no denying, however, that the arrival of Grand Master L’Isle Adam at the Grand Harbour in October 1530 and his solemn entry later in Mdina, the ancient capital, with all the splendour of Hospitaller pomp and ceremony, magnificently attired, was meant to demonstrate that his presence, and that of his brethren, had brought to the island a new and final authority. This unique moment in the Hospitallers’ characteristic propensity to display status and taste – as much part of aristocratic culture as of post-Tridentine Catholic rites, ritual, and religion – was years later captured on canvas by Antoine Favray. Evoking awe and admiration, the demeanour they adopted, intended to leave a lasting impression on the natives and ensure their respect, achieved its desired effect. During the Turkish siege of 1565, both sides ‘stood firm together with a new mutual respect and loyalty’.9 For nearly four months Malta turned into a theatre of valour. By the standards of late medieval Malta, the Hospitallers were provocatively rich and powerful with embarrassingly clever and wide-ranging links with all the royal courts of Catholic Europe. They offered the local inhabitants security, greater opportunities for employment, and better conditions of work. A large proportion of their resources was invested on the island. The mild elitist consternation and discomfort, and the consequent tensions which had originally marked the earlier years of this regime, gradually ‘gave way to genuine harmony

of the Knights on Rhodes, but Anthony T. Luttrell’s three books of collected research papers in the Variorum edition (The Hospitaller State on Rhodes and its Western Provinces, 1306–1462; The Hospitallers in Cyprus, Rhodes, Greece, and the West 1291–1440; and The Hospitallers of Rhodes and their Mediterranean World) provide very valuable insights. And so does Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant 1204–1571 (4 vols., Philadelphia, 1976–84). On the coming of the Knights to Malta in 1530, V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘Emperor Charles V’s Donation of Malta to the Knights of St John’, Peregrinationes: Acta et Documenta: Carlo V e Mercurino di Gattinara suo Gran Cancelliere, ii, 2 (2001), pp. 23–33. Also R. Valentini, ‘I Cavalieri di S. Giovanni da Rodi a Malta: Trattative Diplomatiche’, Archivum Melitense, ix, 4 (1935), pp. 3–103. On the sack of Rome and Florence, Mallia-Milanes, ‘Emperor Charles V’s Donation’, p. 31; Setton, iii, ch. 8. See also National Library of Malta, Cod. 84, fol. 33r. 8 On the history of Malta before 1530, the latest work is Charles Dalli, Malta: The Medieval Millennium (Malta, 2006); but see also Anthony Luttrell, The Making of Christian Malta: From the Early Middle Ages to 1530. Variorum Collected Studies Series (London, 2002); and id. (ed.) Medieval Malta: Studies on Malta before the Knights (London, 1975). 9 L. Butler, ‘The Order of St John in Malta: An Historical Sketch’, in Council of Europe, The Order of St John in Malta with an Exhibition of Paintings by Mattia Preti Painter and Knight (Malta, 1970), p. 28. On the historical significance of the siege, V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘The Siege of Malta, 1565: A Reassessment’, in id., Valletta: Malta’s Hospitaller City and Other Essays (Malta, 2019), pp. 37–53.

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and mutual trust’.10 From the current state of our scholarship, it would appear that the Maltese lived through most of these long years of paternalist government ‘relatively happ[il]y’.11 It was essentially through this experience, baroque by any other name, indeed through its ability to diffuse its culture, ‘its ways of thinking and living’, that the Hospital succeeded in reshaping most of Maltese society, too small and primitive to offer any resolute resistance, Europeanizing it to a degree far more singularly solid and permanent than the Normans had ever hoped to achieve centuries earlier.12 The cultural habits of Hospitaller society had left an indelible mark on the culture of early modern Malta, its customs, its traditional religious beliefs and values, its archaic economy, and not least on the locally widespread splendour of its native tongue, however incomprehensible this might have been to the outsider. To these may be added art and architecture, rural and urban planning, music and printmaking, religious sermons and entertainment – all bear the mark (more or less) of the pervasive spirit of the Hospitallers who, along with the triumphant Tridentine church (of which they formed part), acted as powerful catalysts of change. These are merely a few of the means by which the historian can interpret such influence. There are others: the natives’ idea of war and death; their habits of courtship; the way they reacted to pleasure and sorrow; the food they ate and the way they prepared it; their drink; their work; their trades, skills, and techniques; indeed, the depth of their feelings into which no historian can genuinely peer. None of these means, however, had ever been an isolated and individual expression. They were constituent ingredients of a complex historical continuum, a spiritual whole encompassing an attitude of mind which in turn inspired the native inhabitants’ entire way of life. To extract one element is to distort the whole. The objets d’art, for example, which the Knights had brought over with them in 1530, and which formed the theme of a 1989 exhibition in Malta, did not of themselves constitute, as has been claimed, the Order’s early legacy in Malta.13 At best, they were small, worthy souveniers of their Rhodian past. What has for long been sustained as ‘Maltese baroque’ should, in the present writer’s opinion, be more accurately identified as a Hospitaller phenomenon, one originally inspired by the order’s needs and aspirations, and essentially determined by its historic mission of permanent war with Islam, its personality, its great moments of prosperity, its inherent or recurrent problems – very much the same way that these had been in a sense conditioned by the highly restricted insular world around them, the ceaseless constraints imposed upon the regime by the geography of the island, the nature of the barely 243 square kilometers of barren land, and the character of the people. The Order had been the first patron, long before the local church and the wealthier sectors of Maltese society. 10 11 12 13

Butler, p. 40. Ibid. On Norman Malta, Dalli, passim; and Luttrell, Medieval Malta, passim. See the exhibition catalogue, The Order’s Early Legacy in Malta, ed. J. Azzopardi (Malta, 1989).

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Behind the inception of Malta’s Hospitaller baroque experience lay three significant developments. The first concerned the frigid manner with which European politics began to value the relevance of crusading ideals to the ‘unsparing realism’ of its capitalist exigencies. By the end of the sixteenth century, the Order of St John had long become an embarrassment to Europe’s vital interests, political and economic. Earlier, in 1534, an unholy alliance with France, the Order’s greatest patron, offered the Ottoman Empire an anti-Habsburg striking base at Toulon in Provence. Gradually, a growing cordiality began to develop between traditionally rival States, like France and Spain, Venice and Naples, each acknowledging the value of entering into bilateral agreements both with the Ottoman Porte in the East and with each of its satellite Barbary Regencies on North Africa. The second concerned the process of converting the Order island state into a near principality. The history of the Order’s coinage provides just one classic example of the trend. In the last decades of the sixteenth century, Grand Master Verdalle ‘introduced the ducal coronet and the cardinal’s hat surmounting the arms of the grand master and the Order on the obverse of most of the silver and copper coins. The ducal coronet remained until 1741, when Pinto introduced the closed crown.’14 A comparison between the pictorial representation of the Blessed Gerard and Favray’s grand portrait of Emanuel Pinto de Fonseca, invested with the attributes of royalty and lordly arrogance, provides a particularly poignant statement of this social and personal reality, so explicit, so unambiguous, so eloquent. The less reminiscent the Hospital became of its ‘cloister’ mentality, the more it visibly distanced itself from its traditional, medieval aspirations, the faster it allowed itself, deliberately, to be absorbed with the trend which the rising tide of autocracy and royal absolutism unfurled upon post-Reformation Europe, East and West. The third development was the order’s sudden release, towards the end of the sixteenth century, from the austerity of former years. The disappearance from the local scene, and from its wider Mediterranean context, of the anxieties, the rigidity, and the tensions which had disturbed the greater part of the century, fostered, by way of inevitable contrast, a sense of relaxation and a spirit of affluence. It was in part these three developments which in turn exposed, through ‘a natural outburst of creative energy’, Maltese society and its entire environment – physical, moral, and all – to the onrush of the Hospitaller baroque. What constituted this impressive Hospitaller phenomenon was an unconscious act of borrowing. For nearly eight whole years (not to go beyond the siege of Rhodes), the Hospital had lived through the turmoil and tension of this distinctive development at the very heart of Rome, from where it probably had its first intoxicating impulse. It was a process of re-interpreting, as Braudel would call it – of adopting, of assimilating. In the end, like any other precious Rhodian icon, the Order had it gently and safely transported to Malta on its strong galleys. The process needed time to mature. This it did through various channels, including the 14 Joseph C. Sammut, ‘The Coinage of the Order of St John in Malta’, in The Order of St John in Malta, p. 48.

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recruitment of leading artists, architects, and military engineers from abroad; the ambitions, inclinations, and wealth of the magistracy and its princely court; the ideas and pronounced tastes for luxury of the individual members of the Hospital living in priories and on commanderies overseas, generally among the high, the moneyed, and the mighty; and a host of other ‘anonymous carriers’, including the common treasury’s disposition to invest lavishly on the island. In the Hospitaller context, this act of cultural borrowing was as much one of receiving, thereby allowing itself unconsciously to be imperceptibly transformed, as it was of diffusing it into others, conquering them in turn. ‘He who gives,’ says Braudel, ‘dominates.’ The stream of influences which has been over the centuries naturally imbued in the Maltese identity embodies a powerful Hospitaller-European, indeed universal, imprint – a clear reflection of the great Order’s civilizing process. After the siege of 1565, Malta was never quite the same as it had been before. It was ‘the natural outcome of a long process.’ Malta’s social and artistic manifestations were and still are, like anybody else’s, rooted in the past. Indeed, if I may be allowed to resort to the term despotism to define the Order’s rule over Malta, in the same way as the term dictatorship has been used to describe the pontificate of Urban VIII (1623–1644),15 then it would appear that the Hospitallers’ overriding quality – their autocratic style of government – (as with the case of Urban VIII) was more rigid and inflexible than one has hitherto been prepared to admit. This is evidenced in the extent and immensity of Hospitaller influence on Maltese society in general, on Malta’s urban life in particular, and on the collective Maltese psyche – an influence at once profound, deep, and pervasive. By the time the ambitious French General had cast his eyes on the island-principality, and indeed much earlier, Malta’s urban society had become ‘largely indistinguishable in outlook’ from that of other European urban centres. There were moments in the second half of the eighteenth century when resident political observers complained that certain commodity prices and the cost of living on the island were as high as at any other major city in Europe.16 From several artists’ impressions and the visual insights these provide into the state of Maltese society,17 and from the convincing evidence detailed in travellers’ accounts,18 it would appear that the Maltese townspeople’s economic services and activities, their wine-shop and tavern sociability, their bustle and vast array of goods on offer at their daily market, their splendid festivities, and the revelry and noise of their religious processions – all compared as favourably to southern European levels and practices, as did their general social tranquillity 15 G. Careri, ‘L’Artista’, in L’Uomo Barocco, p. 340. 16 See V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘Introduction to Hospitaller Malta’, in id. (ed.), Hospitaller Malata 1530– 1798: Studies on Early Modern Malta and the Order of St John of Jerusalem (Malta, 1993), p. 26. 17 On art as historical evidence, T. K. Rabb, J. Brown, ‘The Evidence of Art: Images and Meaning in History’, in Art and History: Images and Their Meaning, ed. R. I. Rotberg, T. K. Rabb (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 1–6. 18 For a short bibliography on such accounts, P. Xuereb, Melitensia (Malta, 1974), entries pp. 422– 572; and C. Cuschieri, Index Historicus (Malta, 1979), pp. 105–107.

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and relative prosperity.19 ‘Their level of education, their style of clothing . . . their houses and home life . . . their musical tastes and other leanings,’ we are told, ‘were probably also much the same.’20 The ‘standard of living’, a rather complex phenomenon, is much more difficult to determine. A recent historian of early modern Italy suggests quite rightly that an extensive analysis of post-mortem inventories is necessary for an objective assessment, together with more studies on infant mortality.21 However, considering the Order’s medical knowledge, its long traditional expertise in rigid quarantine practices and public hygiene, the Europe-wide reputation enjoyed by the Holy Infirmary,22 and the state of the other hospitals on the island,23 life-expectancy was as reasonable in Malta as it was in other urban centres in Europe. Comfortably enclosed within a line of fortifications24 which were allowed to grow increasingly baroque over the years through progressive details of sophistication and a passion for ornamentation, the newly built city of Valletta25 emerged from the devastation which the Turks had left behind. It set the tone of the Order of St John’s baroque legacy to early modern Malta and held up the example of the refinements of civilized life. The most important public buildings, sacred and profane, began to rise in the centre of Valletta as rapidly as the fortified walls had done a few years earlier. The magistral palace, begun under Del Monte around 1572, was at first little more than a converted ‘wooden structure, with a dry stone wall on the outside to shelter it from the sun.’ During La Cassière’s and later magistracies, this casetta, as Bosio defines it, was to develop into one of the most magnificent palaces of Valletta, henceforth to serve as the official residence of the grand masters. The conventual church of St John was built between 1573 and 1577. The soberness of its exterior, severe, yellowish, and cold, almost

19 See, for example, Antoine Favray, ‘Visit to a Maltese House’, Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta. 20 G. Wettinger, ‘Aspects of Maltese Life’, in G. Mangion (ed.), Maltese Baroque (Malta, 1989), pp. 60–62. 21 Gregory Henlon, Early Modern Italy, 1550–1800: Three Seasons in European History (London, 2000), p. 339. 22 On the Order of St John’s medical experience, its Holy Infirmary, and other charitable institutions, see the relevant bibliographical section in F. de Hellwald, Bibliographie méthodique de l’Ordre Souv[erain] de St. Jean de Jérusalem (Rome, 1885); E. Rossi, Aggiunta alla Bibliographie méthodique de l’Ordre Souverain de St. Jean de Jérusalem di Ferdinand de Hellwald (Rome, 1924); and J. Mizzi, ‘A Bibliography of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem (1925–1969)’, in Council of Europe, The Order of St. John in Malta with an Exhibition of Paintings by Mattia Preti Painter and Knight (Malta, 1970), pp. 108–204. 23 See in particular P. Cassar, A Medical History of Malta (Malta, 1964), and S. Fiorini, Santo Spirito Hospital at Rabat, Malta: The Early Years to 1575 (Malta, 1989). 24 On the fortification of Valletta and the whole harbour area, A. Hoppen, The Fortification of Malta by the Order of St John, 1530–1798 (Edinburgh, 1979); id., ‘Military Priorities and Social Realities in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Malta and Its Fortifications’, in Hospitaller Malta, ed. MalliaMilanes, pp. 399–428. 25 See, for example, E. De Giorgio, A City by an Order (Malta, 1985).

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forbidding, yet so reconcilable with the austerity of the fortress at the heart of which it stood, earned it Giacomo Capello’s epithet of elegance. Presumably, the unadorned architectural simplicity of its façade contrasted sharply with the Gothic delicacy and rich flow of colour and marble with which the Venetian writer was so accustomed in his native city. Each of the seven auberges, or community ‘palaces’ where the Knights lived, was erected, as in Rhodes, in the vicinity of the fortified post which the respective langue was expected to defend. At the southeastern side of the city, facing St Lazarus curtain, stood the holy infirmary. In his description, Capello rightly avoided the term bel he had used for the Jesuits’ college and the Dominican convent. The ‘vast structure’ of this ‘magnificent hospital’ was, like the conventual church, unpretentious, although by the time he was writing in 1716 it had already undergone various modifications. These were perhaps the most outstanding public edifices. There were others – the treasury, the chancery, the castellania, the customs house. Alongside these palatial buildings and sacred temples and adjoining these commodious structures which provided private and communal residence to the celibate sons of the noblest European families, grew others, as sumptuous and as imposing, belonging to the wealthier sectors of Maltese society. Others still, ranging from shops, slave prisons, and monasteries to stores and flour mills and homes for charitable institutions were among the buildings of late sixteenth-century Valletta.26 Under the Hospitallers, Valletta was destined to play several roles at once – a fortress and a formidable base of operations for the Order’s naval forces to fight for the faith and blunt the military might of Islam; a palatial convent, where the grand master ‘lodged’ and held his sumptuous princely court ‘more . . . commodiously’ than any other ruling monarch in Europe;27 a temple, whose austere and uncompromising simplicity was later reconciled with the most fashionable styles current overseas; a theatre, creating one great urban space for spectacle, drama, and ‘self-presentation’; a hospital, faithful to the Order’s original raison d’être, to care for ‘Our Lords the Sick’, the ‘holy poor’, and the wounded; a widely renowned slave and ransom market; and a flourishing centre for entrepôt trade. Each of these roles was played to its own special type of music, ranging from the martial to the sacred and liturgical, from the chamber and the funerary to the light, comic, and entertaining – most of them accompanied by choirs, dance, and fireworks. Carnival was yet another role, when, in moments of ‘folly and impunity’, social barriers were temporarily lifted. The theatricality of social life was punctuated by regular periods of active combat either in formal war or in inconsequential skirmishes. It was, however, the city’s embellishment which took 26 The extract is taken from V. Mallia-Milanes, Valletta 1566–1798: An Epitome of Europe (Malta, 1988). For a critical edition of Giacomo Capello’s account on early eighteenth-century Malta, see V. Mallia-Milanes (ed.), Descrittione di Malta, Anno 1716: A Venetian Account (Malta, 1988). 27 P. Brydone, A Tour through Sicily and Malta in a Series of Letters to William Beckford Esq. (London, 1773), Letter xv, Malta, 5 June 1770.

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on an expansionary form, impressively reinforced by all the major architectural and sculptural niceties of the new art, which was the striking mark of the baroque qualities of the capital city. Ramon Perellos had set a pattern of intensive building programmes to convert Malta, which Manoel de Vilhena was all too content to follow up with equal vigour.28 From a cloister-citadel of the Late Renaissance and mannerist phase, it grew into a port city during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, integrating the two harbours on either side of the peninsula and the heart of the city into a functional whole. Space was used to blend everything together in a total baroque environment. Valletta constituted what has been termed ‘a massive injection of European high design’, which soon spread with barely any restraint to the rural towns and villages, except for persistent traits of the traditional vernacular architecture. It was indeed an intrusive style, but on the whole the old integrated neatly with the new and vice versa.29 There was overlapping, but there was also sharing. Demographic growth, the sense of security and political stability, economic prosperity and the human instinct of emulation confirmed and further expanded the old established centres. In the countryside, especially in the rural parishes, a spectacular amount of new building, as lavish and as grandiose as in Valletta, was undertaken by members of the order, the church, and the wealthier sectors of society. The village environment became definitely church-dominated in more than one sense. The Order, the Tridentine church in Malta, and the Holy Inquisition collectively generated a surge of religious energy and fervour under the guise of various manifestations. There was a phenomenal increase, for example, in the number of religious confraternities.30 Though it is admittedly difficult too to gauge and assess levels of piety and religiosity, it would be plausible to assume that in such circumstances the religious culture of the native population grew stronger in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Not only did the vast majority become more religious; they would have embraced a purer Catholicism. This may be attributed to several factors, notably: the Society of Jesus’s settlement on Malta shortly after the siege, in the 1570s;31 a more systematic diffusion of

28 See D. De Lucca, Carapecchia: Master of Baroque Architecture in Early Eighteenth-Century Malta (Malta, 1999). 29 See Jo Tonna, ‘The Ramified Route’, in Maltese Baroque, pp. 25–31, which provides extremely interesting insights. 30 David Rossi has done very valuable research on the subject, both locally and in foreign archives. See his ‘Charity and Confraternal Piety in Malta and Sicily from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century’ (Unpublished MA dissertation, University of Malta, 2002). 31 See P. Pecchiai, ‘Il Collegio dei Gesuiti in Malta’, Archivio storico di Malta, n.s., ix, 2 (1938), pp. 129–202; 3 (1938), pp. 273–325; R. Valentini, ‘Scuole, Seminario, e Collegio dei Gesuiti in Malta, 1467–1591’, in ibid., n.s., viii, 1 (1936–37), pp. 18–32; A. Leanza, ‘La Compagnia di Gesù e la Sacra Milizia gerosolimitana in Malta’, in ibid., n.s., x, 1 (1938–39), pp. 17–47; P. Pecchiai, ‘La sommossa dei Cavalieri di Malta contro i Gesuiti nel carnevale del 1639’, in ibid., n.s., ix, 4 (1938), pp. 429–432.

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religious instruction;32 the greater moral authority of better-educated priests, having been trained either at the Jesuits’ college in Valletta or later at the seminary in Mdina, or indeed, abroad;33 the permanent presence on the island of the Roman Inquisition and its ‘confessionalization’ of the inhabitants – natives, foreign residents, or visiting sailors and traders;34 and the coercive power of a Catholic religious State.35 In perfect harmony with baroque taste, religious beliefs and practices began to assume a ‘decorative exuberance’. New gathering places for daily prayer were built on a larger scale than before, old ones remodelled or rebuilt in city, town, or village. Their dimensions were purposely augmented, not only to offer greater space for all the religious services that filled the liturgical calendar, but also to accommodate the faithful crowds that increasingly attended such functions. Ritual became more elaborate; there was more drama in it, more theatre. It was a necessary medium as it was believed to convey ideas to the community. And so was the religious sermon;36 indeed, the art of sacred oratory appealed more to the emotions than to the intellect – in a sense, an Augustinian quality carried over from the Middle Ages. Not only did such services, processions, festive parades, and decorations faithfully reflect post-Tridentine practices; they anticipated the village-saints festa of later years, which can claim baroque qualities as any sculptured fountain adorning the city, or any painted ceiling, then as now. The years 1530–1798 had witnessed the gradual metamorphosis of an early modern central-Mediterranean island into a Hospitaller microcosm. Malta of the days of La Valette and Suleyman disappeared from view. Almost. The pace and depth of change were, of course, uneven. Certain realities appear to have been more enduring than others, like Dingli cliffs, the barren rock, and the surrounding sea, more resistant to persistent pressure. Elements of vernacular architecture, for instance, remained adamant. They can be ‘isolated and recognized’. The ‘timeless peasantry’, tied to the ‘barren ground’ in the semblance of relative poverty, remote and insular, and the traditional humble fisherman, wrinkled in the face by sun and sea spray, proud of his sturdy lively-coloured boat, are just two other classic instances where distinct Moorish or Maghribi features appear to have persisted to the present day. Similarly, emotional prejudices against the ‘Turk’, born of genuine, deep-rooted fear, may have very well been sharpened over the centuries. Today they still nourish the disposition of a cross-section of Maltese 32 See, for example, V. Borg, ‘Developments in Education outside the Jesuit Collegium Melitense’, Melita Historica, vi, 3 (1974), pp. 215–254. 33 On the clergy in Malta in medieval times, Stanley Fiorini, ‘The Clergy of Malta, 1244 to 1460’, Melita Historica, xiii, 2 (2001), pp. 165–208. 34 For a brief account on the Inquisition in Malta, A. Vella, The Tribunal of the Inquisition in Malta (Malta, 1964); Alex. Bonnici, Il-Maltin u l-Inkizizzjoni f’nofs is-seklu sbatax (Malta, 1977). 35 For example, A. Koster, ‘The Knights’ State (1530–1798): A Regular Regime’, Melita Historica, viii, 4 (1983). 36 See J. Zammit Ciantar, ‘Il-Prietki bil-Malti ta’ Ignazio Saverio Mifsud: Edizzjoni Kummentata bi Studju Kritiku’ (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Malta, 2005).

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society towards certain non-European races, by deed if not by word. And so with the native language. All seem indestructible, ‘moving through time,’ Carlo Levi would say, ‘without change.’37 They are illusions of permanence. The late medieval Cantilena, for example, had been composed in a dialect which was probably already unrecognizable by the seventeenth or eighteenth century. Social reality tells a different story.

37 Carlo Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli (Penguin Books, 1982 edn), p. 253.

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IV SOCIETY AND THE ECONOMY ON THE HOSPITALLER ISLAND OF MALTA An overview

Late medieval Malta was a poor island with an archaic economy, sparsely inhabited, with a few weak and inadequate walls to defend it; it had its own dialect, which it preserved and eventually developed into a distinct language; it had its own customs, and its own set of Christian values and beliefs. In this sense it was ‘a self-contained world’, with a few necessary but unsophisticated links with nearby Sicily. By the sixteenth century, the whole human gamut of civilizing forces in the Mediterranean, from prehistory on without exception, had visited Malta – an eloquent testimony to the appreciation of the island’s strategic value and its geophysical features; there were no special native commodities, no natural resources to have otherwise enticed early settlers.1 Some cultures sojourned longer than others, each leaving permanent or transitory traits of their own way of life in its various manifestations. Each trait bears ‘living witness to forgotten revolutions’.2 In 1530, the island passed into the hands of the military-religious Order of St John. As a direct result, Malta was about to experience long-term changes and to assume a new leading role in Mediterranean politics. The Order of the Hospital, as the institution had come to be known, set up its conventual headquarters there, converting over the years a barren rock in the central Mediterranean into a formidable European stronghold against Islam, an impressive fortress-citadel against the spread of plague and other forms of disease, a remarkable base of operations for Christian corsairs, and an international slave market. When the British eventually replaced the Hospitallers as the ruling body in 1800 after the brief French

1 See P. Horden and N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (Oxford, 2000), p. 227. On prehistoric Malta, D. Trump, Malta: Prehistory and Temples (Malta, 2002); on Malta’s ancient history, A. Bonanno, Malta: Phoenician, Punic, and Roman (Malta, 2005); on medieval Malta, Ch. Dalli, Malta: The Medieval Millennium (Malta, 2006). 2 F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranian World in the Age of Philip II, trans. S. Reynolds (London, 1972–73), p. 150.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003406518-5

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interlude, a strong element of continuity was retained, both as a fortress, a military and naval base, and as a hospital.3 The raison d’être of the Order of the Hospital was a pure act of evangelical love – to look after the needs of the poor pilgrims, men, women, and children, travelling to the Holy Places, offering them shelter and clothing, supplying them with food and water, tending the ill among them, and providing them with a decent Christian burial – an act, both unconditional and self-sacrificing, inspired solely by a philosophy to serve one’s neighbour. As a religious-military institution, it survived for over seven hundred years, during which the steady onslaught of the Mamlukes and the Seljuk Turks and the consolidation and westward drive of the Ottoman empire dictated irrevocably the physical transfer of the Hospitaller Convent first from Jerusalem to Acre and then to Limassol on Cyprus, Rhodes, Viterbo, Nice, and Malta. Two major forces shaped the resilient institution’s successful response to the changing realities in the Mediterranean. The first was the massive landed property it owned in Europe, which kept the Hospitallers in close touch with the entire range of European society, while at the same time providing the Convent with new recruits and the Common Treasury with a regular flow of revenue (responsiones) to finance all its activities on land and at sea. The second was the privileged position it continued to enjoy as an exempt order of the Church and the wide patronage the crowned heads of Christian Europe extended to it. With the onrush of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, and with the consequent collapse of the Ancien Régime, both determining forces disappeared. The institution had to rethink its position within the new early nineteenth-century socio-political climate.

An act of charity Maltese society during the long and formative years between 1530 and 1798, when the Hospitaller Convent was established on the central Mediterranean island, grew into a benevolent society, but the conditions of ‘benefits’-distribution were such that they encouraged its members (if I may borrow Marc Bloch’s expression) ‘to live perpetually under their master ’s wings’. It was the price the Maltese in early modern times (and long thereafter) had to pay for the privilege of patronage and protection, under whatever guise or pretext these were manifested. The Hospitaller ‘system’ of social services and social benefits was an outward expression of the knights’ holy commitment to the service of the sick and the poor, providing them with material life’s bare essentials. The early origins of Malta’s medical and social services may in part be traced back to this Hospitaller philosophy. The università of Mdina, the capital of medieval Malta, before and after 1530, 3 For Malta under the rule of the Order of St John, Hospitaller Malta 1530–1798: Studies on Early Modern Malta and the Order of St John, ed. V. Mallia-Milanes (Malta, 1993); for British Malta, The British Colonial Experience 1800–1964: The Impact on Maltese Society, ed. V. Mallia-Milanes (Malta, 1988).

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provided both services to whoever needed them, whether in the form of financial aid to the poor, the aged, and any abandoned wives and children, or through hospitalization at either Santo Spirito Hospital, in existence outside Mdina since 1347, or at St Julian Hospital within the citadel of the sister island of Gozo. The municipality is known to have had a pharmacist, a surgeon, and a district medical officer employed for the purpose.4 The Hospitallers consolidated the whole concept behind the system already in existence. They expanded whatever inadequate facilities they found on arrival. At first they converted a nuns’ convent in Birgu into a temporary infirmary. Then they expropriated a number of houses lying on the foreshore opposite Salvatore Hill, had them demolished, and in November 1532 laid the foundation stone for a new hospital, which was completed within a year. This was meant primarily to serve the needs of the Order and those of the inhabitants of the new municipality, thereby releasing also the pressure on the medieval institution in the suburb of Mdina. Within five years it had to be enlarged. In Birgu too there was a second hospital, built after 1553 and run by the Italian knights. It occupied one large hall at the Auberge d’Italie. When the Order migrated from Birgu to the new city, a new Sacred Infirmary was constructed, with its great ward measuring approximately 56 meters by 10, and a capacity to offer shelter to some 350 patients.5 ‘Its vast staff,’ writes Desmond Seward,6 included doctors, surgeons, nurses and pharmacists, while the food was specially chosen . . . served on silver dishes. There were clinics for outpatients, with one for leprosy and another for venereal disease, slaves and beggars receiving free prescriptions. An external nursing service tended the old in their own homes. Till the very end of the Order’s stay on Malta, the poor continued to receive food, shelter, and medical care, and mended clothes and shoes to wear. Annexed to the infirmary was a school of anatomy and surgery, founded in 1676.7 However laudable the Christian spirit animating the Hospitallers’ commitment to the sick and the socially distressed was, there can be no denying that the practice did in fact betray a strong paternalistic gesture whose feudal overtones underscored the inhabitants’ close ties of dependence. The system of paternalist government – benevolent, enlightened, and absolutist – was not much different from that of its medieval ancestor. In the early Middle Ages, a vassal’s fealty was purchased by the lord. On early modern Malta, the Hospitallers succeeded

4 See P. Cassar, Medical History of Malta (London, 1964); S. Fiorini, Santo Spirito Hospital at Rabat, Malta: The Early Years to 1575 (Malta, 1989). 5 For the history of the Order between 1530 and 1571, V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘The Birgu Phase of Hospitaller History’, in Birgu: A Maltese Maritime City, ed. L. Bugeja, M. Buhagiar, S. Fiorini (Malta, 1993), pp. 75–96. 6 D. Seward, The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders (London, 1995), p. 299. 7 See E. W. Schermerhorn, Malta of the Knights (Surrey, 1929), p. 193.

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in securing the local inhabitants’ loyalty and confidence by precisely extending protection to them, under different shapes and forms. In no way was this Hospitaller act of charity restricted solely to medical care and attention. It manifested itself in a wide range of social benefits that included all forms of security, the diversification of the economy, the expansion of the local market, the creation of new sources of employment and the consolidation of old ones. This was necessary, it is true, to enhance and reinforce, in the first place, the Order’s own interests in the process of adaptation to a not-altogether novel environment. In the second place, it was necessary to sustain the immediate interests of the local population, such that would guarantee their loyalty to the new regime. More often than not, it was transferring to the government of the central Mediterranean island-state the practical knowledge and expertise it had gained on the Dodecanese island of Rhodes. In fact, it was only as late as 1775 that the futile uprising of the priests forced the Hospitaller government to seriously revisit the entire domestic defence system. Until then, a contemporary high-ranking Hospitaller tells us, for 245 years, his Order had always felt safe and serene among the local population, whom it consistently considered ‘loyal and affectionate’.8

Pensions On Hospitaller Malta the award of an old-age pension was one such deed of State generosity, a remarkable act of charity. No-one was legally entitled to it, whether by right of service or age, or on grounds of ill-health. The law did not provide for it; nor does it make any passing reference to a pensionable age. The practice simply reflected the character of the ruling regime. There were two groups of Maltese subjects who were generally considered qualified as pensionable. The first comprised men with ‘long’ service with the Order. There was no single definition of the qualifying term; more often than not, the award was fixed on the merits of the particular case. A person could thus receive a pension of 4 scudi a month for length of service in the Order’s navy, while another could be given half that amount for an equal or similar service in the same period. The second category included widows whose husbands had either lost their lives while on active service with the Order, had a serious accident while on Hospitaller duty, or, indeed, fallen slaves. Not all pensions were given in cash. Some could be drawn in kind – like four loaves of bread a day, for instance – and others in both cash and kind. Whatever the nature of the award, it was the lord’s gift to his vassal in recognition of a service loyally performed, a social favour not without slight tinges of a remote feudal connotation. Or perhaps not so remote. After all, the knights held their central Mediterranean ‘territorial principality’ on ‘perpetual’ feudal terms. There was nothing either extraordinary or anachronistic in this. The Order itself was a

8 See V. Mallia-Milanes, In the Service of the Venetian Republic: Massimiliano Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s Letters from Malta to Venice’s Magistracy of Trade 1754–1776 (Malta, 2008), p. 43.

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massive feudal landowner par excellence. Its relationship to the vast rural and urban estates it owned throughout Europe and to the men and women living on them was essentially feudal; its methods and practices were feudal; indeed, its frame of mind was feudal.9 But then almost the whole of Europe was feudal. On Malta, it was solely the grand master’s prerogative to award anyone a pension. The interested person or one of his relatives would draw up a petition, often by word of mouth, in the presence of a chancellery or treasury official who would then have it transcribed and presented to the grand master with any observations he would consider necessary to include. Every petition had the relevant supporting evidence attached to it, together with other written references which the petitioner generally sought from a medical practitioner, a notary, or the parish priest of the respective town or village. Such requests were, more often than not, acceded to.10 Addressing petitions to the magistracy was standard practice on Hospitaller Malta, ingrained in the entire social system. It was also the prevailing common practice in nearly all the other States of early modern Europe. Their subject matter, of course, was not restricted solely to pensions. There were other types of social concern, which only the reigning grand master could benevolently solve and that emerge clearly from similar petitions. These ranged from applications for employment with the Order, transfer from one type of employment or place of work to another, to requests for promotion, housing accommodation, or to be allocated a more decent habitable space, requisition orders, a pay rise, and building permits; from complaints about the increasing incidence of crime and other forms of insecurity, especially after sunset, highlighting the need for regular surveillance to better maintain public order, to occasional requests to set up small retail outlets, or for lesser needs – like leave of absence, the issuing of passports, or to be offered an opportunity to learn a particular trade. Resort to this system of supplication to the central authority for ‘favours’ was widespread. It was not restricted to any one particular sector of society. Indeed, supplicants hailed from a wide cross-section of the social spectrum, like soldiers, sailors, and tailors; watchmen, petty merchants, and master craftsmen; widows and nuns; tradesmen, notaries, surgeons and physicians; and the occasional chaplain, like Bartolomeo Venzales, attached to Fort St Angelo in Birgu. In June 1769 he complained that, with 20 tarì, the value of his monthly wage, he could no longer afford to pay for the daily up-keep of the chapel. Although the Order was willing to employ more guards at the fort’s gate, he claimed, than what was in fact needed, the post of sexton remained vacant and he had to employ temporary cleaners at his own expense.11 In April 1752, a Hospitaller too, Frà Giacomo Blacas, of the Langue of Provence, sought permission from

9 See, for example, E. W. Schermerhorn, On the Trail of the Eight-Pointed Cross: A Study of the Heritage of the Knights Hospitallers in Feudal Europe (New York, 1940). 10 In the Archives of the Order of St John at the National Library of Malta there are seventeen large collections of such petitions or suppliche (from Cod. 1182 to Cod. 1198), covering the period 1603–1798. 11 Malta, Cod. 1191, fols. 270–271.

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Grandmaster Emanuel Pinto to import into Malta ‘machine segatorie a vento’, to cut or saw stone, wood, marble, and metal. He also requested that nobody else should be allowed to import similar machinery.12

Employment It would appear that employment with any branch of the Order’s administration promised greater security and offered more rewarding social and financial benefits than what was normally expected or available on late medieval Malta. In the marina or navy, for example, wages were flexible and reckoned on a monthly basis. Until the fourth decade of the seventeenth century they were paid at intervals of at least six months, thereafter every four months. No fixed ‘salary scale’ appears to have been in use. For prospective workers with any branch of the Order’s naval organization, the rate of payment was probably negotiated on enrolment on no apparently fixed criteria other than one’s experience and marital status, which in turn reflected the applicant’s social needs. Thus, in the 1630s, a boatswain’s monthly wage ranged from four to six scudi. A pilot in 1623 received ten scudi a month; another a decade or so later was offered five scudi a month. Carpenters received three scudi a month; those who were assigned duty on the capitana or flagship were offered an extra scudo. Every crew member on board the Hospitaller galleys was entitled to a daily free ration of bread, ship biscuit, and cooked meals.13 Conditions governing employment in the building industry were not much different. Alison Hoppen, citing Bosio’s Istoria, says that workers on major fortification projects were paid well, fed well, and both done regularly. Like those employed on the marina, workmen assigned to the Valletta project received decent wages and free rations. They were paid on Sundays and the rates were determined by the amount of work they had done. The building of the new city, begun in 1566, was the most ambitious and the most prestigious project the Hospitallers had ever undertaken on Malta, ‘perhaps the greatest surviving planned Renaissance city’. But with so much loss of life and the massive migration to Sicily as a result of the siege the year before, the demand for a labour force of some 4,000 men was far greater than the island could supply. There was no alternative but to resort to foreign sources. This was not the first occasion that the Order had had to seek recruitment of workmen from abroad. When, in 1552, it was decided to build Fort St Elmo and Fort St Michael, the necessary youthful vigour 12 Malta, Cod. 1189, fols. 112–113. Resc. 14 April 1752. 13 Over and above, members of Hospitaller crews could also be entitled to a bonus, the gioia or incentive money, in recognition of their contribution to the capture of a prize. In the first half of the seventeenth century, the gioia could amount to something from five to ten scudi, not an inconsiderable gift when compared to contemporary naval wages on Malta. In the first quarter of the seventeenth century, there were on average more than 180 genti di capo employed on the Order’s flagship and over 160 on each of the galleys. See, in particular, J. F. Grima, ‘Gente di Capo on the Galleys of the Order in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century’, Hyphen [Malta], ii, 2 (1979), pp. 51–70; id., ‘The Order of St John’s Galley Squadron at Sea’, Storja 78 [Malta] (1978), pp. 9–41.

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and muscle were simply not to be found. A disastrous famine had occurred two years earlier. Skilled craftsmen, according to Hoppen, were enrolled ‘on a contractual basis’, with each master undertaking ‘to complete a part of a project for an agreed price’. The Order insisted that ‘a ten-year guarantee’ be given ‘against faulty work’.

A sense of security There can be no doubt that Hospitaller dedication to communal care and social welfare was among the major forces behind the consistently steady increase in early modern Malta’s population. There were some 20,000 inhabitants in 1530 when the Hospitallers arrived. By the time they were about to be expelled, the island had become radically transformed [rightly claims Stanley Fiorini] from a 100 per cent agriculturally oriented community of some 10,000 living in widely dispersed tiny hamlets into a population of very mixed ethnic origins, ten times the medieval size, living in strongly nucleated urban and rural centres, engaged in a variety of enterprises. The conurbation centred on the harbour embraced no less than 37 per cent of the entire population.14 To Malta’s indigenous society, the presence of the knights of St John, their activities and traditional expertise, their landed property scattered all over Catholic Europe, and their wide diplomatic and consular representation overseas offered several forms of security and connectivity. Social security, as indicated, was one. The provision of free medical and health care alone almost imperceptibly left its mark in the long term on the general standard of living. There were others. Military security – The knights’ ambitious large-scale defence programme was gradually realized by constructing an extensive network of fortifications, massive and awe-inspiring, all around the Grand Harbour and by erecting several watch towers, some grandiose and imposing, at strategic points along the otherwise vulnerable coast. It transformed Malta from a militarily threadbare island into ‘one of the great fortresses of Europe’. There was economic security – The knights invested heavily in the island’s infrastructure. They tapped new markets and provided the necessary stimulus for economic growth. There was financial security – They offered new opportunities for work and better employment, creating the right conditions for a stable life. And finally there was psychological security – They inspired confidence by opening windows to the outside world.

De-Sicilianization of Malta The knights succeeded in breaking late medieval Malta’s isolation permanently. From the very beginning, they had endeavoured to ‘de-Sicilianize’ Malta. The

14 Stanley Fiorini, ‘Demographic Growth and the Urbanization of the Maltese Countryside to 1798’, in Mallia-Milanes (ed.), Hospitaller Malta, pp. 297–310, here 309–10.

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traditional pattern of Maltese trade – described elsewhere as unadventurous and unsophisticated – had generally been determined by the island’s dependence on nearby Sicily for practically anything – from wheat to oil, from timber of all kinds to boatloads of ice. By the early sixteenth century, sorties by daring Maltese merchants and privateers along the southern coast of Spain and France or into the Adriatic were carried out infrequently and irregularly. The Hospitallers tried to diversify this old pattern. They consistently sought to balance these traditional links with the larger island through the creation of new ones with other centres in the Mediterranean. The ‘special relationship’ which late medieval Malta had so comfortably shared with the kingdom of the Two Sicilies was dangerous. There were too many political and economic ties of Habsburg dependence. Besides, the Sicilian market was too limited to meet all their naval and hospitaller needs, to satisfy their sophisticated aspirations and the demands created by the aristocratic lifestyle to which they were accustomed and the personal extravagance of some of the knights. The permanent Hospitaller presence on Malta transformed completely the nature of local demand, in terms of both quantity and quality. They therefore grasped every opportunity which they believed could offset such ‘friendly ties’. The urgency to adopt such policy was as much economic as it was political. It was the proverbial fear that too much favouritism would sooner or later breed resentment. Links with the kingdom of the Two Sicilies were never severed, of course. It was only on very remote occasions, and then for fairly short spells, that diplomatic pretensions emanating from either side succeeded in straining relations, even souring them. The classic episode of 1753 is too well known. Grandmaster Emanuel Pinto denied Charles VII of Naples the right to send an ecclesiastical visitor to inquire into the state of the Church on Malta. Charles responded by suspending all trade with the island, withheld the tratte (the duty-free quotas of wheat and other vital commodities), and confiscated all commanderies occupied by non-Neapolitan Hospitallers within his kingdom. On other occasions commercial intercourse was discreetly ‘disrupted’ for fear of contagion. From early 1592 to late 1593, Malta was held in quarantine by Sicily because of a devastating outbreak of plague there. Notwithstanding the fact that the Regio Doganiere begrudged every time that he had had to issue the free tratte to Malta and the Order of St John, consistently creating unnecessary obstacles, the two sides, by and large, maintained a healthy working relationship. Although the scope and nature of the smaller island’s political dependence appear to have been considerably reduced, demands for the export of certain essential commodities, like wheat, inevitably persisted throughout the early modern period. Indeed, they increased as Malta’s population grew steadily and the tastes and manners of certain sectors of local society, their values and attitudes towards life, their aspirations and ambitions were changing and were gradually becoming more refined. The Order secured new markets, large and small. This is evidenced by the extent to which Malta’s consular representation spread throughout the Mediterranean. There was hardly a maritime city or port that did not have a resident Maltese consul or commercial agent. The early 1750s and other trying occasions similar to them proved the worth of de-Sicilianization. Writing in March 1754 on the 58

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troubles that had arisen between Naples and Malta, Pinto’s Uditore describes the commercial interdict as the worst evil that could befall the Hospitaller principality and its people. That notwithstanding, he said, ‘an infinite number of ships, laden with all sort of foodstuffs and other provisions, proceeded to Malta from east and west.’ The only shortage felt was that of meat and it was not that difficult either to obtain supplies of it from other markets. In fact, from four to five thousand heads of cattle were sought and obtained from Tunis.

Production of ashes Extremely limited though the island was in natural resources, the Order knew how to exploit the little that the island had to offer. As an export market, Malta’s potential was restricted to two principal commodities – cotton and ashes. The production of alkalis [the Venetians called it roseazzo; the Sicilians saponera (= soap manufacture) or spinella (= a diminutive of spina or thorn)] was fairly widely diffused on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Malta. Plants of the salsola kali (or sal soda, the crystalline decahydrate of sodium carbonate) class [popularly known as soda] – wild, with deep, hardy roots, often detrimental to the fortifications – grew widely on hot and humid Malta and Gozo.15 The plants were useful for the supply of soda ash. They were burned and their ashes (‘pebbly and potent’) were leached to extract sodium carbonate. This product was necessary for the manufacture of chemicals, glass, pulp and paper, soaps, and water-softeners (possibly also for insulation, and therefore ‘refrigeration’). Some claim that it was also employed as a fertilizer. On Hospitaller Malta,16 as on Sicily,17 grass-burning such as this was not allowed within a mile of residential areas because its fumes were thought to be harmful to public health. It was also prohibited to mix any other herbs, sand, or salts in the burning process not to discredit the local product on the foreign market. To meet the demand, there were occasions when ashes had to be imported, albeit on a limited scale, from Sicily for re-exportation to other markets. Venice, with its glass-making industry, was one such destination.18 In fact, as late as 1779, Andrea Rapetti, the Venetian consul in Palermo, was instructed to provide Venice’s Magistracy of Trade with details of how best to cultivate the plant – when and how it was sowed, grown, and harvested, what type of soil suited it most, and how the ash was extracted from it.19 The Venetian islands in the Levant offered the ideal conditions for its growth.

15 See Malta, Cod. 1016, fols. 198–199. Also V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘Some Aspects of Veneto-Maltese Relations in the Eighteenth Century’, Studi Veneziani, xvi (1974), p. 504. 16 See, for example, NLM, Library149, fol. 235; Mallia-Milanes, ‘Some Aspects’, p. 504. 17 ASVen, Cinque Savii alla Mercanzia, p.s., busta 726, Lettere dei Consoli, Palermo, Attachment to letter 22 April 1779. 18 L. De Boisgelin, Ancient and Modern Malta (London, 1804–1805), i, p. 109. 19 ASVen, Cinque Savii alla Mercanzia, p.s., busta 726, Lettere dei Consoli, Palermo, Attachment to letter 22 April 1779.

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Cotton cultivation The cultivation of cotton, which occupied vast stretches of agricultural land, leaving hardly any space for the cultivation of grain and other cereals, played a significant role in the island’s medieval and early modern economy. Probably introduced in Malta by the Arabs in the tenth century, its production was essentially a home occupation, spun on private looms. It was important for two reasons: for the foreign cash it brought into the island, which helped in part to pay for increasing amounts of grain imports; and for the relatively large labour force employed in tending and picking the crop, spinning, weaving, and making it into cloth for various purposes. The industry supplied the local inhabitants with clothing, Hospitaller galleys and other boats with sails, and at the same time providing sufficient excess for export. Spun cotton formed a principal article of commerce with Marseilles, Greece, Spain (especially Barcelona), Genoa and several other Italian cities.20 There were four different categories of Maltese cotton yarn:21 the exceptionally fine or high-quality (primo fino), which sold at 6 tarì or more per rotolo (or c.800 grams); the first-class quality (prima qualità), which sold at 4 tarì 10 grani per rotolo; the second-class quality (seconda qualità) at 3 tarì 10 grani per rotolo; and the blended type (marca meschiata), made up of a mixture of cheaper cotton of the 2 tarì and the 1 tarì 10 grani per rotolo.22 To improve the local cotton culture, foreign experts were invited to Malta to keep the local inhabitants in touch with the best methods of spinning cotton and cotton refinery. In 1741, for example, the grand master instructed Giuseppe Margiotta, his consul at Gallipoli, to encourage one or two families, expert in the art of spinning cotton, to come and settle on Malta, either permanently or for a certain time, with all the necessary tools. They would receive all the facilities they needed to spend a comfortable life. From the moment they decided to proceed to Malta until they actually departed from their native town of Gallipoli in the Italian region of Puglia, they would be given a daily allowance of 2 carlì (their currency). Their travelling expenses would also be refunded.23 Over the years, successive grand masters found it necessary to take various measures to protect the local commodity, to control its price and make it competitive on foreign markets. Thus, in 1757, the import of raw and manufactured cotton from San Giovanni d’Acri, in Syria, was banned.24 In 1769 all cotton imports from Levantine markets were stopped.25 In 1777, to protect the native Gozitan cotton from being blended with an inferior foreign type, all imports of foreign cotton to 20 W. Eton, Authentic Materials for a History of the People of Malta (London, 1803), p. 216. 21 For the details that follow, NLM, Library 429, Bandi 1772–1779, fol.138 et seq. 22 Hospitaller Malta’s scudo subdivided into 12 tari, and each taro into 20 grani. The grano again subdivided into 6 piccioli. 2 grani 3 piccioli were generally equivalent to one Venetian soldo. 23 See Malta, Cod.1500, Al Console Giuseppe Margiotta, Gallipoli, 18 February and 17 April 1741. 24 NLM, Library 429, Bandi 1756–65, fol. 7. 25 Ibid., Bandi 1765–72, 20 April 1769.

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Gozo were forbidden – from whatever source, Sicily, Malta, or elsewhere.26 From that year too, raw cotton bought from Sicily was to be marked ‘Sicilian cotton manufactured in Malta’.27 Heavy penalties were contemplated for those who infringed upon these measures. From 1733, provisions were made for exportable local cotton yarn to be sealed in standardized bales by persons authorized to do so by the supervisor at the official warehouse. The supervisor was to make sure that the quality of the spun yarn in each bale corresponded to its ‘quality mark’ stamped on the back of the bale.28 Cotton brought into the island substantial revenue. A Spanish historian observed that from the 1740s ‘Maltese cotton came regularly and in quantity to Catalonian shores’.29 Another, recalling Alexander Ball’s estimates, remarked that by the first decade of the nineteenth century, the annual revenue accrued from cotton exports had risen to ‘half a million pounds sterling’.30 Although this might have very well been a rather inflated figure, in 1836, when the industry was in decline, statistics showed that the value of cotton exports amounted to ₤118,000 annually.31 This widespread activity attracted the attention of various visitors to Hospitaller Malta. A late sixteenth-century account observed that all kinds of skilful Maltese artisans, including ‘diverse merchants of draperies, cloths, and other similar merchandise,’ flocked daily to Valletta to sell their wares.32 Giacomo Bosio remarked that cotton was grown ‘abundantly’ on Malta.33 An early eighteenthcentury description of the Hospitaller island observes that local women were very competent at working ‘very fine lace . . . gloves, cotton, silk, and beautiful flowers’.34 During his accidental visit to Malta in 1769, William Hamilton, the English envoy-extraordinary to Naples, pointed out that ‘the whole island, though in itself a barren rock, actually produces plentiful crops of cotton.’35 Indeed, sometime in the early seventeenth century a number of Maltese families were invited to settle on Sardinia, to provide those interested with the necessary knowledge of cotton cultivation. Cotton on Sardinia had never been grown on a scale for export. A ‘colony’ of Maltese did in fact settle on the island, in a zone slightly south of Alghero, but were massacred by the local peasants who feared their ‘civilizing’ enthusiasm.36 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Ibid., Bandi 1772–79, fol. 230. Ibid., fol. 222. Ibid., Bandi 1722–36, fol. 256. J. Vicens Vives, An Economic History of Spain (New Jersey, 1969), pp. 537, 558–559, 571. B. Blouet, The Story of Malta (London, 1967), p. 132. See R. Montgomery Martin, Statistics of the Colonies of the British Empire (London, 1839). P. Falcone, ‘Una Relazione di Malta sulla fine del cinquecento’, Archivio Storico di Malta, iv (1933), p. 32. Bosio, iii (Rome, 1602), p. 89. Descrittione di Malta, Anno 1716: A Venetian Account, ed. V. Mallia-Milanes (Malta, 1988), pp. 56–57. P. Xuereb, ‘Sir William Hamilton’s Account of His First Visit to Malta’, Melita Historica, vi (1972), p. 23. Details from an unpublished paper read in a conference in Cagliari, Sardinia.

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Apart from ashes and cotton, other native products included oranges, lemons, salt, hemp, silk, linen, and stone. All of these were exported, but the amounts involved were comparatively small.37 There was cumin too, which the Venetian Giacomo Capello in 1716 described as ‘sweet and bitter’.38 Grown for its aromatic seeds used especially for flavouring and candid peel, there were times when exports of it earned the island an average of some 50,000 scudi a year.39 A 1630 account estimated that the island yielded about 200 cantara annually, compared to 300 cantara of cotton.40

Attractive market facilities If, on the one hand, the Order successfully endeavoured to secure new markets, several European and Mediterranean States, on the other, showed a commercial interest in the island of the knights. This, too, in part is indicated by the need that successive grand masters felt to appoint, in their own strange manner, commercial agents or consuls on Malta to look after the interests of foreign merchants and sailors during their sojourn on the island. They also acted as interpreters whenever the need arose. The seventeenth century witnessed some fifteen foreign consulates on Malta operating on behalf of such diverse cities, kingdoms, or principalities as Armenia, Belgium, and Dalmatia; Egypt, England, and France; Genoa and the Greek islands; Naples, Sicily, and Spain; Syria, Tuscany, and Venice.41 To these were added, during the course of the eighteenth century, resident consuls representing the commercial and maritime interests of merchants, traders, and sailors hailing from Corsica and Holland, Hungary, Ragusa in the Adriatic, and Sardinia, later to be joined by those for Russian and American traders. The North African regencies and trading centres within the Ottoman Empire had their business transactions with Malta generally conducted under the protection of the French flag. Several merchant families from overseas sought ‘naturalization’ on Malta to enable them to set up in business on the island and entitle them to enjoy facilities normally extended only to Maltese and Sicilian merchants. In this way, in 37 38 39 40 41

See Mallia-Milanes, Descrittione di Malta, pp. 38–40 and respective notes. ‘dolce et agro’. Ibid., p. 40. Ibid. Ibid., note to lines 38–39. One cantaro was equivalent to between 50 and 80 kilograms. Giovanni Sagnano, to instance a few, was consul in Malta for Venice, Genoa, and Tuscany. Pietro Drovin (in the 1620s), Antoine Garsin (1630s), Giovanni Antonio Peris, Marc’ Antonio Durand, and Matteo Savina (1650s) were all consuls for France. Savina, originally from Marseilles, had been ‘in hac nostra civitate Valletta uxorato [reads his nomination bull] et domiciliato subdito nostro’. Francesco Soriano, Stamatis Anselmi, and Nicolai Gnagnotti (of Greek origin, domiciled in Valletta) served as consuls for Armenia, Syria, and Egypt in the first half of the seventeenth century. In 1634 Grand Master Antoine de Paule appointed Giovanni Ieoneri consul pro natione hebrusca. Balthassere Gimbert looked after the interests of Spanish-speaking merchants and sailors. The list can be stretched on indefinitely. See V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘Malta and Venice in the Eighteenth Century: A Study in Consular Relations’, Studi Veneziani, xvii–xviii (1975–76), pp. 265–320.

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the 1760s, a number of Venetians were allowed to take up residence on Hospitaller Malta to trade in wheat, timber, and, perhaps too ambitiously, books.42 Apart from its strategic significance, which the island owed as much to the Order’s presence and activities as to its geographical location, Hospitaller Malta boasted a wide range of competitive facilities which proved attractive to the foreign merchant, including the State’s rigidly observed policy of neutrality, free medical service at the infirmary for travellers taken ill on their voyages; the spacious, much sought after lazaretto, built on what is now known as Manoel island, where men, ships, cattle and other merchandise could undergo quarantine. Quarantine on Malta was ‘less arduous than it was in Marseilles,’ remarks Roderick Cavaliero,43 ‘and more efficient.’ From Lascaris’ magistracy (1636–1657) to Pinto’s (1741–1773), a series of sumptuous warehouses were provided on the Grand Harbour side of the city, stretching from Porta del Monte to the Floriana lines. These were rented to local and foreign merchants at very discreet rates. A new wharf was built, and grain stores were set up, with dwelling houses for merchants, rooms for brokers, and a structure for the storage of Sicilian or Neapolitan ice. In 1774 a customs-house was constructed.44 These and other facilities constituted one of three major realities which determined the nature of the island’s foreign commerce. The second was the everwidening scope of the local demand. There were several forces behind this phenomenon, including the steady demographic growth which marked early modern Malta, the wide economic activity which this necessarily generated, the aspirations which the Order’s presence unwittingly promoted among the upper echelons of Maltese society, and the general feeling of prosperity which the knights brought to Malta. This feeling of well-being was reflected in the large, elegant, and richly decorated churches in the towns and villages all over the island. The third reality was the absence of the right opportunities for capital re-investment. It was precisely this flaw in the island’s economic structure and organization that encouraged the local merchant to invest most of his capital in foreign trade.45 The fairly simple and straightforward customs-tariff system operative on the island was definitely one other incentive. While customs duty was generally reckoned in terms of value, other charges were imposed in terms of weight, volume, or number, depending on the nature of the merchandise. The system distinguished between two categories of merchants rather than the type of merchandise. Maltese and Sicilian merchants enjoyed what was termed the privilegio nazionale. Merchandise imported by either of them was charged 3⅓ per cent ad valorem duty. All other merchants had to pay 6⅓ per cent on their goods.46 42 See V. Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta 1530–1798: Aspects of a Relationship (Malta, 1992), Chapter 8, ‘From Traditional Foes to Trading Partners’, pp. 221–269, passim. 43 R. Cavaliero, The Last of the Crusaders: The Knights of St John and Malta in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1960), p. 48. 44 See Mallia-Milanes, Hospitaller Malta, pp. 28–30. 45 Ibid., p. 27. 46 Id., Venice and Hospitaller Malta, p. 241.

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Foodstuffs, potables, and merchandise freighted to the Order by its receivers in Europe were exempted from all duties. Dues on transit trade, a facility which applied only to the foreign merchant, were reckoned at one per cent if re-exported within a year of its arrival; otherwise, the levy for bonded merchandise was worked out at the rate of 6⅔ per cent for Maltese and Sicilian merchants and 12 per cent for all other foreign traders. Excise duties were imposed on a wide range of commodities by the local Università, whose main function was reduced over the years to that of administering the massa frumentaria, which gave interest of three per cent per annum on savings deposits. Investments in this bank generally went to the purchase of the necessary foodstuffs, particularly wheat.47

Privateering The knights turned Malta into an important base for Mediterranean corsairing activity. Both sides, the rulers and the ruled, had had ample experience in piracy and privateering practices since medieval times. Sufficient documentation has survived to suggest that Malta had been involved in corsairing ventures since the fourteenth century and probably earlier – having boats constructed ‘in the harbour’ for that purpose, having them fitted out, the necessary crews recruited from among the local population, and then sailing out contra infideles. Not infrequent complaints too had been registered with local authorities from Naples, Venice, and elsewhere against the indiscriminate piratical activity of Maltese and foreign corsairs based on Malta. On Rhodes, says Anthony Luttrell, the knights ‘employed, patronized, and profited from Latin piracy.’ On the central Mediterranean island, the Order extended its patronage to this widespread activity, organizing it into a profitable industry on a much wider scale, contributing favourably to the land’s economic profile in terms of employment and foreign currency, and as a secure source of slaves. In the early modern Mediterranean, the corso, or sea-brigandage disguised by both Christians and Muslims alike as a holy war, was still considered as another form of legitimate trade. Both forms of trade coexisted. The prevalence of privateering indicated the prevalence of commercial activity. The corso could not hope to flourish outside the zones of a flourishing trade.48 Privately-owned vessels, fully equipped with guns like any other war vessel and with ‘skilled manpower’,49 were fitted out by individual knights and grandmasters, stimulating similar activity among the local subject armateurs. They ventured towards the Levant in search of Muslim booty, in the hope of accumulating 47 Ibid., p. 242. 48 Braudel, pp. 734–749; Horden, Purcell, pp. 140, 154–159, 168, 283, 387–388. See also, M. Greene, Catholic Pirates and Greek Merchants: A Maritime History of the Mediterranean (Princeton/ Oxford, 2010). 49 Horden, Purcell, p. 387.

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‘a sizeable fortune from the enterprise’.50 Measures were taken at intervals to regulate what was soon encouraged to develop into an international activity and the island’s principal industry. In 1605 an armaments magistracy (Tribunale degli Armamenti) was set up to run the industry and ‘iron out . . . abuses’. In conformity with international law, a corsair had a licence to practise his profession against the infidel, his trade, and his shipping – unless, of course, these were protected by a Christian safe conduct, whether emanating from the grandmaster’s court or from any other principality. Hospitaller Malta issued such letters-patent. Large sections of the Libri Bullarum at the Archives of the Order of St John at the National Library in Valletta are full of registered copies of them. Each commission defined the common enemy against whom the venture was being undertaken, authorized the armateur to recruit his men and arm his vessel, specified the period during which the activity was considered legitimate, and delineated the geographical area where it could be performed, a provision more honoured in the breach than the observance. The island also provided the necessary facilities for this activity to be adequately conducted, ‘almost certainly better,’ says Peter Earle, ‘than those available anywhere else in the Mediterranean.’51 Corsairs, under cover of a Hospitaller licence, were expected to have all their prizes, human and material, sold at Malta on their return. Ten per cent of the value of the booty (or the decima delle prese) went to the Ricetta Magistrale. This was another term for the grandmaster’s income, whose value in part reflected (though rarely accurately) the fortunes and fluctuations of the industry.52 A handsome portion of it too was derived from customs dues and excise duties. Elisabeth Schermerhorn claims that during La Cassière’s magistracy the ricetta averaged 30,000 scudi a year.53 By the beginning of the eighteenth century, in Perellos’s time, according to a contemporary account, it had more than trebled.54 Peter Earle lists several social categories with a direct financial interest in every corsair venture.55 The grandmaster was one, and his claim was the first to be met. Others included the so-called Cinque Lancie or five shares which were paid to various people or institutions, like the nuns of the convent of St Ursula in Valletta and the armaments tribunal itself, ‘for spiritual and material services’ extended to Malta’s corsairs. The captains and crews claimed a share of the booty, as did those who financed the whole venture. Every venture was clearly a business venture, whatever ideology animated it. It has been estimated that between 1650 and 1750 nearly half the able-bodied male population of Malta had been recruited on corsair ships in one capacity or another. Along with the knights’ caravans, or the regular

50 Several in fact did, including, for example, two grandmasters – Jean de Valette and Hughes de Loubenx Verdalle. 51 P. Earle, Corsairs of Malta and Barbary (London, 1970), passim. 52 Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta, p. 239. 53 Schermerhorn, Malta of the Knights, p. 158n. 54 Mallia-Milanes, Descrittione di Malta, p. 88. 55 Earle, pp. 126–130.

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cruises undertaken by the Hospitaller squadrons, the corso also contributed in no small way to the large number of slaves on the island and to the thriving slave market renowned throughout the Mediterranean. A constant supply of slaves was needed for the galleys and the building of the fortifications, for public works and domestic service. One source claims there were some 2,000 slaves on eighteenthcentury Malta.56 For the island’s economy, slaves were a necessary commodity, as otherwise paid workmen would have had to be employed. The Hospitaller institution could not afford that luxury. After all, ‘we should not overlook the fact,’ Horden and Purcell tell us in The Corrupting Sea, ‘that enslavement was often the best available mechanism of escape, the most effective way of realizing potential mobility, for desperate people in hard times.’57

Conclusion Valletta, the new capital city the Hospitallers built a year after the Ottoman siege of 1565, accommodated the Order’s Convent, comprising all the administrative, religious, and military offices. These included, among other structures, the magistral palace, the Holy Infirmary, the conventual church, the Common Treasury, and the auberges, or hostels of all the eight langues into which the institution was divided. Valletta was ‘a centre of movement’ and a great civilizing force. Unlike Genoese Corsica or Spanish Sardinia, unlike any of the Venetian islands in the eastern Mediterranean, unlike indeed Ottoman Rhodes, Cyprus, and Crete, it modelled the rest of the island in its own baroque image. While it can be claimed that Corsica and Sardinia had been ‘reduced’ by the regimes occupying them to such extremes that ‘taxation and oppression’ promoted the endemic growth of ‘banditry and the vendetta’,58 the Hospitallers had succeeded in breaking the central Mediterranean island’s isolation rather than having it reconfirmed and consolidated as Braudel would have us believe. Over the longue durée, the Knights improved the inhabitants’ manners and way of life, strengthened their deep-rooted religious convictions in the spirit of the Tridentine Church, and unwittingly refined their ‘strange’ native language which they had preserved since Arabic domination. Their presence within the urban fortifications surrounding the wider harbour area generated new economic activities partly by investing heavily in the island, partly by the demands of the market which, by inspiring confidence during the post-siege years, they had unwittingly created, and partly by the consequent widening of the island’s network of communications, trade relations, and other forms of constant connectivity. In brief, the new European fortress city of Valletta ushered late medieval Malta gradually into the modern age. Where the Aragonese had failed, the Hospitallers succeeded. The fortress and the Knights’ military mission gave the Maltese archipelago a much greater 56 Blouet, p. 140. 57 Horden, Purcell, p. 388. 58 E. Bradford, Mediterranean: Portrait of a Sea (London, 1971), p. 429.

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strategic significance than its geographical position on its own could offer. Perhaps unlike any other Mediterranean island, large or small, Malta found itself overnight pitch forked, says Alison Hoppen, ‘into Mediterranean power politics’59 by being immediately transformed into a home base of anti-Muslim operations. It did not only ‘glimpse’, as it had been doing for centuries, ‘the general history of the sea’. It became deeply involved and integrated into the life and development of the Mediterranean. It was an on-going process, sometimes slow and monotonous, sometimes fast and dramatic. From as early as the very first few years of the Order’s stay, Malta began to participate actively in campaigns against the Ottomans in the Morea and, alongside the mighty Spanish armada, in Tunis, La Goletta, Mahdiya, Algiers, and Djerba on the North African coast; later in collaboration with other Christian forces (to instance a few) at Lepanto in 1572, on Venice’s side in defence of Cyprus, and between 1645 and 1669 on besieged Crete. The Knights had ‘placed’ the islands ‘firmly in the front line of the confrontation between Christian and Muslim,’60 assigning to them a leading role in ‘the forefront of history’ by turning them into another Rhodes in the central Mediterranean, a frontier fortress ‘separating one civilization from another’.61 When, in 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte sailed to the shores of Malta in full revolutionary enthusiasm, the island bristled with massive forts and ever watchful coastal towers, with thick curtain-walls and yellow limestone bastions, all overwhelming, daunting, and unassailable, posing an impenetrable physical barrier against Islam and offering the native inhabitants a securer form of shelter than that which primitive caves had offered them in antiquity and early medieval times. This aweinspiring image of strength testified ‘to the mentality of a whole civilization.’ It invariably expressed ‘a state of mind’.62 But by then, not unlike the rest of Ancien Régime Europe, the Order was too weak to offer any valid resistance to the invading armies. The French Revolution had divested it of its landed estates and of its powerful patronage. In the long term, the Knights unwittingly prepared the Maltese for their political ‘explosion’ in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Today the islanders can trace the origins of their brand of nationalism to the material and spiritual legacy which the Knights bequeathed to them, a spirit which, if it had been timely diagnosed, the Knights or their successors – the French and the British – would have called the dangerous, fearful spread of a malign growth. Like Hospitaller Malta, all Mediterranean islands in early modern times – Sicily or Corfu, Corsica or Zante, Sardinia, Crete, or Cyprus – had had a similar if not identical experience of foreign domination. Hospitaller Malta was perhaps the only one which in 1798, at the end of one domination and the beginning of another, could confidently claim 59 See A. Hoppen, ‘Military Priorities and Social Realities in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Malta and Its Fortifications’, in Mallia-Milanes, Hospitaller Malta, p. 401. 60 Ibid., p. 412. 61 Braudel, The Mediterranean, p. 845. 62 Ibid., p. 845.

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to have been transformed into an epitome of Western Europe in the true sense of the term. In return to this long civilizing legacy which the Order of the Hospital bequeathed to Malta, the central Mediterranean island, points out Jonathan RileySmith, ‘enabled the knights to survive’, helped to enhance the ‘devotional side’ of their institution, and confirmed their claim to sovereignty,63 one that is still very much in evidence today.

63 J. Riley-Smith, Hospitallers: The History of the Order of St John (London, 1999).

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V MALTA AND VENICE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A study in consular relations

The Maltese consulate in Venice I At the very end of the fifteenth century, King Ferdinand the Catholic, in a Royal Charter addressed to John de Nusa, his Sicilian Viceroy, referred to the unbroken tradition of the Maltese in having a consul in Sicily to look after their commercial interests there.1 In medieval times the consul was a kind of local official elected annually in every commercial and maritime city of standing by the members of that mercantile community which, primarily for trade reasons, happened to be established there, with the sole purpose of deciding disputes of a commercial nature pertaining to that community. On Hospitaller Malta, even as late as the eighteenth century, the office of consul retained a connection, however slightly remote, with the medieval origins of that institution. By the eighteenth century, the central Mediterranean island, which was the Order of St John’s conventual headquarters, is known to have had over 90 different consulates functioning in various Mediterranean cities and elsewhere.2 Although by then the practice, on the part of the commercial community, of electing a representative from among its numbers had faded out of cognisance, there still remained a not altogether similar practice of sending petitions to the home government in favour of a particular merchant whom they believed would be capable of safeguarding their interests in those parts. This was not an uncommon occurrence as much with Maltese commercial settlements overseas as with Venetian merchants outside the Città Dominante. Though the grand master, the head of the island Order State, was the one person responsible for the establishment of a Maltese consulate in a particular port city

1 Malta, Cathedral Archives, Mdina (=ACM), vol. 27, pp. 182–184. The Charter is dated 5 January 1499. 2 V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘Alphabetical List of Maltese Consuls Overseas during the XVIIIth Century’, Melita Historica, 5 (1971), pp. 338–343.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003406518-6

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after 1530, the post was, more often than not, established in line with the petition of the Maltese merchants residing there. On 5 February 1776 Giuseppe Grixti was appointed Maltese consul in Terranova. On his death in 1781, that office remained vacant for three months. His brother Francesco, having soon after established himself in that city, petitioned the grand master to succeed his brother in that capacity. Francesco was apparently a man of means, well versed in commercial business, ‘and for several years . . . he had been trading and carrying out business from his island to Terranova, where he holds [and rents] various estates and other domains, beside his privately owned lands, and where he must [now] settle and take up his residence.’3 On 15 January 1782, a group of 13 Maltese merchants, or owners of Maltese vessels, testified in the presence of notary Francesco Mamo in support of Grixti as suitable for the office of consul for the Maltese in Terranova: We testify that Francesco Grixti who wishes to occupy the office of consul of the Maltese in Terra Nova, is a very honest person; [which office] has been vacated through the death of Giuseppe Grixti, his brother; we testify also that Francesco Grixti is skilful and very competent to exercise the office by him desired, being well versed not only in commerce, but also in all that is entailed by the office of consul in Terra Nova, where he has been living for years.4 These qualities were reconfirmed by the Consolato del Mare, the local commercial court, on 17 January 1782. The grand master’s fiat prout petitur was issued twelve days later. Grixti was appointed consul on 19 January 1782.5 Similar petitions submitted by Maltese merchants overseas for consular appointments abound.6 Before 1772, there had been no officially recognised consul for Malta in the Venetian Republic. During those years Hospitaller receivers in Venice, and 3 Malta, Archives of the Order of Malta (=AOM), Cod. 1194, fol. 52v. 4 Ibid., f. 53. The merchants were Michel Angelo Madonna, Giorgio Camilleri, Giuseppe Montenegro, Michele Arico, Giacomo Pellegrino, Giacomo Camensuli, Giovanni Francesco Guillaimier, Gio. Carlo Grech Delicata, Giuseppe Grech, Pietro Felice, Carlo Ciantar, Giuseppe Portanier, and Paolo Albanese. 5 Ibid. 6 In 1713, for example, Dottor Antonio Vivarici submitted the following petition to the grand master: ‘come haven esercitato la carica di Console per lo spatio d’anni cinquanta, ivi hoggi, ritrovandosi d’età setuagenaria, per maggiormente accertare la condotta della medesima, trovandosi un suo nipote, Dottor Teodoro Vivarici habbile, et idoneo all’effetto suddetto, supplica perciò l’A[ltezza] V[ostra] S[erenissima] volersi degnare di promovere detto suo nipote alla riferita carica che il tutto riceverà a grazia di V[ostra] A[ltezza] S[erenissima].’ AOM, Cod. 1186, ff. 325/336. In 1746 Francesco Amodei, from Augusta, petitioned the grand master in the words: ‘riverentemente espone aver la brama di esercitar la carica di console in detta città per la Nazione Maltese.’ Ibid., 1188, f. 415. See also AOM, Cod. 1489, 23 February 1728, ‘To Consul Tommaso Palmi, Portoferraio’; ibid., Cod. 1491, 8 April 1730, ‘To Consul Giuseppe Palmi, Portoferraio; ibid., Cod. 1492, 13 October 1732, ‘To Consul Dionisio de Laurentis, Cotrone’.

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through them the Order itself, used to avail themselves of certain private individuals (un private personale), who were for years instrumental in enhancing Maltese trade with Venice. The last in the list of such private merchants, entrusted with assisting Maltese merchants and their trade in the Republic, was a certain Spinelli – a task, we are told, he was fully qualified to assume. He passed away in 1718, four years before the official establishment of a Maltese consulate in Venice.7 Spinelli was a Venetian merchant, described as a man of integrity, sound moral principles, ideals, and standards, widely known in mercantile and commercial circles for his reliability and full sense of responsibility; to him ‘all ships and merchandise of the Maltese were directed and recommended’.8 For four years after Spirelli’s death, no other merchant was designated to look after Maltese commercial interests at the port of Venice. During these four years the spirit of mutual trust within the Maltese mercantile community in Venice, and between Venetian and Maltese merchants there, began to fade away; by 1722 it had almost disappeared. This is revealed by the ‘various disorders and discord registered in mercantile contracts’.9 On 11 August 1722, Grand Master Manoel de Vilhena accredited one Pietro Zocchi, a Venetian merchant, consul for the Maltese in Venice, with the express purpose of being ‘of help both to Maltese traders here’, to quote the Cinque Savi’s relazione to the Senate, ‘and to those ships, which [laden] with various goods of that island arrive in this city.’10 Then on 18 September the Venetian Magistracy of Trade, the Cinque Savi alla Mercanzia, reported that Pietro Zocchi, who had petitioned the Doge to allow him to exercise freely his consular authority,11 seemed well aware as much of the privileges and exemptions enjoyed by other consuls in the Republic as of the duties entailed in his prospective consulship.12 II The term ‘Maltese consuls’ denoted all those persons appointed consuls for the Maltese in any foreign city, irrespective of their citizenship or country of origin. On accrediting Maltese consuls overseas, the grand master kept strictly in conformity with the internationally recognised practice. He would remit the letters-patent to the governing body of the receiving-state either directly or through the Hospitaller receiver residing in the district comprising that port city. The receiver was an official responsible for the collection and transmission of the revenues accrued from

7 8 9 10 11

Venice, Archivio di Stato (= ASVen), Senato, Roma Ordinaria, Secreta, filza a. 1752, 15 July 1752. ASVen, nuova serie, busta 24, 24 September 1722. Ibid. Ibid. The relazione was signed by the three Savi, Duodo, Venier, and Valier. ‘Implorando dalla Clemenza del mio Adorato Principe la permissione di tal esercitio, che riesce compatibile con la costanza della mia fede per quest’Augustissima Repubblica.’ Ibid., 18 September 1722. 12 Ibid.

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the Order’s landed estates to the common treasury on Malta.13 The receiving-state would then normally furnish the consul with an exequatur or placet, a document recognising his character and declaring him free to discharge his duties as consul and enjoy his consular privileges. The commission consulaire had no legal significance until the exequatur had been granted.14 The only apparent exception to this procedure was the case of Siculo-Maltese consular relationship. This is perhaps understandable in view of the close proximity of the two islands and the privileges endowed to the Maltese by Spain and Sicily prior to 1530.15 On 8 August 1482 a viceregal proclamation had pointed out that Gasparo Angaras Inguanes, Maltese consul at Licata, was not to be considered as a foreigner, and he was therefore subject to taxation only like any other Sicilian subject. As consul for the Maltese in Sicily, Inguanes was serving the kingdom like any other Sicilian.16 Up to the early half of the eighteenth century, Maltese consuls in Sicily needed no exequatur to their letters-patent. On 16 September 1697 the Sicilian Viceroy decreed that foreign consuls on Sicily could no longer exercise any consular functions unless their proper appointment had been previously approved and the exequatur granted by the Emperor. Consequently Maltese consuls in Sicilian ports were, at first, finding it difficult to discharge their duties as freely as before, due to the odds and obstacles Sicilian local officials were putting in their way following the Ordine Generale. Grand Master Perellos wrote to Don Carlo Riggio, the Hospitaller receiver in Sicily, instructing him to intercede for Maltese consuls there. To this effect, Pietro Colon, Viceroy of Sicily, issued a second royal order on 28 November 1697, to clarify basic details constituting consular relations between the two islands: all current and future Maltese consuls were to be allowed to exercise their duties freely and to enjoy all privileges and immunities their predecessors had enjoyed. The original viceregal proclamation of 16 September had not been meant ‘for the consuls of the nation of the island of Malta, considering that never [before] had the said island been looked upon as foreign, having always enjoyed the privilege of being united, and annexed to, and dependent of the Kingdom of Sicily’.17 The magistral commission consulaire alone gave them legal recognition within Sicilian grounds. No further royal approval was required. Change is the quintessence of time. A lettera reale of 17 July 1747, addressed to the ‘Senates and Jurors of this Kingdom [of Sicily]’, and re-echoing Pietro Colon’s of 1697, declared that, to be legally recognised, consuls and vice-consuls 13 For the nature and office of the Hospitaller Receiver, AOM, Cod. 1683, Trattato dell’Officio del Ricevitore. See also Victor Mallia-Milanes, ‘The Hospitaller Receiver in Venice: A Late Seventeenth-Century Document’, Studi Veneziani, n.s., xliv (2002), pp. 309–326. 14 L. T. Lee, Consular Law and Practice (London, 1961), p. 5. J. I. Puente, ‘The Nature of the Consular Establishment’, University of Pennsylvania Law Review (January 1930), p. 332. 15 Cfr. AOM, Cod. 6412, Privilegi dei diversi Sovrani prima dell’arrivo dei Cavalieri a Malta. Also, W. Eton, Authentic Materials for a History of the People of Malta (London, 1803). 16 ACM, vol. 25, pp. 235, 244. 17 AOM, Cod. 1702, ff. 267–268.

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residing in Sicily needed the royal placet. Nor were these consuls and vice-consuls further allowed to elect their substitutes unauthorised.18 This new approach was reflected in Siculo-Maltese consular relations. The Messinese Francesco Cebera was elected consul for the Maltese in Messina on 9 September 1743, succeeding a relative of his, Giuseppe Cebera. Seventeen years later he felt the need to request the Viceroy to furnish him with the proper exequatur.19 The same thing happened to Francesco Caten, also from Messina, in 1761.20 After 1747, Sicilian authorities considered Hospitaller Malta like any other foreign city. In consular matters, Venetian legislation was not much dissimilar to the Sicilian. In accordance with a law enacted by the Venetian Senate on 2 May 1739, the letters-patent had first to be submitted to the Eccellentissimo Pien Collegio which issued the necessary exequatur before foreign consuls and vice-consuls could perform their duties. Before approval, the College would consider the source of origin of the commission consulaire and ‘with what faculty and prerogatives and on what terms’ it had been issued.21 Through another decree, dated 2 May 1739, the Senate retained all those rights which, by their very nature, were normally invested in a country’s sovereign authority: ‘to apply the law against subjects in proportion to their offence, and to correct them and to punish them’. The same decree continued that ‘in the case of any crime one should, without exception, proceed with those punishments provided for by the law’.22 The Senate’s decree of 2 April 1746, which likewise dealt with consular privileges and immunities ‘from punishments for common crimes’, was wider in scope and more general. Neither consul nor vice-consuls, it pointed out, were public representatives vested with public authority: they enjoyed no representative character and were not therefore entitled to general immunity. All foreign consuls and vice-consuls within the Venetian Republic were all equally subject to Venetian law.23 The case of Alvise Verviciotti, the Maltese consul at Corfù from 1751 to 1783, provides a definitive interpretation of Veneto-Maltese consular legislation. Alvise was the son of Giovanni Verviciotti, ‘citizen of Corfù’, a man of means who owned ‘real estate’ on that island.24 Giovanni too had been Maltese consul at Corfù since 7 September 1728, and had been reconfirmed in that office by Grand Master Emanuel Pinto on 15 May 1741.25 The Maltese consulates at Corfù, Zante, 18 Palermo, Biblioteca Comunale (= BCP), MS. Qq.F. 110, f. 13. 19 Palermo, Archivio di Stato (= ASP), Real Segreteria, busta 2793, a. 1760. This contains a note ‘con la quale viene trasmesso al Vicerè un Memoriale di Francesco Cebera di Messina diretto ad ottenere il R. Exequatur alla Patente di Console di Malta’. 20 ASP, Real Segreteria, busta 2803, a. 1761, ‘Una nota di informazione del Supremo Magistrato del Commercio su un Memoriale di Francesco Caten di Messina diretto ad ottenere il R. Exequatur’. 21 ASVen, Cinque Savi alla Mercanzia (= CSM), prima serie (= ps), filza 83, c. 113. 22 Ibid., busta 601, 8 August 1765. 23 Ibid. See also ASVen, CSM, ps, filza 99, c. 107. 24 ASVen, CSM, ps, busta 601, 8 August 1765. 25 Ibid.

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and Napoli di Romania derived their importance from these islands’ strategic position in view of the Order’s consistently hostile attitude towards the Turk.26 Alvise succeeded his father on 17 May 1751. It is clear, nevertheless, that his appointment had been issued from Malta during his father’s tenure of office since we are told by the Cinque Savi that his letters-patent had been endorsed in order to confirm his election in case of either his father’s untimely death or his renunciation of office.27 The letters-patent were forwarded to the Venetian authorities through the Hospitaller receiver in Venice who, for some odd reason, had failed to pass on, together with the Senate’s placet, to Verviciotti.28 The latter was informed by Pinto in 1767 that, with regard to the commission, he was writing to his receiver in Venice to obtain for him ‘the public assent’, lest he would not be ‘in a position to act lawfully’.29 There were two plausible reasons why the Senate took so long to issue the placet to Alviso’s letters-patent. First, some kind of misunderstanding between the Maltese and Venetian authorities on the issue of consular appointments was very likely to have arisen, owing to the fact that the letters-patent of Alviso’s father had neither been submitted to the Pien Collegio, nor had they been approved by the Senate, although Giovanni had been performing his consular functions up to the time of his death.30 Secondly, on 2 December 1762, the Senate had asked the Trade Magistracy to study whether it was opportune to debar Venetian subjects from foreign consulates on both the stato da terra and the stato da mar. Once the Magistracy’s recommendations were submitted, the Senate, on 28 January 1764, decreed that ‘for reasons of custom and convenience no changes should be effected contrary to [normal] practice’.31 26 The following letter, written by the Grand Master to his consuls in Corfù and Zante on 3 April 1708, illustrates this point very clearly. ‘Vi scrissimo sotto li 23 del caduto, ma essendo incerti se quando riceveremo risposta di quella nostra, vi replichiamo colla presente che sommamente ci preme aver notizie certe dell’armata Turchesca, del numero di bastimenti, tanto quadri, che latini, delle militie, che conduce, e del suo disegno. A quest’ effetto mandiamo con una barca speronara, Padrone Gio. Domenico Lagusi compagno di Pilota della nostra Galera Capitana, nella fedeltà e attività del quale molto confidiamo, e gl’habbiamo ordinato, che se costì vi saranno di detta armata, delle sue forze, e del suo disegno notitie certe se ne ritorni subito à dietro a portar cele, altrimenti: passi (al Zante e bisognante) sino a Patrasso, Castel Tornese, e Napoli di Romania, perché sommamente ci preme avere le predette notizie quanto più certe, e quanto più presto sia possibile. Vi raccomandiamo per tanto d’assisterlo in tutto quello che potrete e che conoscerete condurre al nostro intento: ed in caso, che egli dovrà passare davanti ci sarà grato che ci partecipate per qualunque occasione vi si presenterà, quel più che saprete di detta armata, e se alla Vallona, o in altra parte si favi piazza d’arme, col numero delle soldatesche, che si dice trovarvisi adunate, e de magazzini che vi sono, per le provvisioni da guerra e da bocca’. AOM, Cod. 1469, 3 April 1708. 27 ASVen, CSM, ps, busta 601, 8 August 1765. 28 The original nomination bull, on parchment, carries the title ‘Coadiutoria consulatus Insula Coreyrensis sive Corfù pro Aloysio, seu Ludovico Verviciotti – Die xvii Mensis Maij 1751’. It is kept in ASVen, CSM, ps, busta 601. 29 AOM, Cod. 1523, 14 September 1767. 30 ASVen, CSM, ps, busta 601, 8 August 1765. 31 Ibid.

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On 28 October 1767, Grand Master Pinto wrote to his Receiver d’Elci in Venice: We have been eagerly looking forward to hearing that Alviso Verviciotti, our consul on Corfù, has been given back our letters-patent together with the placet of the Most Serene Government to be able to exercise the office entrusted to him; but now that this has been lost, as appears from the petition attached to your letter of 19 September, we have ordered its renewal and to be addressed to you: first, in order to obtain the opportune consent of the Government, and, secondly, to send it to Verviciotti so that he will be in a position to attend legally to our vassals’ needs.32 On 28 March the following year Pinto wrote, this time, to Alviso, informing him that d’Elci had received the Exequatur on his behalf. Alvise could now act as Hospitaller Malta’s consul.33 At last the Senate had decided ‘per stringerlo sempre più in quella buona intelligenza ed amicizia per la quale si è sempre manifesto quel Gran Maestro molto propenso ed inclinato a nostro favore’.34 The internationally recognised practice followed by the Order of the Hospital in dispatching Maltese consuls overseas and by Venice in endorsing foreign consular appointments has been dealt with at some length not because it shows any idiosyncratic feature of either the Maltese or Venetian consular system. Within this context, both the grand master and the Venetian Senate were acting in much the same way as would any other sovereign ruler of the day. Nevertheless, it provides a sharper relief to the procedure adopted by the same Order with regards to the foreign consul on Malta. This will be discussed in the second part of the present paper. III The considerable amount of inedited documentation in the Corrispondenza and the Suppliche manuscript volumes in the Order’s Archives in Malta explains how the grand master became aware of the suitability of a particular person for the

32 AOM, Cod. 1523, Pinto to Receiver d’Elci, 28 October 1767. 33 ‘Siete in grado,’ Pinto could now tell Alviso, ‘di avvanzare costà l’istanza per il rilascito della nota pollacca depredata dalla nostra fregata.’AOM, Cod. 1523, Pinto to Consul Verviciotti, Corfù, 28 March 1768. On 7 August 1765, d’Elci had submitted the following petition to the Venetian Senate: ‘L’attuale Ricevitore di Malta Commendatore Fra Ferdinando de Conti d’Elci, incaricato dall’Eminentissimo Suo Signore Gran Maestro, ha l’onore di presentare alla Serenità Vostra, ed a questi Eccellentissimi Padri l’elezione fatta nella persona di Alvise Verviciotti di Corfù per Console della Nazione Maltese in dett’Isola, essendo rimasto vacante quel Consolato per la morte di Giovanni Verviciotti di lui Padre. Supplica per tanto il medesimo Ricevitore la Serenità Vostra, e questi Eccellentissimi Padri, perché si degnino di ammetter nelle consuete forme il nuovo Eletto all’esercizio delle addossategli Incumbenze; e pieno della più profonda venerazione a quest’Augusto Trono s’umilia.’ ASVen, CSM, ps, busta 601, 7 August 1765. 34 Ibid.

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Maltese consulship in a foreign city and of his ability to protect Maltese subjects and their interests in a foreign port, to further commercial trade, to better available facilities for merchant shipping, and, among other duties, to care for the internal discipline on vessels under cover of the eight-pointed Cross. In a petition submitted to Grand Master de Rohan in 1781, Michele Caporotta asked to replace Pietro Antonio Aurisicchio as Maltese consul in Naples. The latter was apparently unable to carry out his consular duties well owing to infirmity and old age. Commendatore Fra Giuseppe Francone, the Hospitaller receiver in that city, was asked by de Rohan to refer on this issue, particularly on Caporotta’s character and suitability for that office. Michele Caporotta, affirmed Francone on 3 November 1781, was held in high esteem by all sectors of the commercial class in Naples. Whenever he was sought to help his Maltese co-subjects, he had always shown himself as competent and reliable as he was keen in promoting the commercial interests of his country.35 In a letter addressed to Receiver Morelli in Venice, de Rohan referred to a petition submitted by Spiridione Verviciotti, Alviso’s son. The petition was attached to Morelli’s letter of 25 January 1783. Spiridione was seeking to replace his father as Malta’s consul at Corfù. De Rohan replied: ‘In view of the loyalty and attention [offered] by the late consul and his ancestors, we are willing to concede his wish.’36 These petitions underscore the grand master’s meticulousness in his choice of the right persons for consuls. Personal integrity, a thorough knowledge of the particular country’s commercial or maritime laws, customs, and traditions, together with a deep acquaintance with everyday commercial traffic – all these features were a sine qua non for an efficient execution of consular duties. The commission consulaire is another guide to these qualities. What follows is a reproduction of Gio. Batta Zocchi’s letters-patent.37 Zocchi was a Maltese consul in Venice. FRATER DON ANTONIUS MANOEL DE VILHENA Dei Gratia Sacrae Domus Hospitalis Sancti Joannis Jerosolimitani, et Militaris Ordinis Sacri Sepulchri Dominici, Magister humilis Pauperumque Jesu Christi Custos: Discreto Joanni Baptistae Zocchi Veneto Nobis dilecto salutem in Domino sempiternam. Cum ex inveterata consuetudine, et regijs privilegijis, et concessionibus Subditi, et Vassalli nostrae Religionis tam huius Insulae Melitae, quam Gaudisij in civitatibus maritimis consulem habere consueverint, et in ista massime civitate Venetiarum, ad qual frequenti navigatione accedunt, aliquo probo viro, qui huiusmodi munus pro eorum, negotiorumque commodo, utilique progressu exerceat, summopere indigeant idcirco fide dignorum. Testimonio informati, de morum, et vitae suae honestate, Fideque, ac in rebus agendis experientia, et probitate de nostra certa scientia tenore presentium Te Joannem Baptista Zocchi absentem 35 Caporotta’s petition was granted on 24 November 1781. He was appointed consul on the same day. AOM, Cod. 1194, ff. 145–146. 36 AOM, Cod. 1536, ff.45v-46r. 37 ASVen, CSM, nuova serie (= ns), busta 24, 30 September 1726.

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tamquam praesentem facimus, creamus, constituimus, et solemniter ordinamus in dicta Civitate Venetiarum Consulem presentorum Subditorum, et Vassallorum nostrorum harum Insularum Melitae, et Gaudisij (durante nostro beneplacito) benefaciendo in eodem, ad reddendum scilicet eisdem Iura, ipsoque defendendum cum omni Iurisdictione, auctoritate, et potestate, onereque, honore emolumentis, lucris, privilegijis, et praerogativis, quibus huiusmodi Consules uti, et frui consueverunt, et quovis modo gaudere debent, et possunt. Praecipientes dictis Subditis, et Vassallis nostris in vim fidelitatis, et homagij quo nobis tenentur, ut tibi per Nos, ut praemittitur, Consuli, et ipsorum Judici deputato pareant, et intendant praebeantque consilium, auxilium, et favorem, ac respondeant in his, quae dicti Consulatus Officium concernunt. Supplicante Serenissimum Venetiarum Ducem, rogantesque Excellentissimum Senatum ac quoscumque officij eusdem Civitatis, ad quos spectare dignoscitur, ut pro observatione privileggiorum dictarum Insularum et antiquae consuetudinis, Te in Consulem admittant, et Iurisdictionem consuetam exercere permittant, praedictosque Subditos, et Vassallos nostros favore, et gratia prosequantur, a Nobis humanitatis Officia, et obsequia, quae pro Viribus prestare poterimus recepturi. In Cuius rei Testimonium Bulla nostra Magistralis in Cera Nigra praesentibus est impressa. Datum Melitae in Conventu nostro Die xxviii Mensis Septembris 1726. Registrata in Cancelleria. Baiulus Fr. Emanuel Pinto Vice Cancellarius. The Maltese commission consulaire pointed to the very old tradition of Maltese consular establishments overseas, owing primarily to the island’s inextricable reliance upon secure, commercial intercommunication with other Mediterranean port cities. The moral and professional qualities of the consul were emphatically underlined: his behaviour, his good way of life, his uprightness, and his experience in maritime affairs – essential features in a consul if he was to be of real use to the Maltese commercial community in a foreign city and to look effectively after its rights and needs. The Maltese merchants and sailors residing in his consular district were expected to be loyal to him and to pay him the homage due to the grand master both as the sovereign lord of the accrediting State and as ‘Consul General’ – as Pinto defines himself to Lord Egremont38 – but which were then being invested upon the appointee as these merchants’ consul and judge: ‘Let them obey and approve of your advice.’ Reference was also made to consular powers, jurisdiction, and financial remuneration. At least on one particular occasion, the grand master’s claim to the right and freedom of consular choice seemed fettered when faced with outside intervention. Early in 1709 the office of Maltese consul in Syracuse became vacant. Prior to consul Pompeo Tieso’s death, the city’s Senate had already recommended to the

38 London, Public Record Office (= PRO), State Papers, Foreign, 86/3, a. 1763.

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grand master a certain Antonio Gauci to succeed Tieso. ‘When God disposes of the life of Pompeo Tieso, the current consul of this Nation in that city,’ the grand master promised the Senate of Syracuse on 31 January 1709, ‘I shall not fail to give all the [necessary] attention to the offices, which your Most Illustrious Lordships are pleased to pass on to me in favour of Antonio Gauci.’39 Yet, in spite of his earlier promise to the widow Eufemia Tieso, that he would have her son succeed Pompeo as Maltese consul in Syracuse,40 and of the fact that ‘various owners of [Maltese] ships had made encouraging instances in favour of the son of the late consul,’ the grand master was forced to accept the Senate’s choice.41 Gauci was appointed Hospitaller Malta’s consul in Syracuse on 13 June 1709.42 IV According to a relazione which the Cinque Savi submitted to the Senate on 15 July 1752, Pietro Zocchi had been the first recognised Maltese consul in Venice. He had been appointed on 11 August 1722.43 The placet was dated 8 October of the same year.44 The same decree endorsing Zocchi’s appointment declared that the newly established consulate for Hospitaller Malta on Venice was to enjoy the same privileges, and to be subject to the same conditions, like any other foreign consulate in the Republic.45 The little that is known of Zocchi’s four years in office is that he did his utmost to revive Veneto-Maltese trade and see it flourish. On 30 September 1726, writing to Gio. Batta, Zocchi’s son, Grand Master de Vilhena explained that his father’s death had meant a great loss both to the island’s trade and to the Maltese commercial community in Venice. Pietro Zocchi, he continued, had rendered a great service to both.46 Shortly after Pietro’s death, Gio. Batta petitioned de Vilhena to allow him to succeed his father. His petition was granted. The letters-patent were forwarded to him through the Hospitaller receiver in Venice, Commendatore Pola.47 Seeking the exequatur, Gio. Batta promised the Senate 39 AOM, Cod. 1470, 31 January 1709. 40 ‘Siccome molto vi compatiamo, per la perdita che avete fatta dal Consorte; così concorrebbemo volontieri a darvi almeno la consolazione di far succeder il figlio nell’officio di console di questa Nazione. Ma essendo stati prevenuti da cotesto Senato, abbiamo creduto, doverne rimettere l’elezione all’arbitrio del medesimo; al quale per conseguenza potrete ricorrere, già che da noi si farà spedir la Patente a chi da quello ci sarà denotato.’ Ibid., 2 June 1709. 41 Ibid., 15 June 1709. 42 AOM, Cod. 513, f. 106v. ‘Creatio consulis in Civitate Syracusarum, Pn. Deg.n Don Antonio Gauci’. He occupied this consular post for 23 years. In 1732, he retired due to old age, advising the grand master to appoint Valerio Bugliarello in his stead. AOM, Cod. 1492, Ad Antonio Gauci, Syracusa, 10 November 1732. 43 Pietro Zocchi is not included in AOM, Cod.6429, ‘Consoli fuori di Malta ed in Malta’. 44 ‘Con Decreto 8 ottobre 1722 dall’Eccellentissimo Senato fù admesso all’esercitio di detta carica.’ ASVen, CSM, ns, busta 24, 6 November 1726. 45 ‘Nel modo appunto s’è praticato con quelli dell’altre nazioni.’ Ibid., 8 October 1722. 46 Ibid., 30 September 1726. 47 Ibid.

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that he would now ‘with more fervour and energy dedicate myself to the furtherance of Maltese trade with this country’.48 In response, the Cinque Savi submitted their recommendations to the Doge. Considered from all aspects of trade and the economy, it was useful, profitable, and beneficial, they repeated, to have consulates established, encouraged, and promoted in one’s country.49 The exequatur was issued in the following words: ‘Their Most Illustrious Excellences have admitted to the free exercise of the . . . consulate of Malta the aforesaid Gio. Batta Zocchi with all remunerations, prerogatives, and privileges usually enjoyed by consuls of other Nations, and should be therefore recognised as such.’50 From the very scanty documentary remains related to Gio. Batta Zocchi’s first twenty years of his Maltese consulship, it would appear that, at first, he had been satisfying the needs and interests of the Maltese merchant community in Venice, the grand master, and the Republic of St Mark. On more than one occasion, the grand master expressed gratitude to Zocchi not only for having been observing the basic principles governing all consular establishments, but also for acting sanely and favourably in the interests of Maltese commerce and navigation, and also, apparently, improving the commercial cohesion and interchange of Malta and the Republic appreciably.51 However, Gio. Batta’s commendable start appears to have undergone a negative transformation sometime during the first half of 1752. On 10 June and 29 August that year, Balio Cevoli, the resident receiver in Venice, submitted two memoriali to the Savi dell’Eccellentissimo Collegio, in which he cites the grand master’s ‘just motives’ for dismissing his consul in Venice and replacing him by Agostino Perini.52 The first memoriale reveals, first, that the grand master had been much dissatisfied with the later service Gio. Batta had been rendering the Maltese in Venice,53 and, secondly, that Zocchi had refused to restitute his letters-patent to the grand master and to hand over the

48 ‘Imploro però della Sovrana Munificenza d’esser admesso al libero esercizio di detta carica in questa città con tutti li Dritti Soliti a corrispondersi alli Consoli delle altre Nazioni.’ Ibid., 6 November 1726. 49 Ibid., 27 November 1726. The following month, the Cinque Savi wrote again to the Senate: ‘Sostituito del Gran Maestro di Malta in Console di quella Natione per la morte di Gio. Pietro Zocchi, Gio. Batta, suo Figliolo, e rappresentando il Magistrato de Cinque Savi alla Mercantia nella Scrittura hora letta essere state che in tale incontro osservate le formalità solite tenersi; sarà perciò parte del Magistrato stesso il prescrivere quello occorrere, onde esso Gio. Batta Zocchi abbia ad essere admesso all’impiego in conformità viene praticato con li consoli delle altre Nazioni. Carlo Maria Paulucci. Notaro Ducal, 1726, 19 Dicembre, in Pregadi.’ Ibid. 50 It was dated 1 February 1727 and signed by the Cinque Savi Bernardo Corner, Pietro Marcello, Francesco Garzoni, Daniel Bargain Kv, and Nicolò Tron Kv. Ibid., 1 February 1726 MV. 51 Cfr. AOM, Cod. 1489, Al Console Gio. Batta Zocchi, Venezia, 26 July 1728. Also AOM, Cod. 1491, To same, 17 July 1730. 52 ASVen, Cerimoniali, reg. iv, f. 179v. ‘Dimissione di quel Console Zocchi e nomina di Agostino Perini in nuovo Console’. 53 ‘I molti motivi che egli (Zocchi) diede all’Eminentissimo Gran Maestro d’esser mal contento di lui, attesi li continui reclami de’ suoi Vassalli.’ ASVen, Collegio, Esposizione Roma, reg. 49, f. 194v. ASVen, Senato, Roma Ordinaria, Secreta, filza a. 1752, 10 June 1752.

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Order’s consular seal to the new consul.54 The second memoriale underscores two of the principal motives behind the grand master’s revocation of Zocchi’s consular appointment and the urgent need for this consul’s immediate substitution. The first centres round the ‘unlawful resistance on the part of the consul, already deposed, to the restitution of the seal and letters-patent’; the second round the fact that ‘part of the crew of the Maltese brig, owned by Pietro Castagna’ had to return to Malta from Trieste because they could not receive from the new consul all the help they needed – ‘so much so that they were unable to affect the purchase of various goods from those parts.’ They feared that on similar, ‘perhaps imminent’, occasions, they would still have no access to the facilities required for such transactions.55 These facts, however, contrasted sharply with what is contained in Gio. Batta Zocchi’s own confession. He declared he could not possibly think of any reason why he should have had to be dismissed from his office. He maintained that he had not even once failed in any way in the execution of his wide range of protective functions. Maltese merchants and sailors residing in, or passing through, Venice had always found in him, he confessed to the Cinque Savi, ‘a punctual performer in their immediate needs, a meticulous upholder of their rights, and a defender also in these tribunals’.56 Notwithstanding this confession, the Senate, on 4 September 1752 issued the exequatur, recognising Agostino Perini as Zocchi’s successor.57 He had been appointed by Pinto on 24 April on the recommendation of Receiver Cevoli, whose secretary was the consul’s friend.58 Could Zocchi’s dismissal have been motivated by this close friendship? Described as benevolent and hardworking,59 Agostino Perini was a Florentine citizen who had for the past two years established himself in Venice.60 In Florence, too, he had been for long employed in maritime affairs and other commercial business. But having been almost immersed in debts with the consequence of being unable to pay his everpressing creditors, he had no other alternative but to leave his native city for San

54 ‘Il ritenersi il sigillo da un ministro già deposto può produrre mille pregiudizij alla Nazione, ed inconvenienti massimi al buon ordine delle cose.’ Ibid. 55 ASVen, Collegio, Esposizione Rome, reg. 49, ff. 194v-195v. 56 ‘Non hà mai loro mancato nelle più urgenti contingenze, e fino i più abbandonati non hà mai comportato, che facessero una figura mal confacente al lustro della Nazione’. ASVen, Senato, Roma Ordinaria, Secreta, filza a. 1752, 15 July 1752. 57 ASVen, Collegio, Esposizione Roma, reg. 49, f. 198. 58 Ibid., ff.196v-198. ASVen, Senato, Roma Ordinaria, Secreta, filza a. 1752, 15 July 1752. 59 ‘Esser egli Uomo d’industria.’ Ibid. ‘In cui trova il Gran Maestro qualità acute, e di sua soddisfazione.’ ASVen, Collegio, Esposizione Roma, reg. 49, ff. 194v-195v. 60 Ibid.; ASVen, Senato, Roma Ordinaria, Secreta, filza a. 1752, 15 July 1752. In the grand master’s original nomination bull, Perini had been referred to as a Venetian citizen. This had to be corrected before he could be granted the Senate’s placet: ‘Qualificato egli nella Patente che vi è stata presentata col titolo di cittadino veneto, il che non apparisce verificarsi per esser egli Fiorentino di nascita, potiamo nulla meno assicurarla della prontezza e disposizione nostra nel riconoscerlo ed admetterlo all’esercizio del predetto impiego di Console, ogni volta che sia regolata la Patente, e venga in essa tolto l’equivoco.’ Ibid., 2 September 1752.

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Marco.61 On 6 November of the same year of his appointment, Perini received the following note from the grand master: ‘We hope that the consular office we have conferred upon you through the recommendation of the Venerable Receiver Bailo Cevoli, will be exercised by you for the zeal and benefit of our vassals.’62 Agostino Perini voluntarily relinquished his post sometime early in 1757.63 According to our sources, very little of real significance could be discerned of the last two occupants of the Maltese consulate in Venice after Perini, except for a few points worth highlighting. First, that Gio. Michele Lamberti had been appointed on 11 October 1757 as Perini’s successor;64 secondly, that this selection was made on the strength of a petition in Lamberti’s favour by Commendatore Boccadiferro;65 thirdly, that he was a Venetian merchant;66 fourthly, that Gio. Michele was eventually succeeded by his son Antonio Lamberti 21 years later, on 15 December 1778;67 and, lastly, that the Senate’s placet to Antonio’s commission consulaire was issued on 2 September 1780.68 With the advent of the English in Malta in 1800, the Maltese consulate in Venice, like the whole network of Maltese consular establishments throughout the Mediterranean and elsewhere, ceased to exist. Care for the Maltese mercantile interests and other commercial settlements overseas started being provided for by England’s wider and perhaps better organised consular system.69

The Venetian consulate on Malta When Venetian trade was at its most flourishing and influential, the Republic’s consulates, both in the Levant and in Western ports, were generally occupied by members of the patriciate. It was not uncommon practice that a considerable number of these posts evolved into a hereditary office, enjoyed by members of the same family. The House of Gritti in Bari and the House of Manolezzo in Chieti are only two instances.70 Then, from about the end of the fifteenth century, things began to change. Venetian consuls began to be recruited from the sub-patriciate 61 Ibid., 15 July 1752. 62 AOM, Cod. 1510, Al Console Agostino Perini, Venezia, 6 November 1752. 63 ‘Con vostra della 6 agosto ci date conto della rinuncia di cotesto consolato dei nostri vassalli fatta in vostre mani da Agostino Perini.’ AOM, Cod. 1514, 14 October 1757. 64 AOM, Cod.6429, under the heading ‘Venezia’. 65 ‘Ci chiedete dargli per successore Gio. Michele Lamberti’. AOM, Cod. 1514, To Commendatore Boccadiferro, 14 October 1757. 66 Ibid. 67 ASVen, Cerimoniali, reg. v, ff. 87v-88r, ‘Nomina di Console di Malta a Venezia, Antonio Lamberti.’ 68 ‘Si dice al Signor Ricevitore di Malta in Uffizio di questo giorno che si ammetterà la Patente del Gran Maestro che sostituisce al defunto console di sua Nazione in questa città suo figlio Antonio Lamberti alle condizioni degli altri consoli forestieri.’ Ibid. 69 Alfredo Mifsud, ‘I Nostri Consoli e le Arti ed i Mestieri’, Archivum Melitense, iii (1917), p. 75. For the British consular organisation in the eighteenth century, D. B. Horn, The British Diplomatic Service 1689–1789 (Oxford, 1961). 70 ASVen, CSM, nuova serie, busta 21, Memoria 169, part 4, 11 August 1724.

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class of citizens.71 Consular responsibility for Venetian ‘settlements’ overseas and on the mainland started being invested either upon Venetian subjects who had previously petitioned the accrediting body, or, more commonly, on foreign merchants residing in the foreign city and who had distinguished themselves either through financial means or through some kind of dedicated and meritorious service rendered in the interest of the Republic.72 Then, on 7 March 1586, Senate decreed that consulships and vice-consulships would no longer be awarded on the strength of a mere petition. The latter had to be preceded or accompanied both by a sound recommendation from Venice’s Public Representatives and by a detailed relazione from the Cinque Savi alla Mercanzia, indicating whether the petitioner was an ‘original citizen’ or a ‘Venetian subject’. The former would be given first preference. In the absence of either of the two categories, selection would be made from foreign merchants d’integrità e fede.73 Soon after this decree, the Magistracy of Trade initiated il metodo dei Proclami, the policy of issuing calls for applications for Venetian consulships in foreign cities.74 There was then the time factor. No mention had been made in the decree of the duration of a consulship. This gave rise to two flaws, quite marked in the whole Venetian consular set-up throughout the seventeenth century. Some interpreted consulship for life, some for three, six, ten, and even 20 years.75 With the passage of time, these consuls dared even usurp not only the right of substituting viceconsuls, but also the sovereign prerogative of issuing letters-patent.76 Towards the end of the seventeenth century and the opening decades of the eighteenth, legislative measures of a definitive and prohibitive nature were taken, intended to prune the system of such flaws. On 10 December 1699, 21 February 1714, and 2 March 1719, three decrees were enacted by which all consular appointments were declared legally valid for only five years, with the possibility of being reconfirmed at the end of that period.77 The 1719 decree also forbade Venetian consuls from re-electing vice-consuls, pro-consuls, or consular agents unless instructed to do so by the Cinque Savi.78 There were two classes of Venetian consulates. The major consulates comprised the Venetian consular establishments in Cairo and Aleppo, nominees for which had to be patricians and appointed directly by the Maggior Consiglio. These

71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. 73 ‘Citizenship could be acquired on a basis of prolonged residence, non-manual occupation and financial means, and there was an elite of families in the citizen grade known as “original citizens”, Citizens of long standing might even be allowed the privilege of engaging in overseas trade.’ D. S. Chambers, The Imperial Age of Venice 1380–1580 (London, 1970), p. 77. 74 ‘acciochè servissero d’Invito à concorrenti tal volta anche fuori della Dominante in altre città della Terraferma, et Isole del Levante.’ASVen, CSM, ns, busta 21, Memoria 169, part 4, 11 August 1724. 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid.

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were invested with the character of public representatives. All other Venetian consulates were called inferior or minor consulates. This second class was again subdivided into Levantine or Eastern consulates, Western consulates, and Adriatic or Italian consulates.79 The latter category were in practice agencies with the name of consulates.80 Broadly speaking, Venetian consuls could be appointed by any one of the constituted bodies of the Republic: the Maggior Consiglio, the Senate, the Signory, the College in consultation with the Cinque Savi alla Mercanzia, the latter Magistracy, the Venetian Baili at Constantinople, the Venetian Ambassador to Spain, the Capitani Generali da Mar and the Provveditori da Mar.81 The appointment of the Venetian consul on Hospitaller Malta was made directly by the grand master.82 I After 1530, when the central Mediterranean island of Malta was enfeoffed to the Hospitallers, the Order of St John followed the same, distinctly unorthodox, principles governing the old consular policy of the Island Order State of Rhodes. The foreign consul had to be unreservedly the grand master’s appointee. No foreign consul on either island could derive his authority from any government except from the grand master. In a letter addressed to Commendatore Losa, the receiver in Turin, Grand Master Pinto recalled that this practice, defined elsewhere as ‘this unbroken observance’,83 and deviating in essentials from the internationally recognised procedure, knew a very long tradition. It had been strictly adhered to uninterruptedly ‘without the least innovation in this respect ever since the Religion was on Rhodes’.84 During its long stay on the Dodecanese island, the Order had established a relatively extensive and effective consular system. Since the early decades of the thirteenth century, the Order had already evolved into a small but fairly efficient maritime power and had long sustained a steady commercial relationship with merchants at Marseilles, at the other end of the Mediterranean.85 While on Rhodes, the Hospitallers had established consulates both in the western and in the eastern portions of the Mediterranean, notably in Jerusalem, Ramma, Damiatta, Satalia, Alexandria, Egypt, and Tunis. On the other hand, western

79 Ibid., 22 April 1709 and 24 August1724. See also M. Borgherini-Scarabellin, ‘Il Magistrato dei Cinque Savi alla Mercanzia alla caduta della Repubblica’, in Miscellanea di Storia Veneto-Tridentina, ii (Venezia, 1926), p. 84. 80 ASVen, CSM, nuova serie, busta 21, Memoria 169, part 4, 22 April 1709. 81 Ibid., 11 August 1724. 82 G. Berchet, Relazioni dei consoli veneti nella Siria (Torino, 1866), p. 21. 83 AOM, Cod. 1780, f. 56, ‘Memoria intorno alla consuetudine del Gran Maestro di nominare i Consoli delle Nazioni Straniere accreditati presso l’Ordine di Malta’. 84 AOM, Cod. 1519, 28 September 1763. 85 J. Riley-Smith, The Knights of St John in Jerusalem and Cyprus, c. 1050–1310 (London, 1967), pp. 329–330. E. Rossi, Storia della Marina dell’Ordine di S. Giovanni di Gerusalemme, di Rodi e di Malta (Roma, 1926), pp. 12–31.

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Mediterranean merchants, particularly those of Narbonne and Montpellier, as early as 1351 and 1356 respectively, were allowed to have their commercial interests looked after by representatives of their community on Rhodes.86 The Venetian consulate on Hospitaller Rhodes, established in 1374, provides a vivid example of the Order’s peculiar and unconventional attitude towards the foreign consul. In 1411 the Venetian Senate accredited Epifanio d’Acri consul for Venetian traders residing on Rhodes. He was authorised to administer justice to all subjects of the Republic who had either taken their abode there for commercial purposes, or who ‘with ships or merchandise’ were frequenting the island. The grand master at once drew the Senate’s attention that never before had the Order tolerated any foreign city to accredit any of its nationals to exercise consular jurisdiction on Rhodes.87 On 3 September 1494, the Order’s Council discussed a confidential letter written by Doge Agostino Barbarigo. Grand Master D’Aubusson was asked to recognise Luigi Malipiero, who had been nominated consul for the Republic on Rhodes. The Council accepted the ‘Venetian nobleman’ in the capacity of Procuratore del Dominio Veneto, rather than consul – and this under four basic conditions which the Council, in connection with the case of another Venetian consul, had stipulated on 15 February 1488.88 These were:89 1 2

3 4

That Procurators should not use the title of Consul. That they should not exercise on Rhodes or on any other Hospitaller territory any judicial prerogatives, but as Procurators to assist their co-nationals and exercise their duty as regards matters pertaining to their nation and its subjects. That they should not summon meetings of merchants without the express permission of the grand master and subject to the penalties of the law. That they should use the discretion of the office of Procurators.

Notwithstanding these precautions, Luigi Malipiero, in 1499, tried to usurp both the title of consul and consular jurisdiction and immunity. His attention was immediately drawn to the fact that this was an infringement of his license to act as Procurator.90 On Malta, over two centuries later, the Order was still abiding by the same principles and beliefs it had professed on Rhodes. Its concept of consulship had remained unchanged, as was neatly revealed in an official memoir composed by Grand Master Pinto during the turmoil that had arisen out of John Dodsworth’s

86 L. T. Lee, Consular Law and Practice (London, 1951), p. 5. A. Mifsud, ‘I Nostri Consoli e le Arti ed i Mestieri’, Archivum Melitense, 3 (1917), p. 74 et seq. 87 J. Bosio, Dell’Istoria della Sacra Religione et Ill.ma Militia di S. Gio. Gierosolimitano, di nuovo ristampata e dal medesimo autore ampliata et illustrata, ii (Roma, 1602), pp. 181–182. 88 AOM, Cod. 221, f. 115. 89 Ibid. 90 AOM, Cod. 78, ff. 107v-108. See also Bosio, p. 532.

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consular pretensions. This consul had sought immunity under the protection of the British Arms.91 In a letter addressed to the Cinque Savi, Massimiliano Buzzaccarini Gonzaga, a high-ranking member of the Order and the Venetian Uomo della Repubblica on Malta, confessed that ever since he had arrived in Malta in that capacity, he had found in Dodsworth an instrument of cooperation, always willing to lend a hand in the affairs of the moment: ‘I have found all the consul’s good intentions in my favour.’92 However, in another letter to the same magistracy, this time dated 19 May 1762, Massimiliano made reference to Dodsworth’s professional misconduct. This consul ‘has always striven,’ he wrote, ‘to disturb the serenity of this Religion and envelope it in displeasure.’ It was worth recording, he continued, that in the last few years the number of ships under cover of the Prussian flag and practising the corso in the central Mediterranean had increased considerably, as had the number of Austrian, Prussian, and Tuscan vessels falling prey to them. These prizes had normally been conducted to Malta and referred to Dodsworth, the English consul. Various resident foreign ministers on Malta filed protests for the sequestration of all depredated effects belonging to their subject traders. Court decisions were favourable to Tuscans, while the King of Prussia himself disbursed in Constantinople the necessary sums of money for settlement with subjects of the Porte, while at the same time he ordered that all Tuscans involved were to be immediately compensated. The English consul on Malta refused to abide by these instructions. Having obtained approval from the English Admiralty, the Prussian King resolved to refer the case to Hospitaller Malta, so that the grand master would demand the restitution of all goods for settlement, using force if necessary. Dodsworth refused to obey the grand master’s instructions, stating that he accepted no orders except those emanating from the English Court. Justice intervened, and the consul, fearing an official search in his private home, raised the British Arms above the main door of his residence. This action, emphasised Buzzaccarini Gonzaga, ‘caused a lot of noise amongst the younger generation’, showing unmistakably how unused the islanders and the Hospitallers were to such practices.93 Dodsworth was removed from office, with the grand master appointing Angel Rutter in his stead. Referring to the Order’s firm stand against the idea of consular immunity on Malta, the grand master explained that the term ‘consul’ had always been understood by the Order as one charged solely with the task of looking after the interests of his co-nationals ‘within the limits of his office’. He was aware that at face value 91 See R. Cavaliero, ‘John Dodsworth, a Consul in Malta’, Mariners’ Mirror (November 1957), pp. 306–321. J. Galea, ‘English Privateers at Malta and a British Consul’s Misfortunes in the Eighteenth Century’, Scientia, xxx, 3 (July–September 1964). 92 ASVen, CSM, ps, busta 601, ‘Lettere del Commendatore di Malta Massimiliano Buzzaccrini Gonzaga’ (= MBG) 24 September 1761. See also V. Mallia-Milanes, Al servizio della Repubblica di Venezia: Le Lettere di Massimiliano Buzzaccarini Gonzaga, Commendatore di Malta inviate alla Magistratura dei Cinque Savii alla Mercanzia 1754–1776 (Città del Vaticano, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2014), p. 263. 93 ASVen, MBG, 19 May 1762. Mallia-Milanes, Al servizio, pp. 280–282.

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it sounded absurd that such a person should be appointed by the government of the receiving, rather than the sending, State. But, he continued, this seemingly strange attitude towards such an institution would be better understood if one realised that the denomination of consul had so often been ‘abusively’ bestowed on any person charged with that office. ‘Factor’ would have been a better term, certainly more suitable for the grand master’s nominees on Malta.94 ‘Since these same persons remained subject to the grand master, without any personal exemptions,’ wrote Pinto, ‘they cannot raise any signs of independence’.95 This observation did not exclude the fact that certain Hospitallers, in charge of the affairs of their respective sovereigns, were allowed to raise ‘the Arms of the Crown they are serving’. All of them were professed members of the Order and therefore directly answerable to the grand master, their immediate superior. The object behind European Courts, concluded Pinto, in having such officials on Malta was invariably the protection of their subjects, and not, he emphasised, to have them ‘clothed with an authority independent of the grand master’s.’ In looking after the affairs of foreign Crowns on Malta, these Hospitallers were not expected to turn up against the interests of their own Institution.96 Nor, however, were European Governments, used to the normal, international practice, expected to comprehend easily and to accede unprotestingly to, the idiosyncratic and seemingly absurd attitude, on the part of the Order, towards the foreign consul. To them it sounded awkward to have the interests of their subjects in Malta looked after by an individual in whose nomination they had no direct say. On 7 March 1793, the inquisitor and apostolic delegate resident on Malta, Monsignor Julius Carpegna, wrote to the cardinal secretary of state in Rome to report on the papal consulate on the island. This had been instituted on 14 May 1575, with Gaetano Maistre, responsible also for the principality of Monaco and MassaCarrara. Carpegna pointed out that the papal consul was completely independent of the Inquisitor, ‘to the point of never meeting each other’; like all other foreign consuls on Malta, he was appointed by the grand master; but, unlike these, who, once appointed sought confirmation from their respective chancellories, had never sought approval from the ecclesiastical court in Rome. The papal consulate on Hospitaller Malta, wound up the Inquisitor, ‘lies in a state of utter humiliation’.97 On one major issue, Carpegna had been misinformed. The inquisitor and papal nuncio was the only foreign minister on the island to enjoy complete diplomatic immunity. The papal consul did not share of this immunity and was not, in any way, answerable to the inquisitor. There were occasions when a foreign power attempted to usurp or ignore this sovereign prerogative by dispatching a commercial agent to Malta and furnishing him with the commission consulaire, independently of the magistral authority 94 95 96 97

London, Public Record Office (= PRO), State Papers 86, Foreign, iv, f. 21v. Ibid., f. 22r. Ibid. Malta, Archives of the Inquisition, Mdina (= AIM), Corrispondenza, 102, ff. 61–62.

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and jurisdiction. France did this more than once; but every time this happened, it was always the grand master’s nominee who had ultimately to be accepted and recognised, even if such recognition had to be one-sided only. Veran, the French nominee, had to be substituted by Raymond Garcin, the grand master’s choice, on 12 October 1737. On 20 October 1750, it was Joseph Abela, and not the French nominee, who was accredited to look after French commercial interests on the island.98 If the courts in Rome and Versailles could not comprehend the Order’s concept and practice of consulship, still less could the English government in London. The grand master’s nominee for the English consulship on Malta was hardly ever recognised in London. On 9 August 1689, Charles, Earl of Shrewsbury, the English secretary of state for home and foreign affairs, ‘by order of His Royal Majesty’, appointed Thomas Chamberlain English consul for Sicily and Malta. He was described as ‘a suitable man, an expert in trade, who, in those parts, would look after the trade and see from time to time that the commerce is safe and progressing.’99 The English government’s letters-patent granted him ‘the power as well as the charge to help and protect’ all English merchants and seamen ‘who are trading or will be trading in those parts’. Moreover, Chamberlain was invested ‘with all privileges, honours, immunities, freedom and profits which any consul so far used or could enjoy by right on the above mentioned islands on behalf of the British Nation’.100 These ‘privileges’ were indeed identical to those the grand master himself bestowed to his consuls overseas, but the English court was unaware, first, that all consuls on Hospitaller Malta had always been the grand master’s nominees and therefore had never been immune from local tribunals; and, secondly, that the English consuls or vice-consuls appointed in Sicily to supervise English commercial and mercantile interests in Malta had never been recognised by the Order as such. In fact, at the time of Chamberlaine’s appointment, Alphonse Desclaus had been consul on Malta ‘for England and Belgium’ since 30 November 1660.101 In 1713 another dispute arose between London and Valletta over ‘the nomination of a consul in the island of Malta’.102 On being consulted by the English authorities, English merchants trading with central Mediterranean ports declared that they found no objection in having the grand master’s nominee as their consul for two reasons. First, ‘such consuls would have more interest with the great master than one deputed by the consul at Messina’; secondly, they did not ‘apprehend any inconvenience from the said nomination as there was little or no trade directed to that island but only by ships touching there, on their way to or from other places’.103 Alexander Young was appointed English consul on Malta on 26

98 99 100 101 102 103

Mifsud, ‘I Nostri Consoli’, p. 70. PRO, London, State Papers, 104/89, ff. 3–4. Ibid. AOM, Cod. 477, f. 221r, ‘Creatio Consulis pro Natione Anglica in personam Alphonsi Desclaus’. PRO, State Papers, 86, Foreign, Malta I, f. 173. Ibid.

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January 1714 by Grand Master Perellos. Young was in turn succeeded by John Dodsworth, Angel Rutter, and John England – the first two by Pinto, the last by De Rohan. None of them was recognised by the English government. On the occasion of Rutter’s appointment in 1763, the Piedmontese Hospitaller Giorgio di Masino remarked that ‘it was not possible for His Britannic Majesty to recognise him as his consul or anyone who would not be nominated by Him; nor would [this consul] be submitted to the Laws of Parliament, whose Ordinances were against such procedures, and also because it would not have been consistent with Royal Dignity to recognise executives who were not appointed by the King himself.’104 The English court’s inability to see eye to eye with the grand master on this issue is further seen in a letter Halifax wrote to Commendatore Harrison. ‘Should the grand master persist in his former objection,’ suggested Halifax, ‘that it is unprecedented and repugnant to the particular constitution and laws of the Order to receive a person acting under the King’s immediate appointment and Commission,’ then, in order to try and put an end to all ‘past disputes’, and prevent ‘all possible occasion of future differences,’ His Majesty was prepared to have his consul or vice-consul in Malta, appointed, if not directly from London, at least by way of the English consul in Sicily.105 This alternative was as weak as it was repugnant. The grand master bore no particular grudge against Protestant England. The Order was following a deeply embedded line of policy, a long-standing traditional practice.106 II During the seventeenth century, some 15 different foreign cities or countries had a consul on Hospitaller Malta to serve merchants and sailors with different social, political, economic and cultural backgrounds as the English, Armenians, Belgians, Greek, French, Sicilians, Syrians, Neapolitans, Egyptians, Spaniards, Jews, Venetians, Genoese, Tuscans, and Dalmatians. During the course of the next century, a number of the eastern Mediterranean consulates – like the Syrians, Armenians, Egyptians, Jewish, and Dalmatians – lost their importance and were either shut down, or else incorporated within the Greek consulate. New consulates were introduced – like the Dutch, Imperial, Ragusan, Sardinian, Corsican, Hungarian, and American. To allow each of these with diplomatic or consular immunity and independent jurisdiction would be creating an unhappy situation whose far-reaching implications would have almost certainly proved fatal to the administration of justice on an island with only a few thousand inhabitants.107 And what would be serving the foreign merchant and the interests of his city or country, would be simultaneously destroying the last vestiges of the rule of law 104 105 106 107

Ibid., f. 26r. Ibid. AOM, Cod. 269, f. 59. See Descrittione di Malta, Anno 1716: A Venetian Account, ed. Victor Mallia-Milanes (Malta, 1988).

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and order on Malta. There was only one fundamental argument that explained the delicacy of such a situation. This was provided to the Marquis Montealegre, secretary of state for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, by Ettore Marulli, the Hospitaller receiver in Naples, in connection with the early eighteenth-century controversy over the Sicilian consulate on Malta. The logic behind the Order’s refusal to give the foreign consul immunity was that ‘in a small city so many consuls elected by their respective courts would be a spring of infinite discords’.108 There were on Malta two too many jurisdictions – the bishop’s and the inquisitor’s, – each striving to supersede the other and both to check or diminish the grand master’s. A 1716 anonymous manuscript document gives a brief but accurate picture of the disturbing role of the bishop and the inquisitor in their attempt, very often shielded by diplomatic finesse, at undermining the otherwise absolute authority of the grand master.109 The bishop, we read, enjoyed ‘ecclesiastical jurisdiction with a court or tribunal for parish priests who cannot become members of the Order, and for other priests and clerics’. On the other hand, the inquisitor ‘has a large number of patentees who are thus exempt from any other jurisdiction. There is no family in Malta which does not enjoy such a patent and is otherwise protected. Thus, with so many [exempted] priests, monks, and patentees, very little [scope] is left to the secular court and to this grand principality.’ The dangers of widening the scope of jurisdictional immunity on Hospitaller Malta were tangible and real. The very few records extant in the registers of the Magistracy of the Cinque Savi alla Mercanzia and relating to the method adopted in matters of appointment of Venetian consuls on Malta, show that up to the beginning of the seventeenth century, there appears to have been a slight deviation from the strict adherence to this Hospitaller principle. These documents unveil a new, still unexplored, phase in the history of foreign consuls accredited to the Order of St John on Malta, at least in respect of Veneto-Maltese relations. Up to c.1606, according to these documents, such appointments had normally followed three distinct stages: nomination by the Order’s grand prior of the Commenda known as San Giovanni De Furlani, submission of the letters-patent to the Venetian Senate by the resident Hospitaller receiver in Venice, and the direct approval by the Doge.110 But the deviation was only an appearance: the grand prior was only acting on behalf of the magistracy and not as a ‘foreign prince’. From 1530 to the mid-seventeenth century, the archives of the Order in Malta seem to be silent on Veneto-Maltese consular relations. ‘We have no documentary evidence,’ affirmed moreover the Cinque Savi’s report of 15 July 1752, ‘as to what procedure was followed between 1606 and 1711. What is revealing, however,’ it continued, ‘is that sometime during this period the Venetian ship Nuova Giuditta had fallen prey to French corsairs at a distance of only one mile off the shores of the island 108 AOM, Cod. 269, f. 59. 109 Cfr. Mallia-Milanes, Descrittione di Malta. 110 ASVen, Senato, Roma Ordinaria, Secreta, filza a. 1752, 15 July 1752.

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of Malta; however, the Venetian consul on Malta disavowed all responsibility for assisting these despoiled Venetian sailors.’111 This points to the poor facilities available on the island for Venetians. While subjects of other States, like those of France and Sicily, enjoyed not only the services of a consul, but also of a resident minister, those of Venice had none, except for what was defined as an ‘incompetent’ consul, entrusted with the maritime affairs of all Italian cities in general. The consul ‘for Venice,’ reads this same document, ‘is a lazy barber by any words. From this, one can well see, unless there is other help, the [Venetians] remain very badly served through the cowardice and the dissidence of the helper.’112 The Cinque Savi’s report of 15 July 1752 revealed one other important fact: Venetian authorities were completely ignorant of what consular procedures were adopted in Malta after 1606. ‘From the various reports drawn up at the time,’ claimed the Cinque Savi, ‘by merchants from those parts, it was revealed that there was on the island a kind of official with the name of consul for the Italian nation, but no one could tell how he was elected, whether by the same nation existing in that area, or through some other formality.’113 III Throughout the seventeenth century and the early half of the eighteenth, there was on Malta a ‘General Italian Consulate’ for the immediate needs and general interests of all Italian maritime cities and republics, Venice included, whose merchants were either trading regularly with the island or were using its fine harbour facilities on their way to the Straits, North Africa, or the Levant. On 22 November 1651, Grand Master Giovanni de Lascaris appointed a certain Giovanni Segnano consul for the Venetian, Genoese, and Tuscan traders in Malta.114 On 7 June the following year, Segnano petitioned the magistracy to raise the duty for his consular services to ‘una doppia d’oro di Spagna’, in view of the fact that such duties were not being uniformly applied to the various other foreign consulates on the island.115 The irritating source of such consular discord as much in Malta as elsewhere, deserves our attention. Up to 1652, when Segnano submitted his petition, ships of different nationalities were subjected to different dues and at a rate much lower than that charged at other ports elsewhere. This emerges from another petition, drawn up by John Jacob Watts, English and Belgian consul on Malta, and dated 17 November 1646. Watts complained that he had been informed on various occasions ‘by the captains of English and Flemish vessels that proceeded to Malta that the fee due to the consul in all other parts of the world were usually in the region of a Spanish doubloon for every ship; in Malta, one never pays more than 111 112 113 114 115

Ibid. See Mallia-Milanes, Descrittione di Malta. ASVen, Senato, Roma Ordinaria, Secreta, filza a. 1752, 15 July 1752. AOM, Cod. 473, f. 275. Ibid., ff. 281v-282r.

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two scudi.’116 Watts petitioned the magistracy to have ‘his stipend . . . increased to the tune of a gold doubloon for every English and Flemish vessel which arrives in Malta in the future.’ This was granted nine days later;117 but French, Venetian, Genoese, and Tuscan merchant vessels were still to be charged the old rate. Such discrepancy was removed six years later, in 1652, and replaced by the following uniform rates: all vessels, irrespective of their nationality, were to pay one Spanish doubloon, while tartans, brigantines, and frigates were charged half that rate.118 Unlike the Order’s ministers, ambassadors, and receivers, stationed throughout the major European cities, Maltese consuls overseas had no direct remuneration from the common treasury in Malta. While the Order’s expenditure on its embassies in Europe kept going up almost steadily over the years, the Order’s consuls were never salaried officials. In 1640, for example, the annual expenditure on the Order’s ambassadors, receivers, and ‘other ministers’ amounted to 18,000 scudi, out of a total of 390,200 scudi, fortifications excepted.119 By 1780 ‘the maintenance of ambassadors and receivers abroad had become the third largest item of expenditure after the galley squadron and the fortifications’.120 On very many occasions, one finds consuls, other than those already identified, petitioning the Magistracy either for direct financial assistance, which was politely always declined, as in the case of De Bono (Leghorn),121 Tommaso Palmi (Portoferraio),122 and Ferrendino (Zante),123 or to authorise them to raise their consular dues for services rendered to merchants sailing under cover of the eight-pointed cross. Foreign consuls residing on Malta were in a similar predicament. As these were appointed directly by the grand master, they were hardly, strictly speaking, ever considered to be employed in the service of the King, Prince, or Doge they were serving on the Hospitaller island. If the merchants and ships of any one country did not much frequent the island, the consul had to seek a secondary source for a decent living. For this reason, both Maltese consuls abroad and foreign consuls on Malta were allowed to engage freely in other private businesses. The Venetian consul Antonio Poussielgue, as will be shown later, was a typical example. Sometimes, as in the case of the Maltese consul in Naples, Michele Scotto, in 1794, it was the grand master himself who created a means of strengthening the consular source of income.124 That Maltese consuls overseas and foreign consuls resident on Malta were not on the playlist of the Order’s common treasury was in line with practically the rest of Europe.125 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125

AOM, Cod. 471, f. 271v. Ibid. Ibid., Cod. 473, f. 282. See Mallia-Milanes, Descrittione di Malta. B. Blouet, The Story of Malta (London, 1967), p. 125. AOM, Cod. 1515, To Consul Debono, Leghorn, 19 February 1759. AOM, Cod. 1489, To Consul Tommaso Palmi, Portoferraio, 23 February 1728. AOM, Cod. 1506, To Consul Ferrendino, Zante, 1 April 1748. AIM, Corrispondenza, 102, f. 109r. Cfr. Horn, The British Diplomatic Service.

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Giovanni Segnano’s petition of 7 June 1652 revealed two other important points. First, compared with French merchant shipping, English, Dutch, Genoese, Tuscan, and Venetian vessels very rarely frequented the Maltese harbour; secondly, that Segnano was trying as best he could to further the trade links between Malta and those cities falling under his consular supervision.126 In 1709 Francesco Matteo Angelis was appointed consul for Genoa and Sardinia in Malta.127 Three years later he wrote from Valletta to the Venetian Magistracy of Trade, calling himself ‘Venetian consul’,128 while elsewhere he is referred to as ‘consul for the Italian nations on the island of Malta’.129 In the relazione of 15 July 1752, the Cinque Savi advised the Senate that it was awkward and unbecoming of the Republic to have the interests of its commerce and navigation around the Maltese islands looked after by an unknown person, selected and confirmed in his consular office without the Senate’s foreknowledge and consent. ‘This method,’ warned the Cinque Savi, ‘is essentially different from the practice all other nations are used to. These, while appointing consuls in the States of Your Serenity, will in turn admit those who have been selected by Your Serenity and accredited to their States.’130 Elsewhere, the same Magistracy, commenting on the advantages that the Republic would derive from having a Venetian consul established on Hospitaller Malta, described the grand master’s appointee as ‘an abusively intruding figure,’131 and defined the whole system behind the Order’s practice as an ‘abusive method entirely dissonant to universal practice’.132 Although Venetian trade with Malta was in no way so voluminous as to demand the immediate establishment of a specifically Venetian consulate there – hitherto the island, in fact, had rarely ever been on any of the principal Venetian trade routes133 – nevertheless, there were relatively significant factors which helped induce the Republic to introduce one. The presence of a Venetian consul on the island would provide Venetian merchants and ship-owners with all the assistance required to reclaim lost property in such cases as shipwreck or piratical acts, apart from being of genuine advice at commercial courts, at the customs and, especially, in matters pertaining to all other mishaps at sea. The Republic’s resolution to have a Venetian consulate established on Malta was probably motivated by a number of psychological and political factors. The re-establishment of suppressed consulates and the setting up of new ones, particularly in centres of high strategic value, were central to its rehabilitation policy.134 Eighteenth-century Venice was but a fading shadow of her former self. Ottoman 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134

AOM, Cod. 473, ff. 281v-282r. Ibid, Cod. 6429, part II, Consoli in Malta creati per le nazioni esteri. ASVen, CSM, ps, busta 711, 10 April 1712. Ibid., 24 August 1715. Ibid., Senato, Roma Ordinaria, Secreta, filza a. 1752, 15 July 1752. Ibid., 2 September 1752. Ibid., 15 July 1752. A. Luttrell, ‘Venetians at Medieval Malta’, Melita Historica, 3 (1960), pp. 75–76. R. Cessi, Storia della Repubblica di Venezia, ii (Milano, 1968), p. 207.

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expansion in the Levant and the Morea; the discovery of inter-continental trade routes which ‘dislodged’ the role of the Mediterranean from its position at the commercial world’s centre of gravity and fatally wounded the Republic’s spice trade monopoly; the entry of France, Britain, and Holland into direct commercial competition; piracy; the crippling of her economy by heavy costs entailed by long-drawn-out wars, and by a disturbing protectionist policy which drove trade to other ports like Leghorn, Ancona, and Trieste – all these factors deprived the Most Serene Republic of San Marco, once the focus of world trade, the king pin of European and Asian economies, of her once much-feared commercial supremacy in the Mediterranean; and, from a formidable and commanding naval and maritime power, irrevocably reduced her to a modest, neutral ‘aristocratic showcase of Europe’, with Dalmatia, the Ionian Islands, Istria, and Corfù as the only overseas possessions left of her former envied empire. What influences were at work in and around Malta, which, in the Republic’s view, could obstruct ‘from within’ Venetian trade links with the central Mediterranean? The first was piracy and privateering. With a Venetian consulate on Malta, the island would serve as a central Mediterranean shelter against the constant threat to, and aggressive disruption of, navigation in general, and commercial shipping in particular, caused by the continuous, widespread corsairing activity in that area. All vessels flying the flag of any Christian power were indiscriminately a potential prey to Barbary corsairs.135 But Maltese corsairs were nonetheless as threatening and as dangerous. In the conclusion to his Piracy and the Decline of Venice, Alberto Tenenti remarked that ‘To this day, the Barbary corsairs have always been considered the archetype Mediterranean pirates – almost the only pirates known to history; and so Algiers has been regarded as almost the only base for piracy. It would now be a mistake to consider the operations of the Knights of Malta as being essentially different.’136 The Knights of Malta, observed Tenenti, had been dubbed by the Venetian Senate, ‘corsairs parading Crosses’. An anonymous writer, presumably reporting to the Venetian Senate, in his description of Malta in 1716, felt he should dwell at some length on the dreadful Maltese corsairs. His account puts Tenenti’s observation in its truer perspective. At one time, he pointed out,137 ‘the corso was practised by the Knights who used to arm and man ships for the purpose; which practice is [now] no longer permissible; for this reason they have been replaced by the vilest rascals and perhaps a good part ruffians of Malta. These people are joined by the ever ready Carattadori. They practise corsairing against everybody, and particularly against the Greeks, sparing not even the churches when they disembark; and at times they had even extirpated the 135 ASVen, Senato, Roma Ordinaria, Secreta, filza a. 1752, 15 July 1752. 136 A. Tenenti, Piracy and the Decline of Venice 1580–1615, trans. J. B. Pullan (Oxford, 1967), pp. 150–151. 137 See Mallia-Milanes, Descrittione di Malta.

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Holy Oils and had them sold in Malta as balsam, ridiculing tabernacles and sacred vestments. This is the reason why all [these victims] die in misery. The poor, despoiled Christians proceed to Malta; they bring the action to Court but lose everything – either because of the invulnerability corsairs enjoy [on Malta] or else because they are judged by the Carattadori themselves. Thereupon they appeal to Rome from whence judgements emanate against the corsairs, but having squandered so much on the proceedings they [nonetheless] spend the rest of their lives in misery. Further on, this anonymous writer described the operations of a certain Magrine Macchino Reo, in an attempt to unveil ‘what’s most dreadful to know about the invulnerability enjoyed by the most villainous corsairs’ on Malta. This corsair, he wrote,138 was known to have, under the Maltese flag, pillaged Greek Christians; to have had them bound in sacks and thrown overboard; to have had the heads of others tied up and squeezed in such a way that the cranium was separated from the brains; and all this for the sake of money. On his return to Malta he was seized and condemned to the gallows – a very rare thing here [in Malta]. With the help of protectors, his sentence was transmuted and he was forced to kiss the gallows; then he was sentenced to hard work for life on the galleys’ rowing bench; then for a perpetual cariere; then to serve for three years on the Religion’s vessels. When I left [the island] he was still serving this sentence. But even this punishment was later to be commuted into one year only and be set free. Thus he returned to the corso, more avaricious than ever before. At the end, this anonymous writer thought it worth advising all those who wished to live peacefully in Malta that they ‘should not dare even think of defending anybody against the corsairs, for they would be persecuted throughout the world.’139 The Venetian Senate knew very well the worth of the Maltese corsair. From the sixteenth century through the seventeenth, Veneto-Maltese relations had been particularly marked by continuous litigations resulting from frequent encounters between Venetian merchantmen trading with the Levant and Maltese corsairs. The question of the latter’s legitimate seizure of Turkish goods on board Venetian vessels had figured prominently during these centuries.140 In 1752, the Cinque Savi had betrayed clear signs of awareness of the strategic value of Malta with respect to corsairing. ‘Spoils affected by privateers, whether under the Maltese flag or under the flag of Sardinia,’ we read in the report of 15 July, ‘were all conducted to that island. There, corsair ships are fitted out and there also handled.’141 These 138 139 140 141

Ibid. Ibid. AOM, Libri Bullaria, passim; Libri Conciliorum, passim. ASVen, Senato, Roma Ordinatia, Secreta, filza a. 1752, 15 July 1752.

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signs demanded ‘that there should be a consul for Your Serenity, patented and dependent, who realises, through his own character and as his job, the duty of serving the Venetian nation, and to be of help in all that may occur.’142 If piracy and privateering were causing great concern to the Republic, whose efforts to reassert her own waning self through a reactivation of her trade and industries both at home and overseas had become only too self-transparent, the expansion and consolidation of English, Dutch, and French commercial and mercantile activity and rivalry in the Mediterranean had been exerting a far more serious ‘suffocating pressure’ on her, both physically and psychologically. By the dawn of the seventeenth century, according to Koenigsberger, English merchants in the central Mediterranean had ‘far outstripped the import, export, and carrying trade of all other nations’.143 The political, strategic and, to a lesser extent, economic importance of these regions had been greatly realised by governments and merchants alike. Confident of their commercial superiority over their Spanish and Venetian counterparts, and sure of government backing at home, English merchants made of this area a permanent trade venue.144 By the last quarter of the seventeenth century, English consular relations with Naples and Sicily and with Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers had been solidly established; English trade with these areas was regular and unobstructed. On Hospitaller Malta, English consular activity began even earlier. From as early as the 1580s, when William Watts was already acting as consul for merchants and seamen from England and Flanders,145 up to the end of the eighteenth century, the long line of English consuls on the island had remained unbroken. Dutch and French aspiration for trade and for safer navigation in the central Mediterranean can also be discerned in the establishment of their respective consulates on Malta. The Dutch consulate was introduced in 1730.146 Previously Dutch commercial interests on the island had been taken care of by Thomas Rutter (appointed in 1706) and Alexander Young (1714), both English consuls. In 1622 Peter Drovin had been accredited, in the words of his commission consulaire, ‘to our islands of Malta and Gozo as consul of the said nation of the French people’.147 A petition, dated 1631, to Grand Master Antonio Manoel de Vilhena revealed that Marino Lo Giovane had been faithfully serving the interests of France in Malta for well over 30 years’.148 Ragusa’s influence in the central Mediterranean may also be considered as another determining factor behind the establishment of the Venetian consulate on Malta. By the first years of the sixteenth century, Ragusa’s maritime and commercial importance was being increasingly felt throughout the Mediterranean; 142 Ibid. 143 H. G. Koenigsberger, ‘English Merchants in Naples and Sicily in the Seventeenth Century’, in Estates and Revolutions: Essays in Early Modern European History (London, 1971), p. 99. 144 Ibid., p. 96. 145 John Watts’ consular Nomination Bull, dated 15 November 1610, makes reference to the consulship of John’s father, William Watts. AOM, Cod. 457, f. 275. 146 John Guerin was the first Dutch consul on Hospitaller Malta. Cfr. ibid., Cod. 6429, part II, passim. 147 Ibid., Cod. 461, f. 286r. 148 Ibid., Cod. 463, f. 332v.

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its activity at ports of the Ottoman Turks was being significantly favoured; and both to the detriment of the Venetian Republic. Customs exemptions granted by the Ottomans at Turkish ports to Ragusan, French, English, and Dutch during the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were being consistently denied to Venetians.149 In 1588 Ragusan traders and seafaring folk felt the need for a consulate at Leghorn.150 Trasselli remarks that Ragusan merchants in Sicily were exempted from all customs dues and treated in much the same way as the Sicilian subjects themselves.151 Unlike Venice, Ragusa preserved unbroken her commercial ties not only with the Levant but also with the Adriatic ports, where the city is known to have exploited a potential intermediary role, and to a lesser extent with western and central Mediterranean parts and Atlantic ports.152 During the eighteenth century, Ragusa had about 50 consulates functioning in various Mediterranean ports.153 Direct trade links, however loose, between Ragusa and Malta can be traced back to the late fourteenth century.154 Ilija Mitic observes that, at widely spaced intervals, Malta used to import small quantities of food from Ragusa which, in turn, imported salt from the island on the same scale. The continuous development of trade in the central Mediterranean during the early half of the eighteenth century demanded the establishment in 1744 of a Ragusan consulate on Hospitaller Malta. Prior to this date, however, the Republic had her own Maltese correspondents, like Angelo Gangardi and Mario Medini, to pass on political information. By the mid-eighteenth century commercial enterprises could no longer be treated on a private scale as before. Such activity on the island dictated formal and official recognition.155 If Venice could now no longer command the principal Mediterranean trade routes and act as the sole intermediary between East and West, she could, though comparatively late, at least share available resources on central Mediterranean Malta with her rival competitors. By 1750 the transformation of the Republic in all her earlier spheres of influence – commerce, industry, navigation – was as tangible and defined as her grandeur had been centuries before. By then, what Cessi terms as ‘a period of expansion with an accentuated growth rhythm’, which had begun earlier with the introduction of the navi atte in 1736,156 had ended up in disillusionment. So were the Republic’s attempts to arrive at separate, bilateral trade

149 Cfr. L. Güçer, ‘La situation de négociant vénitien devant le régime douanier de l’Empire Ottoman’, in Aspetti e Cause della decadenza economica veneziana nel secolo XVII (Venezia-Roma, 1961), pp. 281–285. 150 Cfr. F. Braudel, R. Romano, Navires et marchandises à l’entree du port de Livourne 1547–1611 (Paris, 1951). 151 C. Trasselli, ‘Note sui Ragusei in Sicilia’, Economia e Storia, 12 (1965), pp. 40–79. 152 Cfr. J. Tadić, ‘Le commerce en Dalmatia et à Raguse et la dècadence économique de Venice au XVIIème siècle’, in Aspetti e cause della decadenza economica veneziana, pp. 237–274. 153 Cfr. I. Mitić, Dubrovacki Konzulat na Malti (Dubrovnik, 1959). 154 Cfr. B. Krekić, Dubrovnik (Raguse) et le Levant au Moyer age (Paris, 1961), pp. 217, 223, 255. 155 Cfr. Mitić, Dubrovacki Konzulat na Malti. 156 Cessi, p. 244.

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agreements with Holland and Denmark. And so also were her newly established ‘intimate’ relations with Russia in 1752.157 All these, combined with the negative effects of her policy of strict neutrality and her sore relations with France, the Holy See, and Austria, had had such a depressive impact on the Republic that they transformed her into a mere, passive ‘watcher in the sky’, ‘intent on keeping enough to live and to continue living through the ever present hellish upheaval, almost resigned to her destiny’.158 The immediate cause which bade the Cinque Savi to maintain positively that the sooner a Venetian consul was accredited to the Order State of Malta, the better would the Republic’s intricate commercial problems and complex mercantile difficulties encountered in the central Mediterranean be solved, appears to have been Filippo Grasso’s ‘general Italian consulship’. The latter had placed in their proper perspective the embarrassment, the inexpedience, the impracticability, and the inefficiency of having one country’s consul to look after the interests and affairs of another. ‘Dall’attuale presunto Console Filippo Grasso,’ asserted the Magistracy of Trade’s report of 15 July 1752, ‘non hà mottivo la nazione’. The Cinque Savi claimed that this consul was ‘little disposed to sustain the interests of our subjects’.159 The poorly conducted affair of the Venetian Captain Andrea Tipaldo, who had, some time during the latter half of 1749, met with the misfortune of being chased and seized by a Maltese corsair, is cited in the report as one of numerous similar instances.160 Referring to this case, Filippo Grasso had earlier written to the Cinque Savi:161 Your Most Serene Highness has ordered the return of the Xebec, its equipment, and its stolen merchandise; with which, however, captain Andrea Tipaldo, to whom the consignment of the said effects should be made, shall first pay off all debts, expenses, and mortgages and everything else [necessary] for the construction and guarding of the xebec and the above mentioned merchandise. . . . It follows from this that some sort of bill of exchange corresponding to the need to effect the above mentioned [payments] with urgency should be made out to the Captain . . . to bring to the notice of Your Excellencies, that the same Captain Tipaldo, having finished the above chore, must careen and tar the ship, pay for the loading of merchandise, and get everything ready, even signing on the sailors, and giving them the usual advances; get the necessary provisions for the voyage for which he tells me that about 2,000 Maltese scudi are necessary; though it looks to me that he is not asking for much. And may Your Excellencies ask his creditors to send him the sum he needs with the same speronara, or else that You commission some local persons to 157 158 159 160 161

Ibid. Ibid., p. 340. ASVen, Senato, Roma Ordinaria, Secreta, filza a. 1752, 15 July 1752. Ibid. Ibid., CSM, prima serie, busta 711, 1 August 1750.

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supply to him everything which he needs, because otherwise he will not be able to set sail. Besides this, I pray Your Excellencies to send me with the same [ship] a safe conduct, or his old passport, if it will do, or else an explanation of how I should make it out for him so that no more trouble will happen during the voyage, or else one has to start new lawsuits. Filippo Grasso, a Sicilian residing on Malta,162 had been originally appointed consul for both ‘the Neapolitan nation’ and ‘the Sicilian nation’ in Malta by Grand Master Manoel de Vilhena, on 14 August 1729. Two years later, on 14 April 1731 the same grand master accredited Tommaso Mallia consul in Malta ‘for the Italian nations in confuso’.163 Soon after, on 17 August 1732, this task was assigned to Filippo Grasso and reconfirmed five years later on 17 February 1738.164 However, early in 1736, His Sicilian Majesty was known to have already expressed strong disapproval of Grasso’s way of conducting affairs pertaining to the Sicilian commercial community on Malta.165 On 27 March of the same year, Fortunato Micallef replaced Grasso as Sicilian and Neapolitan consul on Malta.166 The term ‘Italian nations in confuso’ meant nothing less than nine different Italian consulates.167 A close scrutiny of Cod. 6429 of the Archives of the Order of Malta reveals that these States, the care of whose combined consular interests in the Maltese islands had been assigned to Filippo Grasso alone, were the following: Corsica, Genoa, and Monaco; the Papal States, Ragusa, and Sardinia; Tuscany, the Imperial States, and Venice. The Cinque Savi’s report recalled that ‘through a letter of 8 January 1749, Filippo Grasso had asserted his being consul of the Most Serene Republic and of the whole of Italy’.168 Further down, the report reads: Filippo Grasso who, without Your Serenity’s credentials, calls himself Venetian consul and likewise declares himself consul of all the Italian Nations, has shown great propensity towards Natale who has been sailing under the Sardinian flag, in spite of what the latter [Natale] had done to the Licudi flying the Venetian pavilion.169 Not unlike Tipaldo’s dragging suit at the Malta’s Consolato del Mare, the case of the Licudi, a Venetian vessel captained by the Venetian Antonio Cafale from Zante, and which had fallen prey to the notorious Maltese corsair Francesco di Natale in 1749 near Cyprus, had at long convinced the Magistracy of Trade that Grasso was 162 163 164 165 166 167 168

Mifsud, ‘I Nostri Consoli’, p. 71. Cfr. AOM, Cod. 6429. Ibid., sub ‘Nationi Italiane’, ‘Natione Napolitana’, and ‘Natione Siciliana’. Mifsud, ‘I Nostri Consoli’, p. 71. AOM, Cod. 6429, sub ‘Natione Napolitana’ and ‘Natione Siciliana’. ASVen, MBG, 19 May 1755. Ibid., Senato, Roma Ordinaria, Secreta, filza a. 1752, 15 July 1752. For Grasso’s letter, Ibid., CSM, ps, busta 711, 8 January 1749. 169 Ibid., Senato, Roma Ordinaria, Secreta, filza a. 1752, 15 July 1752.

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unable or unwilling to serve Venetians at the port of Malta. Finally, the Cinque Savi, in the same report, declared that if the Senate decided to dispatch a Venetian consul to Malta, they would not fail to give the necessary attention and advice for the right choice of person ‘who will be equal to the demands and who will decorously sustain his appointment which [the Senate] would like to bestow on him’.170 The death of Grasso, which occurred very late in 1754,171 25 years after his first appointment, appeared to have partly solved the absurd practice of having a single person entrusted to serve too many, widely divergent, foreign commercial and mercantile interests on Malta. Grand Master Emmanuel Pinto appears to have realised that for a smoother running and a more efficient consular administration, the ‘general Italian consulate’ on the island had better be split up. Now that the volume of European shipping proceeding to Malta had increased considerably, the foreign consul on the island could afford to have a restricted and more decent number of foreign consulates under his care. A look at the Hospitaller Malta’s Quarantine Registers, though in no way a sure indication of the real volume, brings out the point more convincingly. On 14 and 26 May 1755, Pinto distributed the nine consulates to three different persons.172 Antonio Poussielgues was commissioned to look after Corsican and Genoese commercial interests; Gaetano Maistre was to watch over the affairs of the Papal States and the principality of Monaco; and Giuseppe Crenna was accredited consul for the Imperial States, Ragusa (Dubrovnik), Sardinia, Tuscany and Venice.173 Shortly afterwards, Sardinia was transferred to Poussielgues.174 IV Late in 1754, almost contemporaneous with the establishment of the Venetian consulate on Malta, the Cinque Savi alla Mercanzia accredited Massimiliano Buzzaccarini Gonzaga Uomo della Repubblica (Man of the Republic) to the island Order State of Malta,175 whose constitution allowed foreign princes the concession to nominate Knights Hospitaller and appoint them ministers or charges d’affaires to the grand master’s court in Valletta.176 The origins of the office of the Homme du Roi on Malta are still obscure, though it is certain that it had already been in existence as far back as the late sixteenth century when the Inquisitor General, Mgr. Pietro Dusina, was officially appointed apostolic delegate on 1 December 1574.177 170 171 172 173

174 175 176 177

Ibid. Ibid., MBG, 7 December 1754. Ibid., 19 May 1755. Ibid. For Crenna’s letter to the Ragusan Senate on his appointment as consul for the Republic, Dubrovnik, Historijski (= HAD), Acta Sanctae Mariae Maioris, 69, 3108, f. 103. For the Ragusan Senate’s recognition of Crenna’s appointment, HAD, Consilium rogatorum, III, 169, f. 92. HAD, Acta Sanctae Mariae Maioris, 69, 3018, f. 103. ASVen, MBG, 7 December 1754. AOM, Cod. 269, f. 59. Cfr. A. P. Vella, The Tribunal of the Inquisition in Malta (Malta, 1964), passim.

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At the dawn of the eighteenth century, France, Spain, and Sicily each had a ‘Man of the King’ on the island. Venice, of all the leading Christian European Powers, stood alone in having no such ‘Man’ on Malta.178 Massimiliano Buzzaccarini Gonzaga, from Padua, professed Knight of the Order of St John as a minor on 20 January 1712 and came to Malta in his official capacity as Man of the Republic on 4 December 1754.179 Three days later, following Grasso’s death, he wrote to the Cinque Savi, promising that, subject to their approval, he would endeavour, as best he could, to make sure that the person about to shoulder responsibility for the management of the affairs of Venetian merchants and seamen in Malta would preferably be selected from among the Venetian community on the island, well known personally to him, upright, clever, practical, and perspicacious.180 However, as has been indicated, Giuseppe Crenna, Milanese, was the person appointed Venetian consul. Buzzaccarini Gonzaga describes him as competent and efficient, loved and respected by all sectors of society, and particularly well known by merchants and sailors as much in Venice as elsewhere. According to Massimiliano, he had held on previous occasions the post of Maltese consul in Trieste. ‘I can assure Your Excellencies,’ wrote Buzzaccarini Gonzaga to the Cinque Savi, ‘that I have had no other person in mind except this.’181 Prior to this appointment, Crenna had already been acting, for instance, as attorney for both Maculo and Sinigia, Venetian captains who were both involved, one way or another, in captain Paolo Marassi’s case at the local Consolato del Mare.182 No sooner had he been accredited consul than he started helping and guiding indefatigably all those Venetian merchants and seamen who happened to be in Malta at the time, among whom were Captain Valsamachi, Nicolò Tarabocchia, and Stefano Conduri.183 The latter was a passenger on board Giorguizzo Ulisma’s vessel which had fallen prey to corsairs and had as a result suffered a severe loss of property. Neither was Conduri furnished with the necessary permits and other relevant papers to testify the nature and quality of his lost merchandise which he estimated to have been worth 400 sequins.184 On 25 August 1755 Giuseppe Crenna wrote to the Cinque Savi expressing his deep gratitude towards the Order’s grand master for having accredited him consul of the Most Serene Republic and towards them in particular for having endorsed his appointment. He felt honoured to be entrusted with the everyday affairs and problems of the Republic’s commercial and mercantile community on Hospitaller Malta.185

178 Mallia-Milanes, Descrittione di Malta. 179 AOM, Cod. 2231, p. 6, ‘Pervenne in convento la mattina: il Cavaliere Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’. See also ASVen, MBG, 7 December 1754. 180 Ibid. 181 ASVen, MBG, 19 May 1755. 182 Ibid. In the letter cited in footnote 173 above, Crenna provides insight into his past experience. 183 ASVen, MBG, 19 May 1755. 184 Ibid., 14 April 1755. 185 Ibid., CSM, ps, busta 601, 25 August 1755.

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Crenna was reported to have consistently acted with diligence and intentness – as, for instance, in the case of the five or six insubordinate and unruly sailors on board the Venetian merchant vessel captained by Giuseppe Bevilaqua. These had been causing trouble on board by ‘molesting’ the captain and refusing to carry out their normal duties.186 Crenna’s proficiency in having things run smoothly and his competence in settling commercial disputes were both reflected in the sudden inconvenience caused during the autumn of 1764 by his absence from duty owing to some accidental illness, ‘a sickness, or an accident as a result of which he suffered an impairment of memory’.187 Two years later he was bound, for health reasons, to relinquish his consular post.188 On 24 March 1766, he informed the Magistracy of Trade that because of the serious illness with which I am afflicted, I cannot manage any more, and am obliged to abandon everything, even the smallest assignment. I am in duty bound to renounce in the hands of His Most Serene Highness, my Lord Grand Master, all the appointments which, thanks to his favour, I enjoyed on this island, and among which the most honourable being that of consul of the Most Excellent Republic.189 Of a Maltese parentage, a wealthy merchant, banker, well versed in everyday commercial business transactions, and for the previous ten years responsible for the Corsican, Sardinian, and Genoese consulates on Malta, Antonio Poussielgues seemed fully qualified to succeed Giuseppe Crenna in the Venetian consulship on the island. He was appointed Venetian consul on 22 March 1766 by Grand Master Pinto ‘from among various other competitors’.190 However, on the one hand, Massimiliano Buzzaccarini Gonzaga, in one of his letters to the Cinque Savi, expressed doubt whether Poussielgues would possibly be able to devote all the necessary attention demanded by Veneto-Maltese trade relations, in view of the heavy pressure of work to which the new consul had already been committed, both in his personal capacity as banker and merchant and now in his official capacity as consul not only of Sardinia, Corsica, and Genoa, but also of Hungary, Ragusa, Tuscany, and Venice.191 Buzzaccarini Gonzaga seemed to imply that the unfeasible and unviable consular situation on Malta, which Pinto had remedied in May 1755 following the death of Grasso, had practically re-emerged. Not much unlike Grasso, Poussielgues was now entrusted with seven different foreign consulates. Immediately on appointment, he did not fail to write to the Cinque Savi, professing his readiness to carry out to the best of his ability whatever the

186 187 188 189 190 191

ASVen, MBG, 24 September 1761. Ibid., 10 April 1764. Ibid., 24 March 1766. See also HAD, Lettere di Ponente, busta 83, f. 10. Crenna’s letter to the Cinque Savi is attached to ASVen, MBG, 7 April 1766. AOM, Cod. 569, f. 194v. ASVen, MBG, 7 April 1766.

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exacting nature of his new consular responsibility now entailed, and to be of help and utility to all Venetian subjects on Malta.192 Later in 1767, when Buzzaccarini Gonzaga was looking for a suitable person to take over his official duties during his absence from Malta, he told the Cinque Savi explicitly that Poussielgues was in no way ‘ready [to render] the most dedicated help to [Venetian] subjects, being a man given to a hundred other personal pursuits which he places before anything else.’193 In another letter, shortly afterwards, he once again unhesitatingly referred both to the very ‘little service’ which Poussielgues was ready to offer Venetians and to his sheer carelessness.194 On the other hand, Giuseppe Crenna maintained that his successor was certainly worthy of occupying this post considering his long experience and loyalty in handling consular and other commercial and mercantile affairs.195 Which of these two opposing views of Poussielgues’s character and ability is the more objective is difficult to ascertain; but the idea which the Maltese historian Francesco Panzavecchia held of Poussielgues was not much better than Massimiliano’s. In connection with the arrival in Malta, late in 1797, of the First Secretary of the French Legation at Genoa, a certain Matthew Poussielgues, Antonio’s relative, Panzavecchia described the consul as one who had never held the Order of St John very much at heart.196 Gian Anton Vassallo, in his history of Malta, wrote of a republican party composed of French Knights and members of the upper Maltese class, working towards the dissolution of the Order, and therefore smoothing the road for Napoleon’s triumphant entry. Among the Maltese members, Vassallo includes the merchants Eynaud and Poussielgues.197 However, neither of these two nineteenth-century Maltese historians cites any sources on which one can assess the validity of either Panzavecchia’s dogmatic assertion or Vassallo’s implied judgement. There is one other feature of Poussielgues’s consulship which is worth recording. On 24 January 1773, after an illness of five months, Grand Master Pinto de Fonseca passed away at the age of 93.198 Five days later he was succeeded by the Bali Francesco Ximenes de Texada, of Spanish nationality, ‘with almost universal acclamation’.199 In a letter to the Ragusan Senate, Poussielgues described him

192 193 194 195

196 197 198 199

Poussielgues’s letter is attached to Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s in ibid. Ibid., 8 June 1767. Ibid., 12 September 1767. ‘Uomo certamente degno di occupare tale impiego non solo per la sua sperimentata attenzione e fedeltà nelli maneggi, quanto per la facoltà, per cui li sudditi di cotesta Eccellentissima Repubblica saranno nelle loro occorrenze soccorsi.’ Ibid. F. Panzavecchia, L’Ultimo periodo delta storia di Malta sotto il governo dell’Ordine Gerosolimitano, ovvero frammento delta storia di Malta (Malta, 1835), p. 377. G. A. Vassallo, Storia di Malta (Malta, 1854), p. 611. NLM, Library MSS, Lib. 803, ff. 1r-2r. HAD, Acta Sanctae Mariae Maioris, 92, 3131, f. 14. In ASVen, Cerimoniali, V, f. 29r we find this entry: ‘Il Gran Maestro di Malta Ximenez con sua lettera del giorno 29 Gennaro, partecipa

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as ‘highly meritorious, and promising to be an excellent ruler’.200 On the very same day of his election to the magistracy, Ximenes appointed the Venetian consul ‘Custodian of the Harbour’. This office had already been held by Poussielgues’s ancestors; and with so many consulates under his care, this appointment afforded him a better chance to be of greater service to all those merchants and seamen of foreign nationality falling under his consular protection. He promised the Ragusan Senate that ‘I am in a position to help well and to favour [those] nationals who proceed [to Malta] and have the pleasure of having all the possible comforts during their quarantine days.’201 Antonio Poussielgues was the last Venetian consul on Hospitaller Malta.

di esser stato elevato al Gran Magistero dell’Ordine Gerosolimitano. Il Senato gli fornò risposta il giorno 27 Febraro 1772.’ 200 HAD, Acta Sanctae Mariae Maioris, 92, 3131, f. 14. 201 Ibid.

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VI THE HOSPITALLER RECEIVER IN VENICE A late seventeenth-century document

Evidence of the Templars’ settling in Venice goes back to 1187, when the Archbishop of Ravenna is recorded to have donated lands to them in Fossaputrida (actual parish of San Giovanni in Bragora) to build a hospice and a church.1 These are known to have passed to the Order of the Hospital after the dissolution of the Templars by Pope Clement V’s bull Ad Providam in 1312;2 originally they had probably formed the palace, orchards, and the adjoining church of San Giovanni del Tempio, now housing the Grand Priory of Venice in Calle Malta on the Calle dei Furlani.3 It would appear from the scarce surviving documentation that the Hospital’s priory of Venice too had already been established by then. In September 1292 a papal brief ordered Fra Engheremo of Gragnana, prior of Venice, to employ half the priory’s responsiones (revenues, impositions, products, etc. due to the Order’s treasury)4 to finance the current mission of the papal galleys to the 1 M. Celio Passi, Il Gran Priorato di Lombardia e Venezia del Sovrano Militare Ordine Ospedaliero di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme, di Rodi, di Malta (Venice, 1983), p. 9. J. Riley-Smith, The Knights of St John in Jerusalem and Cyprus, c.1050-1310 (London, 1967), p. 356, claims that the priory of Venice ‘had been created before 1182’. 2 On the trial and suppression of the Templars, M. Barber, The Trial of the Templars (Cambridge, 1978; Canto edn. 1993); P. Partner, The Murdered Magicians: The Templars and Their Myth (Oxford, 1982). Also useful, by way of introduction, is the chapter ‘The Templars and the Hospitallers, 1274-1565: Disaster and Adaptation’, in N. Housley, The Later Crusades, 1274-1580: From Lyons to Alcazar (Oxford, 1992), pp. 204–233. 3 Celio Passi, 9. For brief accounts of the history of the Hospitaller priory of Venice, G. Sommi Picenardi, ‘Del Gran Priorato dell’Ordine Gerosolimitano detto di Malta in Venezia’, Nuovo Archivio Veneto, iv (1892); id., Dall’Archivio del Gran Priorato dell’Ordine Gerosolimitano in Venezia (Venice, 1889); M. Celio Passi, ‘La sede dei Cavalieri di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme a Venezia’, Annales de l’Ordre Souverain Militaire de Malte, xix (1961). F. Scolari, Notizia storica della fondazione e riaprimento solenne del Priorato di Malta (Venice, 1843). Also of interest, A. Luttrell, ‘The Hospitallers’ Hospice of Santa Caterina at Venice: 1358-1451’, Studi Veneziani, xii (1970), pp. 369–383, containing the publication of two original documents. 4 On the responsiones, G. M. Caravita, Compendio alfabetico de Statuti della Sacra Religione Gerosolimitana (Malta, 1718), pp. 103–104, ‘Risponsioni, et Impositioni’: ‘Risponsioni si assegnano dal Capitolo Generale, e devono contenere almeno la quinta parte dei frutti delle Commende, e tutti i frutti ancora. Contengono hoggidi le Risponsioni ordinarie, e le due impositioni, una di

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Holy Land.5 At the end of the Venetian war of Ferrara in 1313, the year after the suppression of the Templars, the Hospitaller Fra Nicola of Parma, prior of Venice, and Fra Bonaccorso Trevisan successfully petitioned Doge Giovanni Soranzo to have the transfer of Templar property to the Hospital formally recognized by the Republic.6 At the General Chapter held on Rhodes in 1365,7 the Hospital resolved to extend to every priory what appears to have already been common practice on several of its estates in the West8 – the important services of a resident receiver attached to every priory.9 The primary task of the receiver, hitherto presumably performed by the prior and eventually extended to include other related functions,10 was to

5 6 7 8 9

10

quaranta milla Scudi d’oro, e l’altra di cinquanta milla Scudi d’oro del Sole: imposta la prima nel Capitolo del 1574, e la seconda nel Capitolo del 1588. La rata dell’Impositione dei cinquanta milla Scudi importa nella lingua d’Alemagna Scudi mille sessantacinque d’oro. Le nuove Risponsioni s’impongono regolarmente à venti per cento dell’effettiva rendita. Risponsioni dei membri, e Pensioni si devono pagare à rata parte del loro valore. Mà delle Pensioni si pagano à trenta per cento nella lingua di Provenza. Nelle lingue d’Alvernia, e Francia à trentatrè e un terzo per cento. Nelle lingue d’Aragona, di Castiglia, e d’Italia à venti per cento: eccetto nel Priorato di Messina, non già nelle sue Comende, nel quale si pagano à ventidue per cento, e nella lingua d’Alemagna à dieci per cento. E si devono pagare benché nelle Bolle sia con obligo di pagare minor somma. E si pagano anco nelle Pensioni, che riserbano i Gran Maestri sopra le Camere Magistrali. Risponsioni devon pagarsi, nonostante qualunque gratia, e pretesa esentione.’ Celio Passi, Il Gran Priorato, p. 11; for brief of 11 September 1292, from Orvieto, S. Pauli, Codice diplomatico del Sacro Militare Ordine Gerosolimitano (Lucca, 1733). Celio Passi, Il Gran Priorato, pp. 11–13. G. Bosio, Dell’Istoria della Sacra Religione et Illustrissima Militia di S. Giovanni Gierosolimitano, ii (2nd edn, Rome, 1630), p. 102. Ibid., pp. 76–77. In his Compendio, pp. 101–103, Caravita makes the following observations on receivers: ‘Ricevitori devono essere in ciascun Priorato, e devono esser Comendatori. . . . Durano nell’officio trè anni, e si confermano coi trè quarti de voti del Consiglio colla precedente buona relatione dei Procuratori del Tesoro. Luogo della loro residenza è quello, che il Gran Maestro stima più utile al servitio del Tesoro e del Publico. . . . Godono della residenza Conventuale. . . . Ricevitori devono riscuotere i diritti e crediti del Tesoro. E per domandarli, e riceverli, devono trovarsi nel Capitolo Provinciale. E farvi publicare gli Statuti contro i mali pagatori. Se non riscuotono, e non fanno apparir le diligenze, son tenuti à pagare del proprio. Devono raccogliere i diritti dello spoglio, e mortorio. Non devono andar soli à raccoglierli: mà devono haver seco un Fratello de luoghi più vicini al defonto, e in sua mancanza un Secolare. E farne due Inventarij, uno dello stato della Comenda, e l’altro dello spoglio. Non ponno pigliare cos’ alcuna degli spogli, ne dello stato delle Comende sotto gravissime pene. Devono affittare i mortorij, e vacanti. Et è vietato affittarsi in Convento. Devono continuar l’affitto, se non spira, e se spira, devono affittare. Non possono pigliarlo per sè, né per il Priore. Né darlo à Potenti Signori Ecclesiastici, o Secolari, né ad Università, o Collegio.’ On the office, duties, and functions of the receiver, National Library, Malta (NLM), Archives of the Order of St John (AOM), Cod. 1688, Trattato della Ricezione dei Fratelli Religiosi Gerosolimitani, delle Commende, e dell’Ufficio del Ricevitore, ff. 145–202; also NLM, Library Manuscripts, Library 158, Dell’Ufficio dei Ricevitori presso l’Ordine Gerosolimitano.

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collect the annual responsiones from the commanderies making up the priory and send them to the Convent.11 What follows is an unpublished late seventeenth-century manuscript account written by the Knight Hospitaller Fra Costanzo Operti, a one-time receiver of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in Venice. The document is found in Archive 6402 (Diverse Scritture), folios 387–398, at the National Library of Malta,12 and consists of a set of notes and observations, reflections and suggestions, based partly on Operti’s first-hand knowledge of the Ricetta of Venice, and partly on the practice he claims to have been adopted by his predecessors. In April 1627, a Venetian report drawn up by the three Consultori in Jure13 described the territorial extent of the Grand Priory of Venice as ‘starting from as far south as Rimini, embracing the entire Friuli, stretching as far as half way down the Lago di Garda, passing through Mantua, Parma, and Bologna, [and] comprising all the cities that lie within these confines.’14 The purpose of Operti’s document was to serve as a ready source of reference by successive receivers, lest their public actions and private behaviour go glaringly out of step with the Venetian norm. It thus provides a perceptive guidance by a shrewd observer who, in the late 1670s, having somehow learned his way around the cultivated manners of patrician society, the permeating air of mistrust and cynicism surrounding the Republic, and the impenetrable subtleties of Venetian diplomacy, assesses the delicate tasks facing the new receiver and reflects on what he had found through his short experience to be relevant to matters pertaining to sheer diplomatic finesse, the contemporary feudal-aristocratic code of etiquette, and the routine conduct of the affairs of the Ricetta. In brief, his instructions were intended to encourage the prospective Hospitaller to pursue a course of conduct well established among diplomatic missions to the Serenissima, to help him build up the character of a perfect receiver in Venice. The account is unassuming, systematic, highly lucid, and practical, one deliberately lacking in traditional pomp and dogma, and devoid of any irrelevant classical citations and cross-references so characteristic of treatises on embassies and ambassadors of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. For the historian, it provides fresh insights into the spectacle of early modern Venice, the overweening rigidity of its conformity to protocol,

11 The conventus, or ruling body of the Order, whose headquarters were first established in Jerusalem and subsequently at Acre (1187–1291), Limassol (1291–1310), Rhodes (1310–1522), and Malta (1530–1798). 12 It carries the title: Raccolta d’osservationi e notitie per ben regolarsi nella Ricetta di Venetia fatta da me Commendator Fra Costanzo Operti, nel poco tempo che ho esercitato tal carica. 13 These consisted of a legal adviser, a theologian expert in canon law, and a revisore of papers proceeding from the Roman curia. See A. Da Mosto, L’Archivio di Stato di Venezia (Rome, 1937–40), vol. i, p. 179. 14 Archivio di Stato, Venice: Consultori in Jure, busta 58, fol. 19r. For the commanderies making up the Grand Priory of Venice, with the value of their respective responsiones, in 1533, 1583, 1736, and 1776, V. Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta 1530–1798: Aspects of a Relationship (Malta, 1992), pp. 307–316.

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and the lifestyle of a Hospitaller minister in the often inimical atmosphere of the Adriatic city. In a very brief introduction, Operti regrets that although the Ricetta of Venice had always been one of the Order’s most ‘conspicuous and respectable’ cariche, other perhaps than the permanent Hospitaller embassies at Rome and Palermo, Paris and Madrid, its receivers were deprived of a necessary code of ethics, a set of formal instructions to guide their private conduct and regulate their public performance. He therefore sets out to put his experiences and observations in writing in the hope of filling this unfortunate lacuna. The document is divided into three parts or capitoli. The first deals with the preparations needed for the receiver’s first official appearance in the Senate15 to present his credentials (Delle cose necessarie per il preparamento al primo ingresso al Senato). In the absence of a Hospitaller embassy in Venice, it was the receiver’s mission, along that of a treasury official, to assume the task of a resident minister or ambassador to the Serenissima.16 Here the first advice Operti gives the prospective receiver was to keep away from anything that might even remotely ‘offend the eye and public interest’.17 He specifies in particular the very sensitive issue of contraband trade. Involvement in it or in any other similarly illicit activity was certain to ruin the reputation of the minister. He should be in a position to appear in College18 for whatever purpose, his or the Religion’s, without fear of being unexpectedly faced with accusations of irregular dealings or incorrect behaviour.19 Especial care should be taken to promote the Order’s interests in a princely manner, guard jealously its traditional rights and privileges, and uphold its exemptions and other practices which had been for years enjoyed by his predecessors;20 to cultivate, ‘without too much personal attachment’, the friendship of abbots and bishops, prelates and cardinals, and all those who wielded some form of influence and power in the Adriatic city. It would be politically judicious to include among these the cloistered nuns, especially those of the Monasteri delle Vergini – the San Lorenzo and the San Zaccaria – wherein lay the cream of the Venetian nobility.21 15 The Senate, or the Consiglio dei Pregadi, consisted of sixty regular or ordinary senators (the sessanta dei Pregadi) and sixty additional members (known as the sessanta de la Zonta or Giunta) appointed from year to year by the Council of Ten; a large number of other magistrates enjoyed an ex officio right of entry. W. J. Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Republical Liberty. Renaissance Values in the Ages of the Counter Reformation (Berkeley, 1968), p. 61; also E. Besta, Il Senato veneziano (Venice, 1899). 16 See Mallia-Milanes, p. 14. 17 The Document, fol. 386v. 18 The College, or Pien Collegio, was composed of 26 members: the Doge, the six Ducal Counsellors, the three senior heads (or Capi) of the Quarantia Criminal, six Savii del Consiglio (more popularly known as Savii Grandi), five Savii di Terraferma, and five Savii agli Ordini. G. Boerio, Dizionario del Dialetto Veneziano (Venice, 1856), sub voce. 19 The Document, fol. 387r. 20 Ibid., fol. 387v. 21 Ibid.

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Close acquaintances and contacts such as these were necessary as they opened up more useful channels of communication. It was far easier, claims Operti, to reach individual Senators, Councillors, or even Savii through the good offices of such persons.22 It was also necessary to cultivate a trustful relationship with someone di sfera mezana, who was fairly familiar with the courts of other resident ambassadors and noble families, confiding to him such matters only which one would like to see reaching certain quarters. To accommodate their employer, such persons would be only too willing to use clever, secret, and indeed sometimes even unpleasant methods to gradually gain access to useful information, which would have otherwise taken the receiver much of his precious time to obtain.23 Above all, the receiver should endeavour to gain the full confidence of all the other foreign ambassadors resident in Venice.24 And here Operti adds a word of caution, having himself presumably experienced the atmosphere of mistrust that prevailed in Venice through the pervasive State system of widespread espionage: the receiver should be constantly apprised that there was hardly anything, however trivial, that a foreign ambassador did in Venice which was not instantly brought to the attention of the members of the College and other Magistracies.25 The Hospitaller receiver was elected by the grand master and his Ordinary Council for a period of three financial years.26 The Order’s financial year began on 1 May. For a smooth hand-over of the Ricetta, Operti advises the newly elected receiver to settle in Venice sometime towards the end of April, when the incumbent’s term of office was about to expire. If the receiver also happened to hold the office of Lieutenant of the Venetian priory, he would (in the prior’s absence) have the duty to summon the annual prioral chapter, preferably, says Operti, on the Sunday nearest to the feast of the Assumption. The chapter would discuss urgent matters of Hospitaller interest and new members received. A letter would be circulated among all members of the priory, inviting them to attend. These would normally be entertained to a banquet, ‘depending,’ of course, ‘on the generosity of the venerable prior or his lieutenant’.27 It was advisable for the receiver to have decent, elegantly furnished, livingquarters, capable of receiving ‘ambassadors, princes, cardinals, and other members of the highest stratum of society’ with grace and style. Operti suggests the need to have two large halls lying on the piano nobile – an antechamber and an audience chamber, adequately furnished, with matching chairs and curtains. The main hall could well be decorated with what the author calls cori d’oro (cuoi d’oro) or stamped leather adorned with gilt flowers and engraved wooden benches, creating an air of great respectability and with not too much expense. It was also advisable

22 23 24 25 26 27

Ibid. Ibid., foll. 387v–388r. Ibid., f.388r. Ibid. See note 9. The Document, foll. 388r–388v.

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to have two bedrooms, both hung with tapestries, one for the receiver’s own use, the other for a visiting friend. The kitchen would be supplied with all the necessary utensils, the cellar well-stocked, to cater for the normal needs of the household and the rest of the family.28 The author goes into exuberant detail to underscore the need for spectacle on special occasions. It had been customary practice for Hospitaller receivers in Venice, he points out, to own three gondolas, which he would use on official functions. And unless the new receiver was prepared to make use of his predecessor’s, he would better not lose time in having new ones ordered if he wanted them delivered on time. Two of them were quite expensive as they were traditionally expected to be gracefully rich in engravings, superbly carpeted and cushioned, endowed with gold fittings and carved and gilded images, to leave a lasting impression, both sumptuous and ostentatious. The third was less expensive and could be constructed at short notice. In funereal black, it conveyed the more traditionally sombre appearance, with nevertheless a clear touch of class distinction. The first two gondolas could, if he so wished, be obtained from ambassadors or ministers whose term of office had only recently expired and were about to return to their home country. These would generally be prepared to have their official gondolas sold. With a few minor modifications, such gondolas could serve their purpose equally well and at a much reduced price.29 A receiver’s permanent staff consisted of a secretary who, apart from normal secretarial duties, could carry official embassies, deal with business matters concerning the Order of St John and, depending on the pressing needs of the hour, take memoranda and other correspondence to the College and other magistracies; two men, one to keep record of all documents, especially those pertaining to the Order, the other to act as a housekeeper, perform other chores, and help whenever necessary at the secretariat; two pages, smart looking and preferably literate, to help at the antechamber during official visits and other formal occasions. Then there were four footmen, two gondoliers, a cook, a kitchen helper or cook assistant to carry out all menial tasks, and a matron to look after the overall needs of the house. On formal occasions, when all three gondolas were in use, four other gondoliers would have had to be employed. Each of the footmen was given a particular assignment – to look after the mail or the wine-cellar, to do the shopping or take care of the food store. These should be recruited, says Operti, from among ‘men of ability’ and should be preferably ‘unmarried’. The footmen, the pages, and the gondoliers (including the extras) would all be provided with a smart outfit, fine and rich, to wear on ceremonial public functions, and with less expensive uniforms for daily use.30 28 Ibid., fol. 389r. 29 Ibid., foll. 389r–389v. 30 Ibid., foll. 389v–390r. Operti makes no reference to the Senate’s decree, issued on 15 May 1677, concerning the temporal possession of ecclesiastical benefices within Venetian territory. ‘A dì 15 maggio 1677. In Pregadi. Si tiene certa notitia che la maggior parte de beneffitij eclesiastici siano

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The author gives a detailed and meticulous account of how the receiver’s first visit to the Doge in the presence of the Senate to present his letters of credence should best be conducted.31 With the help of some form of confidential source of information, this audition would best be sought for the day when it was almost certain that the Pien Collegio would assemble. On the eve, the secretary would proceed on the black gondola to the riva del palazzo to confirm the correct time. On such occasions it was customary for the receiver’s relatives and trusted friends to form part of his retinue, preferably on their own gondolas. The receiver, looking polished and stylish, would travel on the first gondola, accompanied by persons of the highest rank, including other Hospitallers and friends. Pages would take the sombre black gondola. If there was no place for the secretary on the first gondola, he would take a front seat on the second. The footmen would be the first to go, either by land or by sea on a barca da traghetto. They would wait for the receiver’s arrival at the riva del palazzo. He would be the last to disembark. They would then walk in solemn procession straight to the church of St Marco, entering it by the small door nearest the Scala dei Giganti, footmen first, followed by the secretary, and then the receiver, accompanied by pages on either side. Meanwhile the secretary would proceed to the ducal palace to inform whoever was concerned of his master’s arrival. On his return the Hospitaller ‘court’ would leave the church in the same order, go up the Scala dei Giganti, a rich and graceful medley of fine sculptural and architectural compositions, until they reach the College antechamber where they would be greeted by a porter and asked to sit and relax. This was normal practice for all ambassadors: after the steep flight of gigantic marble steps, in the company of Sansovino’s Mars and Neptune, they would need sufficient time to regain their humble human breath before being solemnly received by the Doge in gorgeous robes and cloth of gold in a display of pageantry and magnificence. The College door would then be thrown open and the Minister and his ‘court’ asked to go in. The receiver was the last to enter. Advancing from the door, he would reverently give Sua Serenità and the Eccellentissimi Signori three deep bows – one on entering the hall, the second halfway up towards the ducal throne, and the third at the foot of the throne. He would then walk to the right of the throne and seat himself on the fifth chair from the Doge. A nod would signal him to put his hat on and

goduti senza ricever il possesso temporale per essi dal Senato, o che sia stato comesso da codesti ministri et antecessori loro anco di rendita eccedente ducati vinti contro la dispositione di più decreti, et particolarmente stabilito 5 luglio 1675 ne dovendosi lasciar progredire mancanze tanto repugnanti alla publica volontà per il pregiudizio e l’inobedienza, e perché non siano ignoti lo stato e condition de beneficiati. Vi cometemo col Senato stesso d’obligar tutti li benefficiati che tenessero possesso de benefficij contro la formalità delle leggi e con la publicatione di proclama, o col sequestro delle rendite de beneficij a venir nel termine di mesi tre a ricever il possesso come sopra dal Senato, e per togliere per sempre dal disordine de possessi che costà vengono concesi contro la forma delle suddette, per benefficij eccedenti la rendita de ducati vinti, ne farete affiggere in cotesta cancelleria la proibicione così che esso disordine non progredisca, e della esecutione. Gierolamo Alberti, Nodaro Ducal.’ NLM, AOM, Cod. 1212, fol. 103r. 31 The Document, foll. 390r–391v.

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present his credentials, which would in turn be read aloud by one of the College secretaries. After another inchino, the receiver would next deliver his espositione with his hat on. At the end, the Doge, wearing the golden corno, would make his reply. The receiver and his retinue would then withdraw. It is advisable, explains Operti, to have every single word uttered on this and other similar occasions ‘written down and registered’. A copy of the receiver’s address would be handed over to the College secretary who would accompany the receiver back to the door. Another three bows would be made on the way out. The receiver and his retinue would then again proceed in an ostentatious parade through the ever colourful Piazzetta to embark on the luxurious gondolas awaiting them at the quay. Costanzo Operti ends the first chapter of his account by adding a few more touches to what he believes protocol would require in terms of preparation and notification of the appropriate Venetian authorities in advance of an official visit. He points out that once the receiver’s address and letters of credence had been discussed at Senate level and an official reply drawn up, an equerry would be dispatched to invite him to attend College to receive his exequatur ‘in carta pergamena col San Marco in piombo’, and to have the Senate’s resolution (‘la parte del Pregadi’) on the matter read out to him. This is then followed by further details on how the receiver should proceed every time he is summoned by the Doge, how the Senate’s emissaries should best be entertained at the receiver’s residence, and how urgent memoriali are best transmitted to the College or any other Venetian magistracy.32 The second section33 of the present Raccolta d’Osservationi e Notitie discusses the protocol governing official visits which a Hospitaller receiver would pay to other resident ministers and ambassadors in Venice (Delle Visite in Generale e in Particolare). It is perhaps the least interesting of the three, as the author’s observations here tend more to assume an autobiographical character than a general nature. It had been habitual practice for Hospitaller receivers in Venice, he points out, not to pay public or private visits to any resident minister or ambassador before he had been admitted to the first solemn audience in the ducal palace. Then, having presented his letters of credence, the first visit would normally go to the nuncio. Next was the imperial ambassador’s turn. The others would follow in no particular order. When Costanzo Operti had come to pay his own visits as receiver, the nuncio happened to be in Milan, and both the imperial ambassador, the Count Della Torre, and that of His Most Christian Majesty, the Marquis Varangeride, had not yet presented their credentials. Indeed, the latter had declined Operti’s request to visit him, saying he was not at home when Operti claims he knew for certain that he was. This could well have been, he suspects, the result of an ill-feeling that apparently ran between the French embassy and Operti’s predecessors in the Ricetta. Notwithstanding protocol and tradition, the

32 See ibid., foll. 391v–392v. 33 Ibid., foll. 392v–396v.

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marquis had expected the Hospitaller minister to have visited him before he did his Spanish counterpart. It would later be these same ambassadors’ turn to pay their visits and be greeted with all official honours as recipients of the receiver’s hospitality. Here again Operti’s advice betrays its author’s obsession with detail of Venetian manners and customs. Next Operti writes about another type of visit, that which was normally paid on the several festive occasions on the Venetian calendar. Two or three days before Christmas, to instance one,34 the receiver would pay a formal visit (‘in forma solenne’) to the Doge and then to the other resident representatives. The impressionable Operti again insists on the need to exercise caution. To cultivate and maintain a healthy diplomatic relationship, both in the interests of the Order and in those of his own, he believed, the receiver should pay a private visit to other ambassadors at least once a month, or perhaps more often to those whose manners and looks appear more friendly (‘se si vede dalli medemi agradito et accolto con ochio benigno’). When his term of office was about to expire, the receiver would proceed to the ducal palace to gently take leave of the Senate (‘la sua buona licenzia’). Later he would bid farewell to his colleagues, to some a fonder one than to others. The third capitolo35 suggests guidelines to regulate a receiver’s performance vis-à-vis the expectations of the Order’s common treasury in Malta (Notizie concernenti il Servitio della Veneranda Camera). The author provides instructive details, often of a practical nature, concerning a fairly wide range of tasks for which the receiver was essentially responsible. It was necessary, for example, to keep an accurate record of all business transactions and to approach the very sensitive issue of the spogli with care and caution.36 The spoglio was an extraordinary source of the Order’s income related to the death of a knight. It was that part of the property which reverted to the treasury on his death. The Order’s statutes allowed one-fifth (the quint) of a knight’s property to go to his relatives or as bequeathed in his will. It was also necessary to act with firmness and punctuality in matters concerning the responsiones. Any habitual defaults on the payment of one’s annual dues to the treasury should be dealt with severely. Indeed, if such default persisted, the receiver should proceed with the confiscation of the respective commandery, without the need to wait for instructions from Valletta.37 One of the receiver’s important functions concerned the purchase of a wide range of goods commissioned by the Common Treasury. As commodity prices often fluctuated in reaction to particular situations, Operti promised to leave his successor a notebook in which he had kept the prices of most of the goods purchased by his predecessors during the previous ten years. Also recorded in the notebook was the length and thickness of various types of timber. Operti claims 34 35 36 37

Ibid., fol. 396r. Ibid., foll. 396v–398r. Ibid., foll. 396v–397r. Ibid., fol. 397r.

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that actual sizes did not always correspond with those officially indicated. In Venice, he explains, wooden planks di sopra brazzo were only 15 oncie instead of 16, while the tavogliere were over 18 oncie.38 Also to be left to Operti’s successor was a box containing nails and iron tools of different shapes and sizes. This, he says, would help avoid unnecessary misunderstanding with treasury commissions.39 Timber and ironware were two commodities which the Order bought from Venice on an almost regular basis.40 *** It would appear that the present late seventeenth-century document, composed by Fra Costanzo Operti during his brief term of office as Hospitaller receiver in Venice, has been the fruit of fairly mixed reflections. Thoughts of his recent past recurred to his mind – happy thoughts and sad memories – and he put them in writing for his gifted successors to brood upon. It is deeply ironic therefore that their author appears to have lacked those same virtues and qualities he himself was endeavouring to inculcate in others. In July 1680 Operti fell foul of the Venetian authorities. Customs officials in Venice had temporarily withheld an amount of wine which he had imported, apparently irregularly, for his own consumption. It was later released by orders of the Senate, but Operti demanded an explanation, using a forceful tone which the Senate found inadmissibly offensive. He had even gone around all foreign missions in the city ruthlessly spreading unpleasant and distasteful rumours about the Government. Indeed, on 27 July 1680, Doge Luigi Contarini felt he should ask Grand Master Gregorio Carafa to have the Hospitaller receiver recalled.41 In Carafa’s reply to Contarini, reference is made to a resolution, unanimously taken by the Venerable Council, to instruct Operti to leave

38 Ibid., foll. 397v-398r. 39 Ibid., fol. 398r. 40 See Mallia-Milanes, ch. 8, especially pp. 252–253 for timber, and pp. 225, 229, 231, 236, 266 for ironmongery. 41 ‘Illustrissimo et Reverendissimo in Christo Pater. Noti sono a Vostra Signoria Illustrissima e Reverendissima li testimoni di stima dati in ogni tempo al merito della Religione sempre amata dalla Repubblica nostra; ne si credeva che questo suo Ricevitore potesse desiderarne de più distinti verso il proprio carattere nell’occasione, che fermato certo vino introdotto in Città s’è voluto sorpassando ogn’altro riguardo, con offitio abbondante lasciar comprendere alla di lui prudenza, ch’era inammissibile la pratica scuoperta de mandati; ma nel medesimo tempo, che si continuarebbe nella solita piena dispositione d’affetto verso il suo Ministerio. Unimo lo stesso uffitio, perché Vostra Signoria Illustrissima e Reverendissima riflettendo nella pienezza del medesimo, discerna quanto potemo essere sorpresi di non vederlo gradito; vivendo però nella confidenza, ch’ella non approverà tali sentimenti, e molto meno la forma, con la quale s’è egli diretto, l’assicuriamo che con la sua prudenza considerando il transporto del Ministro, darà gli ordini adeguati perché si possano continuare i saggi d’affetto corrispondenti all’antica e costante propensione sempre professata dalla Repubblica nostra anco per li riguardi vivissimi di secondare il merito e qualità di Vostra Signoria Illustrissima e Reverendissima che n’è per tanti riguardi Capo degnissimo. Data in nostro Ducale Palatio. Die xxvii Julij, Inditione iiia MDCLXXX. Aloysius Contareno Dei gratia Dux Veneto etc. Geronimo Albertis Secretario.’ NLM, AOM, Cod. 262, Liber Conciliorum Status, foll. 115v–116r.

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Venice immediately, feigning indisposition. He was succeeded by Commendatore Fra Ludovico Ferretti.

The document RACCOLTA D’OSSERVATIONI E NOTITIE PER BEN REGOLARSI NELLA RICETTA DI VENETIA FATTA DA ME COMENDATOR FRA COSTANZO OPERTI NEL POCO TEMPO CHE HO ESERCITATO TAL CARICA42 Introdutione alle dette notitie La Ricetta di Venetia, che tra le cariche della Religione, eccettuate l’ambasciarie, è una delle più cospicue e riguardevoli, resta così priva d’informationi e delle necessarie instrutioni (che sono l’unico fondamento sopra il quale un buon ministro deve erigere ogni più retta operatione, massime per quello riguarda alle cose publiche) che l’operare senza di quelle può far nascere de’ gravi pregiuditij alla medesima. Mosso perciò dal zelo ho sempre havuto per il buon servitio della Religione, ho voluto fare una breve racolta di quelle notitie, che nel poco tempo ho esercitato tal carica sono pervenute alla mia, e che ho giudicato possino esser di maggior benefitio della medesima. Capitolo primo Delle cose necessarie per il preparamento al primo ingresso al Senato E primo è necessario avvertimento, dovrà procurare il Ricevitore di tenersi alieno per quanto sia possibile da tutte quelle cose che in qual si voglia modo possino offendere l’occhio ed interesse publico massime in matteria di contrabandi et cose simili, nel che dovrà sempre stare molto attento et occulato, dipendendo principalmente anche da questo la buona e cattiva fama del ministro [fol. 387v] appresso il publico, procurando che tutte le sue attioni siano tali che al occorenze di portarsi in Coleggio per urgenze sue proprie e della Religione possa comparirvi senza tema di essere rinfaciato di cosa alcuna. Deve parimente stare molto attento alla manutentione de privileggij della Religione, esentioni, franchiggie et altre cose usate, pratichate, et godute nel tempo de’

42 To render the manuscript more legible, a few modifications have had to be made, especially in the excessive use of capital letters. Accents and punctuation have also been modernized and abbreviations eliminated. The original spelling has been retained.

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suoi antecessori, acciò in tempo suo non vi corra alcun pregiuditio al che giovarà molto il comportarsi nel modo sudetto. Sarà bene anche per tutti li riguardi che procuri senza affettazzione d’havere tutte l’amicitie, corrispondenze et adherenze d’abbati, vescovi, prelati, cardinali e di tutte quelle persone più qualificate che potrà etiandio per massima politica di monache, massime dalli Monasterij delle Vergini, San Lorenzo et San Zaccaria per essere quelli dove sta il principal fiore della nobiltà, mediante li quali mezi si possono penetrare con galanteria et destrezza molte cose, servendosi anche de medemi per far passare qualche uffitio a qualche senatore, consigliere, e dove occore savio, già che non si può praticare e negotiare in altro modo. Procurerà pure havere confidenza et amicitia con qualche persona di sfera mezana, massime di quelli che con libertà sogliono praticare nelle corti degli altri ministri et nelle case d’nobili, avertendo però di palesarli solo quello si desidera gionga a notitia di chi vorrà; et questo poi dipende dall’ havere in casa persona pratica et fidele che li vadi insinuando sul [fol. 388r] principio molte cose che per altro richiederebbero qualche maggior tempo per saperle. E sopra il tutto li sarà a cuore di coltivare ogni più intrinseca corrispondenza e confidenza con tutti li signori ambasciatori che si trovaranno in Venetia, il che serve ad acrescersi l’estimatione propria appresso il publico, nè viene anche in consequenza di ricevere da medemi signori ogni gratia e favore, e consiglij in qual si voglia occorenza. Deve anche essere informato che non v’è cosa, per minima che sia, che operi ogni ministro che non pervenga a notitia di detti Eccellentissimi Signori di Colleggio, et altri Magistrati, il [che] deve far stare ogn’uno attento nel operare; come anche poi per il contrario havendo il ministro le sudette corrispondenze d’abbati, prelatti, et [cetera] non v’è cosa, benchè secretta, che non possa esserli nota, e si può prevenire co’ ripieghi agli accidenti. Venendo adunque destinato da Sua Eminenza e Venerando Consiglio qualche cavagliere per la Ricetta di Venetia, secondo l’ordinario, dovrà procurare di trovarsi in detta città almeno verso il fine d’aprile, dove terminando il corso del impiego l’antecessore possa dal medemo essere posto in possesso il primo giorno di maggio, che però si farà consignare tutti gli effetti, scritture, et altro attinenti alla Ricetta per poter dar principio all’esecutione di quegli ordini che havrà da Sua Eminenza e dalli Signori Procuratori del Tesoro e di tutto quello che per mancanza del tempo o altro impedimento non havrà potuto opperare il suo antecessore.[fol. 388v] Sarà necessario che si faccia dare dal medemo tutte quelle notitie, informationi, et instrutioni, si in voce che in scritto, che concernono al maggior servitio della Religione e per mantenersi con il decoro dovuto e proprio della carica. Quando il ricevitore havrà la patente di luogotenente del priorato di Venetia sarà in obligo di fare l’annuale capitolo per tratare le cose necessarie della Religione, dove si presentano cavaglieri per farsi ricevere per l’istessa causa de medemi o altri, e questa funtione si suol fare la Domenica più prossima alla festa del Assensione e questo solo nel priorato di Venetia per maggior facilità de’ cavaglieri, 115

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avvisandone per tempo con lettera circolare li medemi, che sono sotto detto priorato, et trovandossi presente il priore a lui tocca fare l’invito havendovi il tempo; si usa con tal occasione fare il solito banchetto, dove soglionsi trattarsi li cavaglieri per quella mattina, secondo la generosità del venerando priore o suo luogotenente. Intanto per che subito seguito il suo arrivo, sarà preciso che faccia alcuni patti che sono ordinati alle visite, il che è matteria molto dificile e scabrosa, mi rimetto a quanto dire più a basso a suo luogo, e qui andarò notificando quello occore per prepararsi a fare il primo suo ingresso al Senato. E perché questo possa seguire con quel maggior decoro che sarà più conveniente alla sua sfera, potrà haver l’occhio sopra ciò hanno fatto con l’honorevolezza li suoi antecessori, e quello che all’hora si costumerà e col procurare di non eccedere notabilmente a gli [fol. 389r] altri, né di restar sotto di quelli, e prenderà aggiustate le sue misure. Primieramente deve essere provisto di un’ habitatione di qualche buona apparenza capace di ricevere qual si sia sorte di visite d’ambasciatori, prencipi, cardinali et altri signori di gran sfera, nella quale almeno dovrano essere nel sitto più comodo e migliore due stanze che formino anticamera e camera di udienza apparate con decente honorevolezza, e secondo il gusto e generosità del ministro, non occorendovi in questo spesa straordinaria ma bastando che vi sia un buon intendimento con le sedie e portiere uniformi ad ogni apparato: Potrà pure apparare il portico o sia salone di cori d’oro per minor spesa o d’altro se li parerà con li suoi banchi dipinti; due camere da letto tapezzatte a suo piacere, una per suo proprio e l’altra per qualche amico o forastiere, e poi per il rimanente si regolarà secondo la quantità delle camere che haverà; per gli altri arnesi usuali e robbe per la cucina, cantina e per servitio della casa e famiglia, s’accomoderà secondo il bisogno e modo con che più o meno si vorrà trattare, potendo anche tal volta servirsi dalla stessa robba o parte del suo antecessore et in questo come li torna più a conto. Per quello concerna alla provisione delle gondole, che come sin hora hanno praticato succesivamente alcuni ricevitori, devono essere al numero di tre, non si deve perdere il tempo, massime quando non volesse servirsi di quelle del suo antecessore; nel che però, quando siano buone e di genio, si può godere qualche avantaggio; poiché quando [fol. 389v] vuol farle nuove, oltre la spesa che sarà non ordinaria, particolarmente per la prima, che deve essere di intaglij doratti assai vaghi, et anche la seconda a proportione anche qualche longhezza di tempo. La terza, andando negra semplicemente, come usano gli gentil’homini e cittadini, presto si provede con spesa ordinaria. Per la prima et seconda, se ne trova anche alle volte delle dismesse assai buone d’ambasciattori e ministri, che havendo terminato il loro regimento le lasciano da vendere, onde con competente prezzo si possono havere e, facendoli ogni pocca di aggionta per accomodarle all’uso più moderno, fanno anche molto honore. Circa quelli devono servirlo permanentemente sono: un segrettario capace e con l’habilità necessarie, dovendosi servire di quello, oltre il bisogno della segretaria, anche nel portar ambasciate, tratare negotij appartenenti alla Religione e secondo l’urgenze, portare memoriali al Coleggio et altri Magistrati; due altri 116

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huomini negri, uno per tenere la scrittura de’ negotij appartenenti alla Religione et ad altri particolari, il che è necessario, et l’altro per cameriere et [cetera] e che possa servire per agiutante di segretaria ne’ bisogni. Duoi paggi di buon aspetto per asistere all’anticamera in occorenza di visite et [cetera], et anche se sapessero scrivere non sarebbe nissun disavantaggio. Quatro staffieri, duoi gondolieri, un cuoco, et una donna di governo, che è necessaria per tener conto della casa, massime delle biancherie, et un sguataro o sia agiutante di cucina per far ogni basso uffitio. [fol. 390r] Alli staffieri sarà assegnata particolarmente la sua carica, chi destinato per la posta, chi per la credenza, chi per la cantina, e chi per il spendere; che però è sempre bene pigliare genti di habilità e non maritata. E perché quando si va in Coleggio o a qualche visita publica d’ambasciatori o altri si và con tutte tre le gondole, si pigliano perciò secondo l’occorenze quatro altri gondolieri per quelle fontioni, per i quali devono restare fatti gli habiti loro da livrea. Accordata tutta la servitù, bisogna vestire quella da livrea per il che vi vorrano quatro habiti per li staffieri, duoi per li paggi, et sei per li gondolieri per fare la prima comparsa, rimettendosi poi a farla più o meno richa secondo il gusto di chi deve fare la spesa, e tal habiti si tengono da portare nelle fontioni publiche per maggior honor e decoro. Se ne faranno poi altretanti più ordinarij da portare giornalmente, nel che si regolarà secondo l’uso degli altri ministri di consimile sfera. Ordinate tutte le sudette cose, potrà fare quanto prima il suo primo ingresso al Senato nel quale si dovrà regolare nel modo seguente. Destinare un giorno per simile fontione in cui sappia di certo esservi la redutione di Sua Serenità e Signoria, anzi per havere l’udienza a pieno Colleggio da qualche persona amica e confidente farà correre sottomano la vocce di tal fontione e poi manderà il giorno antecedente verso la sera, ma per tempo il suo segrettario con la terza gondola alla riva del palazzo per prendere il comodo e l’hora dell’udienza da Sua Serenità, per [fol. 390v] il che andarà alle porte del Coleggio e ne farà passare l’uffitio o dal portiere o da un comandadore, e secondo le risposte che ne riportarà da uno de detti, il ricevitore poi si regolarà per andata, essendo la risposta ordinariamente che Sua Serenità gode del di lui arivo, e che la mattina seguente, all’hora solita della ridutione, lo vederà volontieri. In occasione di simile fontione, essendo soliti alcuni amici famigliari e confidenti di casa favorire di far corte alli ricevitori, non solo con le persone proprie ma anche con qualche loro gondola, si procura farli avvisare in tempo con denotarli il giorno del ingresso acciò con loro comodo possano favorirlo. La mattina donque per tempo, che havrà l’incombenza della buona diretione, procurarà in primo luogo che le gondole di casa siano alestite in avvantaggio, e che la servitù sia vestita per non haver da far spettare, e conosciuta l’hora propria per la partenza s’imbarcarà il pattrone nella prima gondola, nella quale farà seco entrare le persone più degne, massime se vi havrà cavaglieri del abito, che si sogliono avvisare qualche giorno avvanti, o altri amici, e di mano in mano con buon ordine seguiranno tutti gli altri, che saranno al corteggio avertendo che li paggi restino nella terza gondola con qualchuno della famiglia o altra persona 117

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confidente, e non entrando il segrettario nella prima a causa che vi siano cavaglieri, entri nella seconda al primo posto, mandandosi prima avanti li staffieri per [fol. 391r] terra o per barca da traghetto, conforme riuscirà più commodo et espediente, quali dovrano stare aspettando alla riva del palazzo dove si va a sbarcare, e quando si è vicino alla detta riva si dà tempo alle barche del seguito che vadino avanti a smontare la gente, dovendo essere l’ultima quella del pattrone, e così si fa sempre quando si va con più di una barca. Smontati che saranno tutti, precedendo li staffieri ad ogn’uno, et i paggi restando vicini alla persona del padrone, et il segrettario avvanti quelli, s’anderà a drittura in San Marco per porta piccola, che resta vicina alla scalla d’Giganti, et ivi dimorerà sin a tanto che il segrettario, quale deve subito andare ad informarsi se l’hora sia propria, torni a dargliene qualche motto, partendo dalla chiesa con l’istesso ordine. Salirà per la scala d’Giganti e gionto nel anticoleggio con tutto il seguito dal portiere, li verrà fatto cenno di sedere a mano dritta vicino alla porta di Coleggio, e questo si pratica sempre da tutti li ministri, perché essendo le scale assai longhe possino pigliare un pocco di respiro. E venendo d’indi a pocco avvisato d’entrare, li viene aperta e spalancata la porta sudetta, quale per quella volta sola stà cossì sino che torni via, et andando avvanti ogn’uno che lo serve et accompagna, anche li staffieri et altre genti che all’hora vi si trovano, egli resta l’ultimo, e col fare tre riverenze a Sua Serenità et a tutti gli Eccellentissimi Signori, cioè una subito dentro della porta, l’altra nel mezo, e la terza [fol. 391v] a i piedi del trono, tenendosi dalla parte destra va a sedere nel quinto luogo incominciando doppo Sua Serenità, che facendoli un poco di motto si mette il capello, presenta le lettere credenzialli, quali vengono pigliate da uno di quei segrettarij che le leggie forte, e poi col fare altro simile inchino fa la sua espositione medesimamente coperto, nel fine della quale Sua Serenità li risponde e le fa quelle espressioni che stima più proprie e convenienti. È ben che dalli segrettarij, sì in questa che in tutte le altre occorenze, venga scritta et registrata ogni minima parola; ad ogni modo, nel partire si suole lasciare una coppia della detta espositione in mano al segrettario che l’accompagna sino alla porta del Coleggio e nella partenza fa l’instesse tre riverenze come prima, et incaminandosi anche per la medesima strada va con tutti a rimbarcarsi alla Piazzetta per quella volta sola. Ma perché fatta questa fontione si diviene immediatamente alle viste, perciò mentre ne dirò più a basso a suo luogo, non mi scostarò da quello viene in seguito al già espresso. Portate dal Colleggio al Pregadi le lettere credenziali et esposizione, ivi se ne prende la parte e si fanno le risposte alle medeme, mandando in tanto Sua Serenità, passatti doi o tre giorni, uno scudiere alla casa del ricevitore ad invitarlo che per il tal giorno lo stà attendendo in Coleggio, e per essere questo persona ordinaria senza altro tratamento particolare si riceve l’ambasciata, e ringraziandolo se li dice che sarà a [fol. 392r] ricevere le gratie di Sua Serenità. Nel giorno limitato si porta il ricevitore in Coleggio, con le sue tre gondole sole e famiglia, tanto nobile quanto da livrea, dovendo sempre andare prima nella chiesa di San Marco, et avvisato dal suo segrettario del tempo. 118

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Salirà per la scala picola, il che farrà sempre come anche usano gli ambasciatori, et esprimendo a Sua Serenità che è per godere e ricevere delle sue gratie, li verrà poscia fatto cenno da un segrettario di partirsi, quale lo introdurà per altra parte che resta a mano destra del Coleggio in una camera detta la secretta, dove dal medemo segrettario li verrà consignata la risposta alle credentiali all’uso solito in carta pergamena col San Marco di piombo, et anche li verrà letta la parte del Pregadi, quale è bene di scriverla, sì per trasmetterne una coppia a Malta come per haverne una appresso di sé, massime contenendo li sensi del Senato. E qui è d’avertirsi che ogni qual volta il ricevitore venga chiamato da Sua Serenità per qualche risposta, e che la medema li venga datta in scritto, va sempre prima in Coleggio e poi nella secretta e la servitù lo va attendendo nella salla dalla quale pure si va alla secretta, restando sempre li staffieri fuora nel portico contiguo all’anticoleggio. E quando si fa la ridutione del Coleggio in chiesola, il che segue al estate per godere maggior fresco, il posto del ricevitore resta a mano destra subito [fol. 392v] dentro della porta e si passa per il Coleggio. E quando per qualche negotio venga dal Senato trasmessa alla propria casa del ricevitore alcuna parte, le vien portata la medema da un segrettario di Coleggio, quale dal detto ricevitore si riceve col mantello alla porta della scala, dandoli la mano, trattandolo dell’Illustrissimo, con farlo sedere in camera del udienza nella quale si tiene pronto da scrivere in occorenza di coppiare detta parte et andando via lo accompagna giù dalle scalle sino alla porta con la famiglia. Per le urgenze che occorono alla giornata nella Ricetta, di mandar supliche o memoriali o in Coleggio o a qualche Maggistrato, è sempre bene tener coppia de medemi, quali si mandano per il segrettario, dove fa di bisogno che, andando alle porte del Coleggio, deve fermarsi dalla parte destra nella quale può anche sedere intanto che qualche segrettario di detto Coleggio venga a ricevere li memoriali o espositioni in voce per parte del ricevitore, e per le risposte potrà dippendere dall’informationi che li saranno datte dal segrettario medesimo. E questo è quanto sin qui la memoria del da me praticato mi ha sugerito espore e notificare concernente al modo di regolarsi li ricevitori. Hora circa le visite dirò quel pocco che ho praticato e per il resto mi rimetto alla prudenza de sucessori. Capitolo secondo Delle visite in generale et in particolare Per discorere qualche cosa nel particolare delle [fol. 393r] visite, dirò prima quello che è stato praticato da gli altri miei antecessori, ciò che a mio tempo è accaduto. Dalli antecessori miei è stato praticato di non fare mai alcuna visita né publica né privata a ministro verunno, o sia cognito o incognito, prima d’essere stati li ricevitori in Coleggio, doppo di che hanno usato di subito portarsi dal nuntio, quando v’è stato, con tutte le gondole, a cui si è mandata l’ambasciata dalla riva del palazzo e veruno sono ricevuti dalla famiglia a meza scalla o dal nontio 119

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all’anticamera verso la scala, e nel rittorno sono accompagnati dal medemo sino fra il secondo et terzo gradino, e dalla famiglia alla porta. Poi si va dal ambasciatore cesareo e dalli altri ministri. Ma perché non si trovò il nontio, che erra a Milano in tempo mio, nel quale solo quello di Spagna si trovava in figura cognita, e quello del Imperatore e di Francia erano incogniti, il primo mio passo fu dal Coleggio alla visita del signor ambasciatore di Spagna, dalla di cui famiglia fui ricevuto come il solito alla mettà della scala et dal signor ambasciatore al ultima anticamera, verso il portico, nella partenza poi dal medemo sino alla scala tra il secondo et terzo gradino e dalla sua corte alla porta della strada. Il doppo pranso dello stesso giorno mi portai con sola seconda gondola e la mia famiglia nera dal signor Conte della Torre, che essendo stato destinato da Cesare per suo ambasciatore, si trovava all’hora in quella città privatamente, da cui fui accolto et ricevuto con somma benignità [fol. 393v] e cortesia e non ordinarie dimostrationi di stima et effetto mai più praticate con alcuno d’miei antecessori in casi simili, e la principale fu di volermi a tutti li modi dare la mano, con esprimermi però in questi sensi, cioè, che havendo egli due strade da ricevermi, una come ministro di Sua Maestà Cesarea et l’altra, per essere incognito, come Conte della Torre, voleva meco praticare tutti quelli arbitrij che havesse potuto, che però senza tratto di minima consequenza, e che questo dovesse passare per esempio, uso e abuso, o in qual si voglia modo ne’ miei successori m’havrebbe sempre ricevuto in quella forma durante, però solo il stato suo incognito di che poi havrebbe fatto quello che non poteva di meno, e che l’impiego e le continenze richiedevano. Finita la visita sodetta del signore Conte della Torre, mi portai nell’istesso modo dal signor Marchese Varangevide, che da poco tempo erra capitato a Venetia a risedervi come ambasciatore di Sua Maestà Cristianissima et all’hora anche egli si trovava in forma incognita, ma fatta fare l’ambasciata per il mio segrettario, ebbi in risposta che non si trovava in casa, benché per altro sapessi che vi sia; feci però dire che havrei pigliar meglio la congiontura per dedicarli li miei ossequij, ma per duoi altre volte che vi fui non potei essere admesso all’udienza. Tutto ciò accade perché havendo il detto signore da me preteso prima del mio ingresso al Senato una visita privata che come mai erra stata richiesta da [fol. 394r] alcuno d’suoi antecessori, né fatta da veruno delli miei, così non potei compiacerlo se bene in sostanza il di lui mottivo erra come mi fece esprimere di voler essere visitato in tutti li modi prima del signor ambasciatore di Spagna, o cognito o incognito, e questa fu poi la pietra del scandolo e l’origine d’ogni mio evento che mi sucesse in tal matteria. Passatto qualche tempo, il signor Conte della Torre, trovandosi afatto in ordine per l’entrata solene, mandò il giorno avanti un suo gentil huomo ad avvisarmi che per l’indomani havrebbe fatto il suo ingresso alle ventiun hora in circa del doppo pranso, in seguito di che mandai la mia seconda gondola a quatro remi al Isola di San Secondo, dove sogliono andare in simili fontioni gli ambasciatori cesarei per farlo complimentare in mio nome dal mio segrettario, a cui fece molte dimostrationi d’affetto et stima, dando segno ad un particolare aggradimento dell’uffitio, et entrato il signor ambasciatore nella 120

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gondola dell’eccellentissimo Michieli, destinato dal Senato per riceverlo in tal forma, lo accompagnò a casa dove parimente tutte le gondole degli altri ministri fecero il simile, ma però avvanti per farli corte nel accompagnarlo nelle camere di parata, e qui nuovamente il segrettario deve far qualche complimento a sua eminenza, et assicurarlo che alla mattina seguente sarà per servirlo. Tornatasi donque la detta mattina per tempo il segrettario con la medema gondola, una solamente di duoi remi, alla casa di detto signor ambasciatore al quale farà sapere che [fol. 394v] il ricevitore l’ha colà mandato per servirlo, e venendo l’hora della partenza verso il Coleggio anderà ad imbarcarsi, e gionto alla Piazzetta si piglierà il posto solito che è immediatamente doppo la corte di monsignor pattriarca, et con tal ordine se ne andarà in Coleggio, dove entrano tutti avvertendosi ancora che tanto il giorno antecedente che in questo si conducono nella gondola col segrettario, duoi staffieri quali pure devono tenere il posto doppo quelli del pattriarca immediatamente; e finita la fontione del Senato si accompagna al palazzo dove poi il segrettario, facendo riverenza a sua eminenza, che li impone a ringratiare il ricevitore, li dice che poi il medesimo sarà a fare le sue parti personalmente. Il che deve il ricevitore fare quanto prima, cioè doppo che vi saranno stati gli ambasciatori reggi et il pattriarca, nel modo già detto con tutte le gondole, staffieri e paggi, et il signor ambasciatore cesareo mi ricevè alla porta del anticamera, venendo nel porteco la sua corte in fondo alle scale e nel andar via mi accompagnò sul principio della scala, dissendendo doi gradini o tre, e li gentil homini della corte sino alla corte, o sia porta. Quando il ricevitore va alla visita del signor ambasciatore di Francia, riceve tratamenti consimili di quelli si vengono fatti da Spagna. Si notta che ogni qual volta il ricevitore va a qualche visita di detti ambasciatori et altri signori, sempre manda l’ambasciata dalla riva de medemi signori come pure [fol. 395r] fanno questi quando vengono dalli ricevitori. Doppo che il ricevitore ha fatto il suo primo ingresso et adempito alle sue parti con tutti li publici ministri con quali passa la solita corrispondenza, starà preparato per ricevere l’honore dalli medesimi, che gliela restituischino, dovendosi fare li rinfreschi a tutti li gentil homini e gente bassa degli ambasciatori come anche a quelli di monsignor patriarca e de cardinali quando si visitano, però per la prima volta sola, e tutti questi ministri si ricevono con la persona e corte alla riva, alla quale anche si accompagnano sempre. Nel renderli la visita gli ambasciatori al ricevitore per la prima volta sogliono venire doppo qualche giorno con la loro seconda gondola et una o due altre per la loro corte e paggi, mandando però prima l’aviso di casa o alla mattina o alla sera, vengono anche li staffieri et in questo il signor ambasciator cesareo vuole honorarmi con tutte le gondole nell’istesso modo che andò in Coleggio e dalli ambasciatori con mandarmi l’ambasciata per un suo gentil huomo, il che gli altri fanno per altra persona ordinaria. Quando capita qualche ambasciatore, tanto ordinario come straordinario, si deve star avertito di mandarlo più presto sia possibile a complimentare con le 121

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dovute congratulationi del suo felice arrivo, e tal uffitio li vien fatto restituire per via di un gentil huomo di sua corte, e se il ricevitore ha già fatto la sua fontione al Senato dovrà essere in persona a renderli i dovuti ossequij. [fol. 395v] In ordine a gli inviati reggi, trattandosi in tutto del pari con li ricevitori, l’ultimo arrivato è il primo ad essere visitato dall’altro, e per la prima volta si fanno li rinfreschi. Con li pressidenti non ho havuto alcuna pratica, atteso che non mi fecero passare alcun uffitio per la pretentione che hanno di stare in tutto del pari. In caso che in avenire si debba fare la visita privata alli signori ambasciatori, sarà preciso il ricevitore, subito subito [sic] arivato in Venetia, mandi a dar parte alli medemi del suo arivo, con farli esprimere che non mancherà poi di essere a farne personalmente le sue parti più precise con l’eccellenze loro; dal che venghino in seguito le visite private. Gli gentil huomini degli ambasciatori, quando vengono inviati alla casa del ricevitore per complimentare o per interesse particolare, li riceve nel modo che si trova ancora in veste di camera, almeno però a meza scala, dandoli la mano e da sedere o in camera d’udienza o in camera propria, non potendo mai in questo essere tassatto nella cortesia con la quale può sempre rendersi ogn’uno maggiormente obligato. Se il ricevitore poi serve nella gondola propria qualche cavagliere forastiere, si trata secondo la nascita, conditione, e dignità, et essendo questi di qualche consideratione e sfera grande, se li dà la mano; ma con li cavaglieri del habito, per l’honorevolezza del posto, facendo all’hora figura di superiore, si tiene la mano. Circa alli tratamenti per le visite alli sodetti cavaglieri, queli dell’habito si ricevono alla scala col mantello e spada [fol. 396r] e si accompagnano alla porta; gli altri, se sono fregiati di qualche carico o honore riguardevole, si ricevono verso mettà della scala e s’accompagnano nel modo predetto, e questo si pratica anche con li cavaglieri gran croce. In seguito alle visite si devono aggiongere quelle del Natale, facendo la prima a Sua Serenità, che si fa duoi o tre giorni avvanti le feste in forma solenne, e poi nel istesso modo quelle degli altri ministri, che essendo di mero compimento, si potrebbe variare l’ordine senza riguardo di preminenza verunna col andare prima o dal signor ambasciator di Francia o da quello di Spagna, poi da quello del imperatore e dal nontio o in altro modo, il che si lascia alla prudenza e buona condota del ministro e secondo le congionture, nelle quali per evitar maggior inconvenienti si potesse praticar questo mezo termine, e queste visite non vengono restituite dalli signori ambasciatori. Essendovi delle ambasciatrici, sogliono li ricevitori andarle a visitare più spesso o più di rado conforme vede essere agradita la sua persona e della sugetione, che più o meno conosce darli. Havendo finito il ricevitore il suo regimento, deve portarsi in Senato a prendere la sua buona licenza, e poi successivamente dagli ambasciatori nel modo che si va in Coleggio alla corte de quali nella restitutione che li sarrà fatta della visita si fanno altri simili rinfreschi come per l’ingresso. 122

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Per mantenere e coltivare quella buona corispondenza così necessaria e proficua in tutte l’occorenze, sì della Religione che proprie, suole una volta almeno al [fol. 396v] mese visitare privatamente li signori ambasciatori, et anco più spesso se si vede dalli medemi agradito et accolto con ochio benigno. Capitolo terzo Notizie concernenti il servitio della veneranda camera Sin adesso essendomi espresso in ciò che è comune all’avvantaggio della Religione, decoro della carica, e riputatione del ministro, per ultimo aduno quelle pocche notitie che rimangono per mero servitio del Tesoro che deve essere lo scuopo principale del ministro. Nel esserli dirette lettere di cambio che se li debbano pagare in Venetia, le manderà a far accettare prima che parte la posta per dove li pervengono per dare il necessario avviso a chi le manda, e poi secondo l’uso del pagamento che vedrà denotato in una stampa aparte, proprio d’ogni paese, manderà doppo detto tempo tre o quatro giorni a riceverne la sodisfatione, acciò prima de terminare il sesto giorno, che è il rispetto che concede la Republica possa conseguirla, il che non seguendo sarà tenuto farne levare il protesto perché, succedendo che falise il mercante, sarebbe a peso proprio del ricevitore e non più di quello havesse trasmesso o fatta la polizza sudetta, che però come materia delicata merita molta vigilanza e tanto maggiore quanto maggiore sarà la summa, e capitando le polizze le farà registrare in un suo libro a parte, e nel margine notarà di sua mano il giorno che fu sodisfatto o in dinari o in banco, e poi farà calare le partite al libro d’introito col Tesoro e a quello de debitori diversi se saranno per conto di particolari. [fol. 397r] Praticherà parimente la medema pontualità per le Prate che da altri le venissero fatte col sodisfarle nel termine prescritto per non lasciar corere li protesti, non solo in pregiudicio del interesse grave ne pattirebbe la Religione ma più il decoro della medema. Dell’esigenze delli crediti del Tesoro, massime delle responsioni, quando vi sarà alcun comendatore che sij tardo al pagamento, avvicinandosi la festa di San Giovanni li ricorderà il suo dovere e non conseguendo la dovuta sodisfatione nell’anno susseguente dell’altre responsioni, senza aspetar altro ordine di Malta, deve farli sequestrare la comenda. Circa il debito che deve la Republica Serenissima alla Religione delli ducati doi milla e quatrocento in circa, se bene il fu ricevitore Gherardi al tempo che fu intimato ai creditori di dar in nota i loro crediti habbia fatto notar la partita; riuscirà però difficile l’esigenza senza qualche favorevole congiontura, e gli eccellentissimi signori savij di settimana siano molto benevoli, massime quello della scrittura; onde circa ciò bisogna che sia la prudenza del ministro che si vaglia dell’occasione. In ordine alli spoglij conviene caminare con molta delicatezza, perché nel suo dominio la Republica non li ammette quando li parenti oppongono; è però vero 123

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che, se il religioso farà le dovute dispositioni, in vigore di quelle la Religione conseguirà ciò che havrà ordinato il testatore. Per quello riguarda i privileggij delle comende, è bene di vedere di superare il tutto col favore de protetori e mezi apresso li rettori e ministri delle città e luoghi [fol. 397v] dove vengono inferite le medeme molestie e, fuori per ultimo refugio, non riccorere al Coleggio, perché come cose odiose al loro interesse sotto prettesto di comettere l’informationi alli tribunali inferiori et alli rettori e ministri non se ne vede mai la conclusione, benché in cose chiarissime cercando dalli ministri d’andare sempre usurpando non volendo parere d’haver messi novi agravij alli beni della Religione, ma piutosto se fosse possibile che insensibilmente andassero da sé cadendo perché sucesso una volta qualche atto pregiudiciale alli medemi, è certo che l’ultimo loro esempio è quello che ha vigore e non gli antecedenti, procedendo in buona parte tali disordini dall’absenza di comendatori, dove gli affituali per essere del paese cercano il loro solo interesse e trascurano l’altri. E per lasciar anche un poco di barlume circa la compra delle robbe che occorono per servitio del Tesoro, non potendosene dar ferma regola mentre le mercantie salterano e sminuiscono di prezzo secondo le congionture, sarà consignato un mio libro a parte al successore, nel quale vi è notato il costo della maggior parte delle robbe proviste da’ miei antecessori per la Religione da dieci anni in qua, il che, come si è detto, servirà solo per una semplice notitia o sia infarinatura per non prendere equivochi, e vi troverà anche notato le longhezze d’ogni sorte di legname, come la loro grosezza, benché in questo ho esperimentato qualche svario, essendo meno di larghezza di quello vengono denotate, poiché le tavole di sopra brazzo [fol. 398r] l’ho trovate solo essere in Venetia di oncie 15 in 16, e le tavogliere sopra le 18; sarà pure consignata una scatola con ogni mostra di chiodi e feramenti con i suoi numeri acciò nelle comissioni non segua equivoco al Tesoro nel darle, né il ministro in eseguirle, tanto per la qualità quanto per la bontà della robba. Vi sono due sorti di pesi alla grossa et alla sottile; alla sottile si pesano tutte le droghe, cere, et altre robbe sottili: 170 di quele libre fanno 265 sottili o sia quintaro di Malta. Nelle comissioni delle robbe che occoreranno per servitio della Religione, il ministro procurarà che li signori del Tesoro anticipino gli ordini il più che puono per dar tempo di servirli non solo di robba perfetta e buona ma anche per riguardo del prezzo, perché sapendosi dalli mercanti la premura oltre che obligano a pigliare quello che vogliono dare, nel prezzo poi dimandano spropositi massi ne’ bordonali di Larese di circa piedi 50 e di 12 oncie, che sono li più desiderati in Malta e scarsi da trovarsi in Venetia.

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I There were two major prize-courts on Hospitaller Malta. The Tribunale degli Armamenti had been set up in 1605 to organise, regulate, and supervise the activity of corsairs generally flying the eight-pointed Cross of the Order of St John. No corsair, according to the new code of regulations constituting the Tribunal, could fit out at Malta under cover of a foreign flag – a prohibition more honoured in the breach than the observance. To reverse decisions from this court, appeal could be made first to the local Tribunale dell’Udienza, and thence, through the Roman Inquisition on the island, to the Papal court at Rome. The second prize-court, the Consolato del Mare, established in 1697, was originally intended for litigation over normal maritime commerce. It was soon conveniently allowed to develop, parallel to the Tribunale degli Armamenti, into a prize-court to hear cases concerning corsairs flying the Magistral flag, which the grand master issued to privateers in his capacity as the Sovereign Prince of the island. As a lay court there could be no appeal to Rome, a clear symptom of the Magistracy’s tendency towards absolutism. With the unabating pressure from the papacy which, as the ultimate head of the Hospital, fiercely questioned the validity of the grand master’s argument, the Maltese corsairs needed far greater protection than either of the two local prize-courts could in fact offer them. Sometime during the first quarter of the eighteenth century, a novel practice emerged. With the certain connivance of the grand master, a number of chargés d’affaires on the island, particularly those representing the diplomatic interests of Spain, Tuscany, Sardinia, Monaco, and later Russia, began to issue flags to corsairs on behalf of their respective sovereign. Cases concerning prizes made under cover of such flags were then heard before these Minsters, who were always professed, high-ranking members of the Order. They heard evidence and gave verdicts. None of the local tribunals, nor the papal court at Rome, could claim jurisdiction over such litigation. Appeals from judgements reached at these courts could be lodged, at no small expense, directly to Paris, Turin, or Madrid. But then, if the corsair was found at fault and his prize illegitimate, the Minister could not guarantee the immediate execution of the verdict as he had no other DOI: 10.4324/9781003406518-8

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jurisdiction in Malta outside his court. In practice, such verdicts were hardly better than legal fiction. The creation of these courts was a wily subterfuge employed, first, to weaken insidiously what had by then become the traditional practice of Orthodox Greeks to resort to Rome for protection; secondly, to neutralise the effects of the increasingly relentless papal intervention; and, thirdly, to conceal the Magistracy’s tacit determination to sustain the industry to which the Maltese economy had long been geared. On numerous occasions in the second half of the eighteenth century, these foreign ministerial courts on Malta were called on to adjudicate the conflicting claims which arose when a ship belonging to a Venetian subject from Corfu, Zante, Santa Maura, Cephalonia, Cerigo, or Cerigotto was captured or plundered by corsairs operating from Malta under cover of a foreign flag. These tribunals, especially that of Monaco, have been defined by a contemporary as entirely arbitrary, independent of all other Hospitaller institutions, and falling outside the reach of the laws of the land. They soon earned for themselves the reputation of purposely allowing litigation to drag on indefinitely. Everything had to be dealt with in writing, and there was no means at anyone’s disposal to speed up proceedings. No measures could be taken to constrain the powers of the Minister, who, through his representative character, enjoyed (in practice more than in theory) complete immunity. Wilful delay in pronouncing judgement had become the norm. On one occasion the Resident Venetian Huomo della Repubblica on the island provided insight into the nature of the ministerial court for Monaco: ‘I have here to deal with a Tribunal where no statutes regulate proceedings, where no deadlines exist, and where everything depends on the Minister’s caprice’1. The whole system was devious. Towards the end of 1756 the Bailiff Fra Paul Antoine de Viguer of the Langue of Provence was dismissed as chargé d’affaires for Monaco. His sole interest in that capacity had been his own personal gain, allowing corsairs, like the two brothers Paolo and Michele Marassi, to enjoy whatever was left of the spoils, once his share had been secured. The Prince of Monaco, whom he represented on the island, was denied his diritto di bandiera, while the armateurs – those who financed and promoted the privateers’ ventures – and their pressing creditors were blatantly deprived of their legitimate dues. De Viguer was replaced by the Bailiff de Saint-Simon, who appeared determined to spare the Venetians any further hardship, on the principle that justice delayed was justice denied. The brief he held from the Prince of Monaco was to clear up all pending cases. He later claimed to have warned all armateurs operating under his principality’s flag to distance themselves from prohibited Venetian waters. The promising aspirations augured by the change of minster were a false impression. The change was too superficial to uproot the inherent, structural flaws of the 1 See In the Service of the Venetian Republic. Massimiliano Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s Letters from Malta to Venice’s Magistracy of Trade, 1754–1776, ed. Victor Mallia-Milanes (Malta, 2008), Letter XXV, p. 182.

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system. Even to conceal them for long was difficult. It was too deeply ingrained in the structure of everyday life at the port of Hospitaller Malta for any minister to modify, however strongly willed and well-meaning. De Viguer and Saint-Simon were in fact as much victims of the system as were the poor Venetians. Saint-Simon was too ‘utterly inexperienced to assume the responsibility of a ‘judge’ in matters involving ‘corsair wolves’. His own advisors owed their very living to corsairs or were directly dependent on other interested parties. In 1761 the Venetian Minister on Hospitaller Malta complained that, although Saint-Simon held under his care all that could be mortgaged of corsair Marassi’s effects on the island – i.e., the sum the chargé d’affaires had recovered from the sale of Marassi’s ship, armaments, and equipment and from the sale of forty slaves which had belonged to the corsair – he was still reluctant to compensate any of the Venetian subjects, notwithstanding the decision reached in their favour. In a very intimate way, too suspiciously intimate to promote plausible allegations of close collaboration, the method adopted at these foreign ministerial courts reflected the corsairs’ own method of operation whenever these were involved in litigation: to employ exasperatingly delaying tactics in order to drag their adversaries into such exorbitant expenses that they would be eventually constrained, by the sheer force of necessity, to give up their stance altogether. No wonder, the Venetians had a strong, if perhaps erroneous, conviction of their own futility, and wished they had never sailed out of their island home in the Levant. Indeed, at moments they were determined to abandon their claims, had it not been for the Venetian Huomo’s endeavour to restore their geniality and sense of security through his perseverance and moral support and by providing them with a little comfort in the form of temporary material assistance. Convinced of their invulnerability, corsairs in Malta knew that no rules, however rigorous, could in the short or long term halt their steady progress towards impunity. It was precisely this devious practice, this method of coercion, that Massimiliano Buzzaccarini Gonzaga was resolved to defy on assuming the office of Venice’s Huomo on the island in 1754, not perhaps without a profound sense of scepticism. These court proceedings were expensive and notoriously time-consuming. In August 1755 Buzzaccarini Gonzaga wrote to the Cinque Savii to inform them that a date had been fixed for the definizione (or settlement) of Dimitrio Francopulo’s case. The records of the whole proceedings had been ‘for quite some time’ in the hands of the Bailiff de Viguer. Buzzaccarini Gonzaga described Francopulo, spoiled by one Nicolò Pavonich, originally a Venetian armateur from the Bocche, as a broken man, physically exhausted, and financially bankrupt by the high costs of maintaining himself on an island where prices were rising at an alarming pace compared to what they had been like in the recent past. When the appointed day arrived, new conflicting issues were raised to delay proceedings. Depressed at his isolation, Francopulo had been constantly seeking Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s permission to depart; ‘to which,’ confessed Buzzaccarini Gonzaga, ‘I shall accede the moment I realize that judgement is again postponed, which I hold for certain that it would within a day or two.’ From the very start, Francopulo’s case had been dealt

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with very reluctantly by de Vigeur. By November 1755 there were no signs of settlement, nor any inclination on the part of the Minister to bring the case to an end. I wouldn’t know [confessed Buzzaccarini Gonzaga] what to expect from a Minister with strong personal interests in all these affairs, from one who is himself the arbiter of all things, and who is not held answerable to anyone. To attempt to constrain him would prove futile, unless stricter regulations are issued by the Prince of Monaco himself. On 10 May 1756, the verdict had not yet been pronounced. Behind these delaying tactics lay a plausible reason which perhaps explained the Minister’s unwillingness to reach a settlement. The root cause lay squarely in the fact that all the funds deposited in the Cassa degli Armamenti had been capriciously exhausted, and seeing that the appellants’ arguments were indisputable, the Minister was neither inclined, nor in any financially sound position to meet the expenses required to satisfy Francopulo. The authorities, explained Buzzaccarini Gonzaga, were therefore doing their utmost to avoid the remotest possibility of an appeal, which they feared very likely to be made from their judgement, to the Prince of Monaco’s Court in Paris. This would unavoidably unmask their intrigues and all the flaws of their administration, particularly those which had denied even the Prince of Monaco himself of any gains which were by right his due. And what surer and more skilful way of denying all chances of appeal than by postponing the final verdict indefinitely? There was of course another alternative, with an equally callous disregard for justice – to uphold the claimant’s cause, denounce the corsair’s depredation as illegitimate, and regret that, owing to lack of resources, compensation was neither feasible nor possible. And even if funds were in fact available, compensation would still have to be withheld if the ‘maligned’ corsair gave notice of appeal, rendering the whole process interminable and at the same time lending it a modicum of credibility. Francopulo experienced all this ordeal. The moment his adversaries filed their appeal, Buzzaccarini Gonzaga sought to bind the corsairs with an adequate pleggeria, or security. His request was turned down. It was not the normal practice adopted by that Tribunal. Francopulo left Malta towards the end of July 1756 to seek direct protection from the Cinque Savii. Looking back at the issue twelve years later, Buzzaccarini Gonzaga recalled that Francopulo had been reduced to extreme misery, owing in part to the several expensive voyages he had had to undertake to Malta, Venice, and Paris in the vain hope of recovering what had been twice declared (in Malta and in Paris) as his rightful compensation, notwithstanding a decree issued by the Prince of Monaco ordering its immediate execution. The validity and relevance of Francopulo’s case lay largely upon its typicality. His was just one of several other reasonably similar cases. Giorguizzo Ulisma and Steffano Conduri, both met an almost identical fate. So did Lucca Cannona and Giorgio Xidia, Anastasio Valsamachi, Anthimo Calichiopolo, and Gregorio Collega, Zaffirj Gunari, Antonio Cafale, and a host of others, whose list can be stretched indefinitely. Although by 1761 nearly all of Marassi’s Venetian victims had had a favourable verdict at the courts of Malta or Paris, none of them ever received anything in 128

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return, as the funds were reported to have been effectively ‘consumed or dispersed’. In the world of pirates, brigands, or privateers, there were always powerful difficulties to be conveniently created; everything, however ruthless or unscrupulous, was allowed, Fernand Braudel very accurately points out, so long as it succeeded. It was deeply ingrained in the tradition of the Mediterranean world, and the Venetian subjects in Hospitaller Valletta were among the victims of this tradition. Nor was there anyone on the island to answer for their misfortunes. Michele Marassi had escaped on board the papal galleys, and his brother Paolo never returned, leaving all his creditors bitterly poised between hope and infinite despair.

II The hardships sustained by Venetian subjects at the port of Hospitaller Malta may not be entirely attributed to the corsairs’ method of operation, or to the system which was allowed to prevail on the island. In his early correspondence, Buzzaccarini Gonzaga described these poor creatures, whom he had found living in misery and want, as ‘an unhappy lot’, whom he could not help as promptly as he would have desired. These generally proceeded to Malta either ‘without any legal, authentic papers’ in support of their claims, or with records that did not faithfully correspond to the evidence they wished to produce. They sailed to the Hospitaller port from distant lands, covered solely with copies of documents and ‘loose sheets’, which were of hardly any legal relevance either to convince li depredatori, or ‘to coerce the Minister from whom they awaited judgement’. These documents could have been obtained prior to their departure from the Procuratore General da Mar or the Venetian Procuratore stationed at Cephalonia. This way they would have spared themselves all the unnecessary expenses and waste of precious time in undertaking extra voyages to the Levant. They would have also spared themselves the unnecessary delay which their adversaries were ever so eager to exploit. The case of Giorgio Xidia, from Zante, a victim of the two corsairs operating from Malta under the flag of the Prince of Monaco – Gio. Bigliardelli (known as Mosca) and Angelo Luri – was a classic example. He was attacked on his voyage from Salonicco to Constantinople on board un bastimento Maronito, chartered at Salonicco at public expense. On the ship were forty Janissaries for Constantinople. On sighting enemy corsairs, the Janissaries took command of the ship, hoisted the Turkish flag, and ordered the crew and passengers to move into the hold. The ship was forced to approach the land. Everyone managed to escape, except for one woman and Giorgio Xidia. The latter showed the corsairs his pass, issued by the Venetian consul at Salonicco, which they ignored. He was spoiled of all the merchandise and forcibly kept on board until he agreed to sign a declaration, formulated by the corsairs themselves, that he was a Turkish subject and had no claims to make. On being set free, he filed an official report of the incident at the neighbouring Venetian consulate and again with Antonio Diedo, the Venetian Bailo at Constantinople. The case happened in October 1753. He arrived in Malta to initiate proceedings in August 1755. On examination, the papers which Xidia was about to produce as supporting evidence did not correspond to the facts. He was showing documents belonging 129

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to merchants from whom he had bought his lost merchandise. Such documents would have been excellent, but they showed that his goods had been bought in September 1754, a year after his ship had been looted. All his other papers were as defective. The customs certificate of Salonicco, for example, did not carry the date of embarkation of the merchandise. ‘I would believe this to be a simple error,’ explained Buzzaccarini Gonzaga, suspecting Giorgio Xidia of no wilful malicious intent; ‘nonetheless,’ he wrote the Cinque Savii, ‘I cannot advance his claim [with much conviction] before he procures the right documentation.’ While Xidia was away in search of more accurate supporting evidence, judgement was pronounced in the corsair’s favour, against which an appeal was filed in Paris. His case was still pending in 1768. Shortly before leaving Malta for Padua for personal and family reasons in the spring of that year, Buzzaccarini Gonzaga claimed that Xidia’s case would have probably been brought effectively to an end, had not Saint-Simon allowed himself to be carried away by the false testimonies submitted by the Greek consul on Malta, Giuseppe Luri, the corsair’s own brother. The situation became even more complicated with the passage of years. Angelo Luri, bankrupt, had managed to escape from the island, and Mosca, the second corsair involved, fared hardly any better. Like Anastasio Valsamachi, Steffano Conduri was unable to initiate immediate court proceedings ‘for lack of any evidence in support of his claim,’ except for a certificate from the Venetian Procuratore General da Mar, testifying his nationality and the damages he had sustained. He owned no other documents to prove either the nature of his cargo or its value, which he claimed to be in the region of 400 Zecchini. Lucca Cannona, too, arrived in Malta without any documents in his possession, in the hope they would be dispatched to him by his attorney, Spiro Valgianitti, in Venice. It is sad, writes the Huomo della Repubblica, ‘to see these miserabili incurring more and more expenses without any hope of profit ever coming their way.’ At times, whenever circumstances permitted, they were exempted from such expenses as those involved in the copying of papers, translations, and the lawyer’s fee. Cannona wasted five futile months stranded in Malta, spending his time, efforts, and money fruitlessly awaiting the arrival of his Costituto or Prova di Fortuna, his bill of lading, his letters-patent, and a host of other documents from Venice. They never came, nor was his cause ever initiated at court. In February 1756 he sailed back home to fetch the documents himself but never returned, fearing presumably the exorbitant expenses he would have had to incur with no real hope of ever being compensated.

III There were occasions when Venetians, on arrival at the port of Hospitaller Malta on ships of diverse nationalities, chose to desert. The delights of the aristocratic city life of Valletta – which was famous for other things besides duels and prayers – must have proved too tempting an inducement for the young and unwary sailor, 130

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like Baldasser Palese, the reckless Venetian from Capo d’Istria, or the Slav Giorgio Dosovich, who married the daughter of the corsair Captain Mosca, or indeed Paolo Andovano, a native of Cephalonia. He too had married a Maltese girl and immediately embarked with the pirate Captain Pietro. But the prospects of gain, plunder, and booty, regarded as their legitimate rewards on engaging on a privateer, offered perhaps a far greater temptation to the poorly fed, to the irregularly paid. On an island where new recruits were in constant demand among local and foreign corsairs, this was as dangerous an attraction to deserters in search of earning a livelihood as to those stranded on Malta, idly awaiting the outcome of their litigation, languishing in solitude, anguish, and misery, away from their homes and families for months, sometimes even years, on end. The presence of Venetians at the harbour area, in desperate struggle for survival, was a potential source of social discord. Surviving records permit the compilation of an ample catalogue of frequent violence. Fra Alviero Zacco, who in 1768 had temporarily taken over as chargé d’ affaires in Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s absence, was disgusted by the behaviour of Angelo Pellizzari, a native of Corfu. It was the latter’s second sojourn on Malta. His first had left behind a great deal of acrimony. Restless, unfeeling, indifferent to reproach, and with nothing to do, his stay on the island, like that of several other Venetian subjects, became a nuisance. He frequented wine taverns, where one day a dispute erupted between him and a Greek subject of the Ottoman Empire, after a remark the Greek made on the four tari which Pellizzari allegedly owed him. To escape arrest on grounds of increasing debts, he had to seek refuge in the church of Saint Theresa. Disturbances such as this were ‘everyday’ occurrences, though not all Venetians were as unruly as Pellizzari. Some, like Zuanne Bartolatti from Mestre, Agostino Roberto from Bassano, and Costantin Salomon, would voluntarily seek the Minister’s help to regain their freedom, after having been unwittingly caught up in the trap. But others would defy all warnings to the contrary, refusing to give up their newly-found employment, like the five Venetian members of corsair Andrea Cuivi’s crew, or the three on Paolo Marassi’s vessel. Once stubborn deserters could be traced and identified, the Minister would order their arrest to be held in prison, safely out of reach of the corsairs ‘snares’ albeit at ‘exorbitant expenses’, until the arrival of the first Venetian ship. This could take months, as Venetian ships calling at the Hospitaller port in the mid-eighteenth century, on which deserted sailors could be trusted, were few and far between; those of other nationalities generally declined to assume the responsibility.

IV By the late 1760s the disturbances created by the flags of Sardinia and Monaco seemed to have disappeared, or at least the corsairs operating with either of them were not as active as they used to be a decade earlier. In August 1767, Buzzaccarini Gonzaga referred to them as a thing of the past. He was writing of a new source of trouble which might well develop, he warned, into a formidable force of 131

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apprehension to Venice, her trade, and her subjects in the Levant. A xebec, flying the Corsican flag and sailing under convoy of a Maltese brigantine, was scouring the richly rewarding Levantine waters under the command of Giovanni Battista Peres, a native of Corsica, itself an island refuge of bandits. Peres was navigating under two passports, one issued by General de Paoli, the Corsican revolutionary leader, to prey upon the hated Genoese, the second by other Corsican officials to scour the Levant. What motivated Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s fear was that this isolated MalteseCorsican venture not only involved a number of Venetian subjects; it betrayed the complicity of the local authorities in what could have appeared to them the revival of a potential source of prosperity which generally always attended the development of Corsair warfare. On his return voyage, at a distance of 70 miles from Corfu, Giovanni Battista Peres encountered a martingao of Missilonghi, chartered by Basilio Glessi, a Venetian merchant on his way to Leghorn, accompanied by five other Venetian subjects and a cargo of wool and cheese. The corsair succeeded in turning these into a good prize, notwithstanding their bills of lading and the production of passes and other certificates under the seal of Cesare Messala, the Venetian consul at Patras. On the corsair’s arrival in Malta, Buzzaccarini Gonzaga ordered the Venetian consul on the island, Antonio Poussielgue, who was also consul for Corsica in Malta, to instruct Peres to have all the Venetians and their merchandise disembarked in the Lazaretto. That same night, under the protection of darkness, the corsair dispatched the martingao to Leghorn to be sold with all the Venetians and their goods on board. It was not only difficult but almost impossible for a decision like that, taken so promptly and executed so efficiently, to have been realised without the full knowledge of the Hospitaller Government. The move was perhaps a political necessity. Being caught up in a diplomatic squabble with Genoa at this point would have been too embarrassing for Grand Master Pinto with whom negotiations had been under way since 1763 to incorporate Corsica with Hospitaller property. On the other hand, the innate enthusiasm for the corso appears to have been rekindled among the Maltese armateurs. Indeed, contrary to what some historians would have us believe, the activity of corsairs operating from Malta in the Levant during these years continued to grow to an alarming scale. In open collaboration with the local armateurs, the Corsican Peres was getting everything ready for the next season – frigate, crew, and all – presumably endeavouring to join forces against common preys in the Archipelago. Meanwhile, the audacious Francesco di Natale was scouring the Levant under cover of the Corsican flag, occasionally sending several effects and slaves as enticing samples of his successes back to his base in Valletta, where ‘the market in human beings,’ Braudel reminds us, ‘was the speciality of Malta’. Among the first casualties of these forays were a wineladen ship and a merchant from Zante. Was it too fanciful, then, for an accurate observer like Buzzaccarini Gonzaga to express deep concern over such sensitive developments, when these developments showed all the necessary ingredients for reviving the phobia of the past? 132

VIII PROPERTY, PIRACY, AND PUGNACITY Reflections on Venice’s attitude towards the order of the Hospital in early modern times

By the time the Order of the Hospital of St John reached Malta in 1530, it had grown into a wealthy institution because it had for long possessed extensive landed resources throughout Europe. ‘Land, in a pre-industrial society,’ we are told, ‘was the source of . . . all wealth’.1 Acquired partly through donations from its early days, and partly through occasional new acquisitions over the years, these vast and generally secure holdings were indispensable to the performance of the Hospital’s mission and its survival. For a more efficient administration, they were grouped into priories in harmony with the determining forces of geography, language, and regional culture, with each priory composed of a number of smaller units, known as preceptories or commanderies. Most of these were leased to third parties to create sufficient funds in the form of responsions, a fixed percentage of their net annual income, to finance all their activities – from the religious to the naval and the military, and from the spiritual to the political and the charitable. Moreover, they sustained the livelihood of the entire brotherhood. It was in these preceptories that new members were recruited; it was to these centres that elder brethren retired.2 Moreover, these responsions kept the fortress of Malta in a state of valid defence as they had done with the Order’s fortresses in the Latin East and on Rhodes and helped the institution to maintain a splendid and impressive representation at all the major princely courts in Europe. Immune from dominance of both diocesan and secular authorities, this colossal network of estates gave the Hospital international relevance:3 it helped it grow from a humble charitable institution in the 1070s to one of great privilege and influence and whose service benefitted a wide cross section of the society of which the Hospitallers formed part. It did not demonstrate, as detractors and some historians are inclined to claim (with hardly 1 See Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Wendy Davis and Paul Fourscore (Cambridge, 1995), p. 2. 2 See Anthony Luttrell, ‘The Hospitallers of Rhodes at Treviso, 1373’, in Mediterraneo Medievale: Scritti in onore di Francesco Giunta, 2 (Soveria Manelli, 1989), pp. 755–775: 755. 3 Ibid., p. 6.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003406518-9

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any convincing supporting evidence), that over the very long term the institution became so enmeshed in worldly affairs that it neglected its original mission. The ‘holy poor’, the sick, and a professed endeavour to contain militant Islam and to prevent the spread of diseases such as the plague remained its focus. Part of these extensive Hospitaller estates lay in Venice and her mainland territories. The present chapter will seek to understand why and how Venice exploited these Hospitaller lands in response to the disorderly and unruly activity of Western pirates and privateers in the Levant, including the Knights Hospitaller and their Maltese subjects. Piracy and privateering disrupted peaceful trade and commerce, the economic lifeblood of the Republic. In April 1627 the three Venetian Consultori in Jure drew up a report in which they defined, rather sketchily, the territorial extent of the Grand Priory of Venice. According to their report, the priory extended ‘from as far south as Rimini, embraced the entire Friuli, stretched as far as half way down the Lago di Garda, and passed through Mantua, Parma, and Bologna, comprising all the cities that lay within these confines.’4 These consultori were legal experts who the Venetian Republic elected from its various magistracies to give their opinion on certain important political issues;5 and to be able to do so, they were given access to the Secreta, the Republic’s highly protected secret political archives.6 The number of commanderies constituting the Grand Priory of Venice ranged from 21 in 1533 to 27 in 1776, because, from time to time, certain commanderies, for reasons of ‘little value’ (poco valore) and ‘poor yield’ (debole entrata), were joined together, others were divided to form separate entities.7 The Order’s statutes allowed the updating exercise, carried out at irregular intervals.8 Neither Reggio, for example, nor Borgo San Donnino features in the 1533 property estimate. They start appearing from 1583. In 1533 Rovigo and Sacile-Pordenone appear as two separate commanderies. In 1583 they feature as one. Then in the 1736 and 1776 records, they again appear as two distinct preceptories. There are other similar instances. The legal consultants’ definition of the priory focused solely on its geographical extent. Viewed solely through this definition, the real 4 ASVen, Consultori in Jure, busta 58, fol.19r. On the three Consultori, A. Da Mosto, L’Archivio di Stato di Venezia (Rome, 1937–40), vol. i, p. 179. See also Antonella Barzazi, ‘Consultori in Jure e feudalità nella prima metà del Seicento: L’opera di Gasparo Lonigo’, in Stato, società e giustizia nella Repubblica veneta (sec. XV-XVIII), ed. G. Cozzi, vol. ii (Rome, Jouvence, 1985), pp. 221–251. 5 Antonella Barzazi calls them ‘illustri giurisperiti,’ elected to provide the Republic with ‘pareri su contrasti con altre communità mercantili . . . et altre importanti questioni di stato.’Antonella Barzazi, ‘I consultori in iure’, in Storia della cultura veneta, ed. G. Arnaldi and M. Pastore Stocchi, vol. v/ii: Il Settecento (Vicenza, 1986), pp. 179–199, 179. 6 Filippo de Vivo, Information and Communication in Venice: Rethinking Early Modern Politics (Oxford, 2007), p. 53. 7 See Anthony Luttrell, ‘The Hospitaller Priory of Venice in 1331’, in id., The Hospitaller State on Rhodes and Its Western Provinces, 1306–1462 (Aldershot, 1999), paper XVIII, especially p. 102. 8 See Volume che contiene gli Statuti della Sacra Religione Gerosolimitana; le Ordinazioni dell’ultimo Capitolo Generale . . . In Borgo Novo, Marchesato di Roccaforte MDCCXIX, p. 188, no. 41.

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physical spread of the priory offers a different picture, an endlessly wide vista of disparate estates. Each commandery was composed of a number of members, and its property included imposing country palaces and villas, churches, chapels, and oratories, clusters of inhabited houses and other scattered structures, generally cultivated fields, farms, and stables. There were mills and salt-pans and lime-kilns, orchards, gardens, and vineyards.9 Hospitaller commanderies varied in size, character, and wealth. Some were urban, others rural; others still were composed of both types of estate.10 Some of the Venetian authorities themselves were unaware of the nature and extent of these holdings. It was in 1741, as a result of the sequestro of that year, that Girolamo Gradenigo, the Venetian rettore of the Friuli, discovered (‘sono venuto in lume,’ he confessed) that three Hospitaller commanderies lay within his jurisdiction.11 The legal consultants’ report came after a series of sequestri the Senate had imposed on this same property. The sequestro was the Republic’s confiscation of these lands and the forcible seizure of other Hospitaller assets. Behind each of these measures, taken invariably in retaliation for the harm allegedly done by Hospitaller galleys or Maltese corsair vessels in Levantine waters surrounding Venice’s stato da mar, lay the Republic’s pugnacious determination to defend the freedom and security of her trade, sustain rather anxiously her very delicate and fragile relations with the Ottoman Porte, and therefore to contain the Hospital’s obstreperous and defiant aggressiveness in the Levant. On one of these occasions, in 1584, this mutual combative disposition of both Venice and the Hospital, characteristic of their traditionally inimical relationship, led to direct warlike confrontation. First, the Senate voted a whole series of hostile measures – the confiscation of all Hospitaller estates on Venetian territory, the dismissal of Hospitallers on the playlist of the Republic, their immediate expulsion from Venice, and the interdiction of all forms of correspondence between the two States.12 All Hospitallers and Maltese subjects would be treated as pirates.13 The Order’s Council responded by authorising Grandmaster Hughes Loubenx de Verdalle to take whatever action he considered necessary. He instructed the captain-general of his galley squadron to sail out in search of Venetian vessels and conduct them to Malta, if necessary by force.14 A similar drama was again performed, perhaps on a grander scale, in 1741. The history of the Grand Priory’s relations with the Most Serene Republic in early modern times is in part the story of that notably large branch of Mediterranean 9 Elizabeth Schermerhorn, ‘Notes on the Commanderies of the Grand Priory of Venice before the Expulsion of the Sovereign Military Order of St John from Malta’, Archivum Melitense, ix, 3 (1934), pp. 93–136, 103. 10 Luttrell, ‘The Hospitaller Priory of Venice’, p. 103 and passim. 11 Victor Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta 1530–1798: Aspects of a Relationship (Malta, 1992), p. 190. 12 NLM, Library MS 226, fol. 84r; ASVen, Cinque Savii alla Mercanzia, n.s., busta 86, pt.1, fol. 5v. 13 Ibid. 14 NLM, Library MS 226, fol. 84v. For the whole episode, Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta, p. 85 et seq.

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piracy which operated from its base on Hospitaller Malta under cover of the eightpointed cross. The Hospitallers were the prime movers of these operations. Ever since they had set foot on Rhodes, maritime warfare against the enemies of the Christian faith, or the extended spirit of the living crusade, ran thickly through their blood. They participated in formal caravane, or seasonal cruises, on the Order’s galley squadron to gain experience and seniority within their institution; they acted too in their own private capacity on private galleys.15 Also forming part of this striking Mediterranean spectacle were the native Maltese corsairs along with other foreign ponentini16 or westerlings – the whole cast, as it were, defiantly parading Hospitaller crosses, under whose cover they sacked coastal towns and villages, and carried men, women, and children into slavery. For Hospitaller Malta, ‘a veritable corsair-state’ as Anne Brogini defines it,17 this enormous widespread privateering activity was as vital as it was for its ruling regime. It was a lucrative business, yielding substantial profits. In fact, in the seventeenth century alone, through this activity, the island experienced considerable economic growth and prosperity.18 This form of antagonistic relationship spanned over 200 years and was almost uninterrupted from the mid-1530s to the late 1740s. The Venetian Senate confiscated Hospitaller estates within its jurisdiction on eleven different occasions, seven of these instances in the sixteenth century – 1536, 1553, 1554, 1575, 1576, 1584, and 1592. The Order, now on distant Malta, having been evicted from the Aegean, wanted to demonstrate that with the loss of the Dodecanese island, just off the Anatolian coast of Turkey, things did not, would not, change. The Hospitaller crusade against Islam would go on. The frequency of Venetian sanctions against the Order went down to three occasions in the seventeenth century (1641, 1643, 1678), ironically when the corso was at its most active, and only once in the first half of the eighteenth century (1741). Venice’s pugnacity towards the Order of the Hospital was deep-rooted and may well have had its origins in the traditional tension, at times deep antagonism, that existed between ‘the city of the doges and the city of the popes’.19 In her consistent defence of her identity as an autonomous entity, both ethical and religious,20 against

15 For the public/private character of this activity on Hospitaller Malta, Molly Greene, Catholic Pirates and Greek Merchants: A Maritime History of the Mediterranean (Princeton, 2010), pp. 95–97. 16 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, trans. S. Reynolds (London, 1972–73), vol. ii, pp. 877–880; Alberto Tenenti, Piracy and the Decline of Venice, 1580–1615, trans. J. B. Pullan (Oxford, 1967). 17 Anne Brogini, Malte: Frontiere de chrétienté (1530–1670) (Rome, 2006), p. 253. 18 See Peter Earle, Corsairs of Malta and Barbary (London, 1970); also Michel Fontenay, ‘Corsaires de la foi ou rentiers du sol? Les chevaliers de Malte dans le corso méditerranéen au XVIIe siècle’, Revue d’histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, xxx (July–September 1988), pp. 361–384; id., ‘La place de la course dans l’économie portuaire: l’example de Malte et des ports barbaresques’, Annales E.S.C. (1988), pp. 1321–1347. 19 A Companion to Venetian History, 1400–1797, ed. Eric R. Dursteler (London, 2014), p. 403. 20 Ibid., pp. 404–405.

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any intrusion from the pope as head of the universal Church, Venice was bound to come into conflict with Rome. Venice was a Catholic State, but religious scruple came second to State security and commercial interests. She adopted a policy of wide tolerance. With a few restrictions to regulate public order, the Turks were allowed, albeit under close supervision, to live in the city and the rest of the Venetian empire; and so were Jews and the Protestant Northerners.21 Nor was the pope, on the other hand, to be trusted in his capacity as a secular prince, one who ruled over an ambitious and increasingly imperious and authoritarian principality bordering uncomfortably on Venice’s own frontiers. The question of Venice’s stubborn defence of her claim to the city of Ferrara, successfully resisting Clement V and his crusade to secure the city in the early fourteenth century was not an isolated example of the Republic’s confrontation with the papacy.22 In 1509, the Republic defied not only papal Rome under Julius II but the rest of Europe allied in the League of Cambrai – this time in support of her ambitious territorial expansion on the mainland.23 A third instance was the well-known ‘Interdict controversy’ of 1606–1607, when Venice openly challenged the pope’s right to intrude into her internal affairs.24 The three instances involved excommunication, the imposition of the interdict, and Venice’s defiance of both. Venetian patricians attached to the papal court in Rome fell victims to this prevailing spirit of mutual discord and scepticism. They too, according to the Signoria, could not be trusted. Though satisfying long-standing rules of noble birth and age, they were not allowed to hold any magisterial office or occupy a seat in any legislative council: in brief, they were excluded from any participation in the government.25 As the Hospital was a privileged order of the Church, with the pope as its ultimate head, Venetian patricians on admission into that organisation met the same fate of state suspicion. They had to leave the Maggior Consiglio, or the Great Council, whenever Rome or any other matter of an ecclesiastical nature was discussed. This situation offered patricians hardly any stimulating incentive to join the Hospital. Very few in fact joined the Order. Elizabeth Schermerhorn claims that in 1699 there were only two Venetians in the Order, a Cornaro and a Lippomano,26 tracing their birth presumably to the city of Venice proper. Over

21 Ibid., pp. 406–411. Also Stephen Ortega, Negotiating Transcultural Relations in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Ottoman-Venetian Encounters (Surrey, 2014); Benjamin Arbel, Trading Nations: Jews and Venetians in the Early Modern Mediterranean (Leiden, 1995). 22 Roberto Cessi, Storia della Repubblica di Venezia (Milan, 1968), vol. i, pp. 282–287. 23 See, for example, M. E. Mallett, J. R. Hale, The Military Organisation of a Renaissance State: Venice c.1400 to 1617 (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 221–227. Also F. Seneca, Venezia e Papa Giulio II (Padova, 1962); Antonio Bonardi, ‘Venezia e la Lega di Cambrai’, Nuovo archivio veneto, ser. 3, vii (1904), pp. 209–244. 24 See William J. Bouwsma, Venice and the Defence of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation (Berkeley, 1968); Gaetano Cozzi, Il Doge Nicolò Contarini: Ricerche sul patriziato veneziano agli inizi del Seicento (Venezia, 1958); William H. McNeill, Venice: The Hinge of Europe 1081–1797 (Chicago/London, 1974), pp. 192–194. 25 Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta, p. 32. 26 Schermerhorn, ‘Notes on the Commanderies of the Grand Priory of Venice’, p. 93.

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seventy years earlier, in April 1627, a document drawn up by the legal consultants (the Consultori in Jure) had reported that of the 34 Hospitallers ‘in the State of the Republic of Venice,’ only 14 were Venetian.27 This meant that most of the income the Grand Priory yielded was directed towards non-Venetians. It further explains why there were very few Venetian Grand Priors and holders of Hospitaller commanderies in Venice. These were, in brief, the motives that influenced the perception the Adriatic Republic entertained of the Hospitallers, nourishing pugnacity towards them every time the Cinque Savii alla Mercanzia, the Venetian magistracy of trade, received reports from the stato da mar of the intransigent Hospitallers and their defiant galleys in the Levant. This same perception was reflected in, and perhaps conditioned too, the poor state of the consular and diplomatic relations ‘the city of the doges’ sustained with their island order state on both Rhodes and Malta. On the central Mediterranean island consular facilities for Venetian merchants and sailors were utterly inadequate.28 The Maltese consulate in Venice was first set up as late as 1722.29 Until the mid-eighteenth century, that is, until the worst instance of mutual confrontation had been settled, Venice had no resident ambassador or representative on Hospitaller Malta; nor did she have one on Rhodes when the Knights were there.30 On its part, the Order had a resident Receiver in Venice, but he was first and foremost a Common Treasury official, attached to the Grand Priory to look after the Hospital’s financial interests.31 He did formally present his credentials to the Doge before assuming his official duties as Receiver and did represent his Order’s interests at the Ducal court whenever the Senate or College summoned him to do so.32 Was Venice’s attitude towards the Hospital the psychological impact of her political and economic decline? Could it have been in part the outcome of her almost certain knowledge of her gradual descent from her former status of power and supremacy? Did Venice view the Hospitallers of Rhodes and Malta as the hostile and aggressive corsairs who were directly contributing to this irreversible process? Contemporaries sensed, for example, the dislocation which the loss of the island of Negroponte to Mehmet the Conqueror in 1470 would bring to Venice’s

27 28 29 30

ASVen, Consultori in Jure, busta 58, fol. 19r. Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta, p. 32. Ibid., p. 212. Ibid., p. 223. See Victor Mallia-Milanes, ‘A Living Force of Continuity in a Declining Mediterranean: The Hospitaller Order of St John in Early Modern Times’, in Mediterranean Identities: Environment, Society, Culture, ed. Borna Fuerst-Bjeliš (Croatia, 2017), ch. 2, pp. 27–45. 31 See Volume che contiene gli Statuti, p. 66, ‘Dell’ufficio de’ Ricevitori, e Procuratori del nostro Commun Tesoro fouri di Convento’, no. 39. 32 Victor Mallia-Milanes, ‘The Hospitaller Receiver in Venice: A Late Seventeenth-Century Document’, Studi Veneziani, n.s., xliv (2002), pp. 309–326. Also Piero Scarpa, ‘Ricevitori e Rappresentanti dell’Ordine di Malta a Venezia in Epoca Moderna della Esposizioni del Collegio’, Archive Veneto, serie v, vol. clxvi (2006), pp. 191–210.

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trade and commerce.33 ‘If Negroponte is lost,’ observed Girolamo Longo in June that year, the entire empire da mar would fall apart. Domenico Malipiero saw in that loss the abject abasement of Venice’s grandeur.34 Venice’s dignity and pride had indeed been injured. ‘We have been humiliated,’ he confessed.35 Negroponte marked the first definite stage in the process. It was followed by the discomfiting consequences of the League of Cambrai, when the allied European powers went as far as to question Venice’s very right to exist; Cyprus was surrendered in 1573, followed by two catastrophic manifestations of plague; after this a ‘recession of Venetian civilisation’ began to develop;36 only fuelled by competition from Northerners entering the Levantine trade. Crete was lost in 1669 and the Morea at the dawn of the eighteenth century. The loss of Venetian islands and the seizure of its harbours, however great their strategic value, was only one aspect of the Ottoman threat. There was what Roberto Cessi calls a more ‘painful reality’ of the empire’s expansion. Its forceful territorial extension threatened suffocation. Transylvania, Hungary, Austria, Serbia were distressing chapters, as was the extension of the Porte’s sovereignty to Egypt and the principalities on the Maghribi coast. Within this unsettling context, to endeavour to maintain amicable relations with Constantinople was of vital significance for Venice’s survival.37 It was precisely for this reason that the Republic, in a very finely judged manner, cultivated a tradition of non-involvement in any allied anti-Ottoman expedition. Venice’s stunning refusal to offer assistance to the Hospitallers on besieged Rhodes in 1522 was one spectacular example. Her absence at Charles V’s conquest of Tunis in 1535 was another.38 For Venice, moreover, the Ottoman threat and the havoc created by the ponentini were somehow intimately connected. The Porte held Venice responsible: was it possible that her failure to scare effectively the corsairs away betrayed a very subtle sense of covert collaboration with them? The sequestro was a political statement to underscore her denial. Venice was conscious of this general trend and of the potential acceleration of her stato da mar’s progressive shrinking process.39 She was also acutely sensitive to her dwindling international trade. This sad awareness of change for the worse dictated her persistent claims in defence of the freedom and security of trade and commerce, the safety of the seas surrounding her islands. It also 33 Roberto Cessi calls the island ‘principale baluardo del sistema coloniale dell’Egeo’. Storia della Repubblica di Venezia, vol. i, p. 408. 34 D. S. Chambers, The Imperial Age of Venice 1380–1580 (London, 1970), pp. 48–49. ‘La notizia della caduta di Negroponte destò sgomento in Occidente, perchè si giudicò esser – come infatti era – una nuova tappa dell’espansione turca nel Mediterraneo verso i paesi occidentali e un rafforzamento della sua potenza marittima.’ Cessi, vol. i, p. 409. 35 Ibid. 36 Chambers, p. 187. 37 See Cessi, ii, pp. 63, 101. 38 Ibid., p. 101. 39 Greene, p. 99.

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determined her claim to the right of her vessels’ exemption from the visità, or search, and to a guaranteed freedom from seizure40 of her men and goods, whatever their faith and ownership. These factors inspired her truculent attitude to piracy. It was these factors which decisively informed her pugnacious response to Hospitaller privateering in the Levant. Venice could not retaliate against the attacks performed by the Knights on Malta in the same way it had done for similar acts by the Knights on Rhodes – by a naval assault on the island.41 Rhodes was nearer home. Malta was too distant from her stato da mar and too uncomfortably close to Habsburg Sicily with whom relations were traditionally far from cordial. In such circumstances the seizure of Hospitaller assets lying within Venetian territory offered perhaps an understandably logical solution to take by way of retribution. But the Republic went even beyond that. After her 1553 confrontation with the Hospital, Venice was constrained to extend further these same forces motivating her aggressive stand to defend the interests of her merchants – to protect those merchants and goods belonging to subjects of the Ottoman empire sailing on board her vessels or navigating her territorial waters. The Levant, where her stato da mar lay, was Venice’s primary strategic sphere of interest. She felt pressured to extend to it, even by coercion if necessary, the security and protection ‘her’ Adriatic gulf enjoyed. Her ultimate objective was to solve permanently the perennial problem of piracy and privateering in that zone. This was in her own interests and in the interest of her subject coastal towns and countryside, which experienced insecurity at first hand in their everyday life,42 and to avoid exposing to risk and danger the traditional fluidity of her close contact with the Islamic eastern Mediterranean. The surviving sources provide countless accounts detailing the constantly recurring activity of galleys and other craft covered by the Hospitaller cross throughout the Levant. Such activity occurred on and around the islands of Cerigo and Zante, on board Venetian and Turkish vessels at the port of Crete, at the gulf of Antalya, in the waters of Cyprus, taking Turks and Jews slaves, seizing merchandise (on one occasion valued over 15,000 scudi) on Crete. At times, these corsairs used torture to extract whatever information they thought they would need to justify their action at court. The list can be stretched indefinitely. However, to view Venice’s objective to contain Hospitaller Malta’s corso in the eastern reaches of the Mediterranean merely as a failed policy tends to obscure salient points that emerge from within the archival records. Every time the Republic imposed the sequestro on the Grand Priory, it made at least four

40 Ibid., p. 61. 41 Giacomo Bosio recounts the sequestro of Hospitaller property within the Veneto in 1458 against the Hospitallers on Rhodes as a result of the harm done by the caravel Borgognona on Venetian and Genoese islands in the Levant. Venice’s method of reprisal on that occasion assumed the form of a direct naval assault as it offered a stronger sense of self-confidence. Iacomo Bosio, Dell’Istoria della Sacra Religione et Ill. Militia di S. Gio. Gierosolimitano (Roma, 1630), vol. ii, p. 259. 42 Arbel, pp. 128–129.

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demands – restitution of prizes or their value in cash, immediate restoration of all the damage inflicted on the victims, punishment for the perpetrators as retribution for the alleged offence, and the immediate termination of such activities. In the short term, these objectives were in part realised. Venice did meet satisfaction for each particular episode, more often than not through favourable papal interference. On one occasion, in 1576, for example, Gregory XIII ordered Grand Master Jean de la Cassière to settle the Balbiana issue ‘in virtute sanctae obidientie et sub poenis arbitrio nostro declarandis’. The Knights and Maltese corsairs had captured the Balbiana, a Venetian vessel, and subjected it to ‘barbarisms’ and several ‘sinister operations’.43 On certain occasions, settlement was reached without delay; on others, over a number of years. The case of 1741 was a classic example. On that occasion, the endemic problem of Maltese and Hospitaller privateering in the Levant was allowed to develop into an explicitly declared war between Venice and the Hospital. Venice imposed the sequestro on all Hospitaller estates in the Veneto and ordered the sinking of all ships flying the eight-pointed cross. Grand Master Pinto responded in similar fashion. He issued the Decreto contro i Veneziani, instructing Hospitaller galleys and Maltese privateers to seize Venetian vessels wherever encountered. This war dragged on for six whole years.44 Over the medium term, the sequestro may also be considered to have had in part a positive outcome. Venice’s reprisal did at times succeed in forcing the grand master to proclaim a new bando or pass new legislation through his Venerable Council to further regulate the corso more effectively. In 1553, Juan d’Omedes enacted new rules to limit abuse. A bando, dated 24 March 1643, in response to that year’s sequestro, prohibited corsair captains from arming under a foreign flag against a penalty of serving ten years on the rowing-benches. Licenses to arm a corsair vessel would no longer be given out indiscriminately. The Magistrato degli Armamenti had first to submit the necessary pledge to the Council to assess its adequacy and suitability – measures very often more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Where it counts more, however, that is in the long perspective of historical development, the sequestro failed to produce any lasting result. It failed to eradicate permanently Hospitaller Malta’s privateering activity in the Levant or to guarantee any modicum of greater security to Venice’s stato da mar. The imposition of punitive measures did not have its desired long-term effect. From the indication gleaned from surviving documentation, it would appear historically inaccurate to entertain the perception that the story of the Grand Priory of Venice was marked by an inherently natural disposition towards pugnacity. Rather, the increasingly pugnacious demeanour was simply and solely engraved with the Serenissima’s cipher: it was a quality which reflected Venice’s preferred weapon of reprisal,

43 Mallia-Milanes, Hospitaller Malta, p. 53 ff. 44 For this war, ibid., pp. 181–219, passim.

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one that was staunchly intended to serve the interests of the Republic and accommodate those of the Ottoman empire. The Hospital’s role within this context of mutual antagonism was to defend one of its most basic principles – ‘to engage in constant warfare’ against the enemies of the Faith.45 Denying the Hospital the right to pursue the holy war was denying it its political relevance to Christian Europe and therefore its existence. Piety, rather, was the mark of the priory. In the late eighteenth century, to cite one instance, only two years before the collapse of the Venetian Republic and three before the Hospital’s eviction from Malta, two priests – an elderly one aged 70, Don Antonio Chignola, and a 26-year-old, Don Francesco Coltri – gave witness under oath to the visiting commission entrusted with the statutory survey of the commandery of Santi Vitale e Sepolcro of Verona. The sanctuary of the Beata Vergine della Corona, a pilgrimage centre which formed part of this commandery, they reported,46 had been uninterruptedly offering parochial and religious services to all the communities in the neighbourhood, spiritual guidance, alms to the poor, and extending all other forms of hospitality to whoever was in need of it. This service, in its various pious manifestations, was carried out, we are told, with courteousness and refinement of manners.47 These were the permanent features which demonstrated the true character of the Hospitaller Grand Priory of Venice, more perhaps than the eight-pointed cross chiseled on its structures – the living ingredients that reflected the spirit of the Hospital’s Jerusalem philosophy.

45 Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, c.1070–1309 (New York, 2012), p. 69. 46 AOM, Cod. 5868. 47 ‘tutti gli uffizi d’urbanità’. Ibid.

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IX A MAN WITH A MISSION A Venetian Hospitaller on eighteenth-century Malta

I Priding themselves on their sensitivity to all the subtleties of diplomacy, wily Venetian ambassadors excited the admiration of every State in and beyond Europe with their pomp and ceremony, their elegant manners, the charm of their eloquence, and their accurate and pragmatic observations. Their relazioni (or accounts of their mission) read and written with style, scrupulously detailed and comprehensive, provided Venice with deep acquaintance with all the strengths and weaknesses of every country to which they were accredited.1 It would sound ironic, therefore, that notwithstanding its vast diplomatic experience and its extensive practical knowledge in consular affairs, the Venetian Republic had to allow more than two centuries to pass to reach what appears to have been a permanent solution to the problems souring its relations with Hospitaller Malta. Considering that the promotion of trade was not the only significant feature of such missions, the Republic had failed inexplicably to appreciate the real worth of ministerial representation on the humble little island in the strategic centre of the Mediterranean, and, in so doing, it felt compelled to resort to methods which would prove in the long and medium term repeatedly futile. Ample archival evidence suggests that the two States entertained what amounted to a worrying degree of historic antagonism towards each other.2 Both held diametrically opposed views on innate attitudes which determined their policies towards Islam. On the one hand, Venice’s stato da mar owed its survival in part to the special relations which the republic enjoyed with the Ottoman Empire, neatly conforming with the Serenissima’s general spirit of tolerance towards non-Christians. The Order’s relevance to Christian Europe, 1 See E. Albèri, Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al Senato (Florence, 1939–63). See also D. E. Queller, ‘The Development of Ambassadorial Relazioni’, in Renaissance Venice, ed. J. R. Hale (London, 1974), pp. 174–96; Pursuit of Power: Venetian Ambassadors’ Reports on Spain, Turkey, and France in the Age of Philip II, 1560-1600, ed. J. C. Davis (London, 1970); and Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilisation of an Italian City-State, 1297–1797, ed. J. Martin and D. Romano (Baltimore and London, 2000). 2 See V. Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta 1530-1798: Aspects of a Relationship (Malta, 1992).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003406518-10

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on the other, depended almost exclusively on its continuous anti-Muslim operations and the success with which it kept alive the spirit of the crusade against the ‘common enemy’. This Hospitaller policy more often than not assumed the form of widespread privateering activity, to the extent that it gradually succeeded in transforming the conventual fortress island of the Knights into one of the most flourishing corsair bases in the entire Mediterranean. Neither Venice nor the Order of the Hospital was willing to compromise. Regular accounts of the westerlings’ unrestrained activity in the Levant – drawn up at the Ottoman Porte, or despatched directly by the Venetian Bailo at Constantinople, or by one of Venice’s representatives on its islands in the eastern Mediterranean – reached the offices of the Cinque Savi alla Mercanzia (or trade magistracy) in Venice and thence proceeded to the magnificent hall where the Senate convened and where definite resolutions were passed in the solemn presence of the Doge. Under cover of the Hospitaller flag, native Maltese corsairs, and others originally proceeding from the islands of Sicily, Corsica, or Sardinia, the kingdom of Savoy or the principality of Monaco, were frequently reported to have disrupted the rich caravan routes in the Levant. Ships were reported seized or sunk; merchants and sailors, Muslims or Levantine Venetians, were preyed upon indiscriminately; some were thrown overboard unceremoniously like discarded loads of rotten fruit or meat; others were abandoned ashore, maimed, naked, or half-dead; the rest were taken slaves and their merchandise stolen.3 The influence which such performance generated, promoted as it was by the grand master’s own princely court in Valletta and regulated by the issue of Hospitaller letters-patent,4 not only strained Malta’s relations with the Adriatic Republic. It blatantly defied the latter’s overriding political and economic interests and showed a reckless disregard for the highly sensitive cordiality it had tried to nurture with the Ottoman Porte. Venice defined this as outright piracy and endeavoured consistently to resist it by threatening to confiscate the rents and other revenues which the Order’s common treasury on Malta received from its estates lying within Venetian territory until the stolen booty, human and material, was returned or its value restored. Between 1536 and 1741 the Senate decreed the sequestro (or the confiscation of Hospitaller property) on eleven separate occasions. On two of these, the sequestro was allowed to develop into a state of near warfare. These have been discussed in greater detail elsewhere.5 What is relevant to observe here is that the sequestro of 1741, which dragged on for six years, ultimately convinced the Venetian authorities that such measures had only been in effect little more than clumsy, short-term precautions which failed to realize

3 For examples of this magnanimous behaviour, ibid., passim. 4 See, for example, the Diverse Scripture sections in the Libri Bullarum in the Order’s archives at the National Library of Malta (NLM), Valletta. 5 See, for example, V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘Corsairs Parading Crosses: The Hospitallers and Venice, 1530–1798’, in The Military Orders: Fighting for the Faith and Caring for the Sick, ed. Malcolm Barber (Variorum, 1994), pp. 103–112.

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their desired objective – that of containing Hospitaller and Maltese privateering in the Levant. Indeed, hardly had the dust of that particular sequestro settled down, when it was again provoked with equal vigour. The ‘irritating’ and ‘disgusting’ subject6 of Christian corsairs wreaking havoc ‘on ships and merchandise,’ wrote the Savi alla Mercanzia, ‘belonging to our subjects’, re-emerged, with a fresh list of grievances again reaching the Senate chamber through the trade magistracy. Andrea Tipaldo, a Venetian subject from Cephalonia, had his xebec (sciambecco) and whatever lay on board seized ‘unfairly’ by corsair Angelo Francesco Luchese, operating under cover of the eight-pointed cross.7 Stamatello Coriozachi, ‘citizen of Parga’, fell victim to the operations of corsair Paolo Marassi, whose feluca, flying the flag of Monaco, was sailing jointly with a similar vessel belonging to the Maltese corsair Gerolamo. Giorguizzo Ulismà and Marco Grigori met a similar fate on separate occasions, the former ‘in the waters of Cerigo’, the latter near Zante, both at the hands of the same Marassi.8 This corsair, the ‘nefarious’ villain of his times, originally a Venetian subject from the Bocche di Cattaro, features prominently in Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s early correspondence and the Senate’s registers. He appears to have been working in close collaboration with one Zuanne Ferrandino, Malta’s consul on Zante who, according to the Savi’s claims, provided him with delicate information about the movements and whereabouts of potential preys. Ferrandino was a native of Zante and was once allegedly caught red-handed9 by Venice’s Provveditor General da Mar. He was suspended from his duties until his letterspatent, consular certificates, and other related documents were carefully investigated. He was found guilty of repeated breaches of the law and eventually had all his personal belongings confiscated by the Republic to make good for the damage done by corsairs to Venetian subjects.10 According to the Savi, certain Venetian islands, particularly Zante and Corfu, were often frequented by corsairs parading the eight-pointed cross of the Hospital. They often sought shelter on such islands where they could, undisturbed, divide their booty among themselves at the end 6 ASVen, CSM, p.s., reg. 184, foll. 40v–42r, scrittura 7 February 1753: ‘molesto argomento’ and ‘disgustoso tema’. 7 The grand master had ordered that the entire prize taken by corsair Luchese – ‘il legno, il carico, e qualunque altro genere d’effetti’ – be held ‘in deposito’ until the issue was settled. He then instructed his receiver in Venice to present a memoriale on the case to the Senate. Whatever resolution the Senate took on the matter, promised the grand master, it would be respected. In fact, the moment the Senate declared the prize illegitimate, he gave orders for the immediate release of both ship and cargo. The issue, however, took much longer to settle, as there was serious disagreement on the real value of the damages between the corsair’s procuratore and whoever was defending Venetian interests. The incident had happened in the early days of July 1749. By the beginning of 1753 the magistracy of the Cinque Savi was still seeking settlement. Ibid., foll. 33v–34v, 5 January 1753. 8 Ibid., foll. 40v–42r, scrittura 7 February 1753. 9 ‘preso giustamente in vista per le sue danabili procedure’. Ibid. 10 See V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘Il consolato maltese a Zante e i rapporti tra Venezia e l’Ordine di San Giovanni’, in Il Mediterraneo centro-orientale tra vecchie e nuove egemonie, ed. Massimo Costantini (Rome, 1998), pp. 171–178. Also id., Venice and Hospitaller Malta, pp. 207–210.

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of their privateering operations.11 This was dangerous play, as the Porte could (as indeed it often did) accuse Venice of complicity in such actions by offering pirates and corsairs insular protection. The case of 1644, which led to the long-drawn-out Cretan war (1645–1669), had been one such classic example.12 The case of Ferrandino raised the more general question of how legitimate all Maltese consuls on other Venetian islands in the Levant were, how authentic and correct at law their letters-patent.13 In a written report to the Senate,14 dated 7 February 1753, the Savi alla Mercanzia focused on what they thought were three relevant observations worth making on Hospitaller privateering operations. First, that the Knights of St John practised the corso against the subjects of the Ottoman Porte ‘on the strength’ of the holy statutes governing their institution; they also issued licences to foreigners for the same purpose. Secondly, in a supplementary note to the concluding articles of the peace treaty of Passarowitz of 1718, it was stipulated, they claimed, that corsairs should not be allowed entry into Venetian ports; nor, still less, should any form of assistance be extended to them whenever these were armed. Having stripped Venice of the entire Morea and of the islands of Tenos and Aegina,15 Passarowitz had been a humiliating experience which haunted the Republic until its fall in 1797. Thirdly, the merchandise these corsairs carried on board in order to have it eventually retailed consisted mostly of stolen goods. These observations, placed succinctly as they were within the convincing framework of Zuanne Ferrandino’s recent incident, could only lead smoothly to one logical conclusion – that which the magistracy of trade appears to have intended to reach from the start. ‘For all these reasons,’ remarked the Savi alla Mercanzia, ‘it would be desirable not to have any Maltese consuls stationed in the Levant.’ All Maltese consuls whose letters-patent had not been correctly endorsed by the Republic should no longer be permitted to perform their duties on Venetian territory. The Hospitallers’ permanent state of war with the Ottoman Porte rendered Malta’s consulates on Zante, Corfu, Nauplia, and other islands of significant strategic interests to the Order as intelligence-gathering centres. Here consuls gained first-hand information about the movements and whereabouts of the Turkish armada. The Cinque Savi’s clear objective was to paralyse this sensitive nerve by denying the Order and its corsairs access to such vital sources of communication. In the end, the Savi alla Mercanzia also suggested that it would be very useful if the Provveditor General da Mar would inquire into the quality 11 Ibid. 12 K. M. Setton, Venice, Austria, and the Turks in the Seventeenth Century (Philadelphia, 1991), ch. 4: ‘Venice, Malta, and the Turks: The Beginning of the Long War of Candia’, pp. 110–136. 13 ‘Questo caso particolare sveglia altresì il riflesso sopra tutti i consoli maltesi esistenti nei publici stati del Levante.’ ASVen, CSM, p.s., reg. 184, foll. 40v–42r, scrittura 7 February 1753. 14 In the register it carries the marginal heading of Prede e danni causati da corsari cristiani a sudditi veneti. ASVen, CSM, p.s. reg. 184, Scritture 7, foll. 40v–42r, 7 February 1753. 15 Venice retained the seven Ionian islands (including Santa Maura) together with the four mainland strongholds Butrinto, Vonitza, Parga, and Prevesa. Setton, p. 450.

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and nature of the trade the island of Malta carried out with Venice’s stato da mar.16 If Christian corsairs and consuls did indeed collaborate in the Levant to the apparent detriment of Venetian interests, and if indeed Venice, endeavouring, after Passarowitz, to detach itself from continental conflicts, feared further Ottoman reprisals as a result of western privateering, there were in reality other determining forces which played as significant a role in what the Savi defined as deteriorating developments. At least three such factors have been identified – Venice’s ‘poor administration’ of the Ionian islands and mainland ports; the dire straits in which the State’s finances were found; and the oppression and exploitation of the islanders by official State representatives.17 To any attentive observer the major force which directly contributed to such debilitating conditions had for long been the Serenissima itself.18 Venice was now, in the early 1750s, beginning to realize that the dubious methods it had been adopting for centuries to regulate its relations with the Hospital had to be given up. They simply did not work. On 14 June 1754, the Senate instructed the magistracy of trade to withdraw without delay the letters-patent of the Venetian consul on Malta, Filippo Grasso.19 Little did the Senate know that, with the exception of the apostolic nuncio, all foreign representatives resident on the Hospitaller island – consuls, ministers, or ambassadors – owed their immediate appointment to the grand master. The practice, strange and unorthodox by international norms, had a long tradition, dating back to the time when the Knights were still on Rhodes; and it is not perhaps difficult to understand why the Senate was not aware of how the system worked. There were no records in the Cinque Savi’s archives to indicate that the Republic had ever appointed a consul to look after its interests on Malta. What emerged from the Savi’s findings was that the grand master used to appoint one of his subjects ‘consul for the Italian nation’, one who would look after the commercial interests of most of the Italian-speaking states, kingdoms, or principalities. Without owning allegiance to any of them, this official, explained the baffled Savi by way of example, would act on behalf of the subjects of the Kingdom of Sardinia in the same manner as he would interfere in the affairs of the armateurs of Monaco. What the trade magistracy seemed to imply was that this official’s involvement was neither wanted nor helpful. Filippo Grasso was apparently one such; his performance and the services he offered did not quite satisfy Venice’s expectations.20 On 2 September 1752 the Senate resolved to substitute a Venetian subject for the current consul, one that would owe his election to the Serenissima and be answerable directly to the Republic. The Savi sought to find out how best to solve this somewhat intriguing

16 17 18 19 20

ASVen, CSM, p.s., reg. 184, Scritture 7, foll. 40v–42r, 7 February 1753. Setton, p. 452. See Mallia-Milanes, ‘Corsairs Parading Crosses’, passim. ASVen, CSM, p.s., reg. 184, Scritture 7, foll. 84v–85v, 18 July 1754. On Filippo Grasso and the perception Venice entertained of him, Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta, pp. 212–215.

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task. Their initial attempts failed. They had first cast their eyes on a Venetian subject, unidentified in our documents, but who, we are told, was domiciled in Malta. In his successful endeavour to set two chioddari (nail sellers or ironmongers) free from Hospitaller captivity and have them dispatched safely back to Turkey, he had unwittingly provided compelling evidence of his competence and genuine attachment to the Republic. The only problem with him was that he did not live long enough to assume that responsibility. He passed away soon after.21 Then, the Savi made some discreet soundings among several leading merchants as to who they would best recommend for the task. None was found; nobody was prepared to leave Venice or any of its mainland or maritime cities to settle on distant Malta and assume responsibility for a consulate fairly widely known for its ‘sterility in profit-making’ as for its permanent state of fertile agitation and disturbances.22

II The creation of a new Venetian consulate in accordance with international norms was not possible on early modern Malta. Hospitaller practice did not allow it. One had therefore to look elsewhere for an answer to the problem. Ironically it was from within the ranks of the Order itself that the Savi ultimately found a workable solution. The Hospitaller institution constituted the quintessence of the European nobility; every ‘nation’, they argued, was somehow represented through its nobility in this chivalric Order. On admission, every young aspirant for knighthood had to spend five years of residence at the Convent in Malta in order to perform the six to eight statutory ‘caravans’ or cruises on Hospitaller galleys. These were necessary before novices could profess Knights of Justice and become eligible for a commandery anywhere in Europe.23 Several royal courts, pointed out the Savi alla Mercanzia, had availed themselves of this traditional practice by selecting one of their subject members of the Order and appoint him Uomo del Re (Man of the King). This was synonymous to a chargé d’affaires, representing the interests of his kingdom or principality and those of his co-nationals. When either the statutory term of conventual residence expired, or, on promotion, he was about to leave the island to settle on his commandery in Europe, another member would be nominated to succeed him. The Kingdom of Sardinia and the tiny Principality of Monaco were among those who adopted this method.24 Venice, with inimitable diplomatic missions firmly established all over Europe and beyond, did not. 21 ASVen, CSM, p.s., reg. 184, Scritture 7, foll. 84v–85v, 18 July 1754. 22 ‘un consolato sterile di profitti, e fertile per le annuali insorgenze di solecitudini e disturbi’. Ibid. 23 Ibid. Caravans could generally assume the form of either ‘galley expeditions in the service of Christian Leagues’ or ‘forays’ on Muslim shipping. E. W. Schermerhorn, On the Trail of the EightPointed Cross: A Study of the Heritage of the Knights Hospitallers in Feudal Europe (New York, 1940), p. 146 n.75. See also, id., Malta of the Knights (Surrey, 1929), pp. 21, 22, 227. 24 ASVen, CSM, p.s., reg. 184, Scritture 7, foll. 84v–85v, 18 July 1754.

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Like the rest of Europe, Venice had its own share of Hospitaller membership. Like all other Hospitallers, Venetians too sought to spend a number of years’ residence in Malta in pursuit of their own interests and advancement. Conditions on the island, claimed the Savi, demanded the presence of one such patrician to act as Uomo della Republica Veneta (Man of the Venetian Republic). It was common knowledge, they explained, that corsairs of all nationalities fitted out and armed on Malta, while the greater part of the rich prizes they made were generally carried back to that island.25 This was of course an accurate observation. Indeed, Levantine Venetians were among those who had been suffering considerable harm and losses at the hands of these corsairs.26 They needed someone to support and defend the claims of Venetian traders and sailors in Malta and at the same time be answerable directly to the Republic.27 The Cinque Savi’s first reference to the Marquis Buzzaccarini28 as a suitable candidate for the task was that of ‘a nobleman of Padua’.29 His full name was Massimiliano Emanuele Buzzaccarini Gonzaga.30 He was born in the Venetian city of Padua,31 ‘of an illustrious and ancient family’,32 son of the noble Antonio de Buzzaccarini, Knight of San Giorgio, and Chiara Pimbiolo Engelfreddi. It is not yet clear how, why, and when the ‘Gonzaga’ began to form part of his surname. There is no reference to it in any of his four quarters of nobility drawn up as part of the process for his admission into the Order. The two paternal quarters were Buzzaccarini and Leoni; the maternal ones were Pimbiolo and Cumano, and in the proofs of nobility the four are traced back to the mid-fourteenth century.33 He always signed his full name in his correspondence and other documents. Massimiliano joined the Order of the Hospital as a minor34 on 20 January 1712.35 In their report to the Senate of 18 July 1754, the Savi described him as ‘a man of integrity and experience, who was about to settle on Malta for several years.’36 He was 25 Ibid. 26 There is ample evidence of this in Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s early correspondence. 27 ASVen, CSM, p.s., reg. 184, Scritture 7, foll. 84v–85v, 18 July 1754. The same idea was again highlighted on 21 August 1754: ‘Moltiplicandosi di giorno in giorno le depredazioni de corsari sopra de nostri sudditi, e venendo gli effetti derubbati condotti a Malta, si siamo per capo di necessità gettati al partito di prevalersi colà di persona privata e d’onore, affine donasse a nostri sudditi assistenza e protezione, giacché l’espeienza ci documentava che nulla si potevamo promettere da un console che indistintamente per tutte le nazioni italiane sosteneva un tal impiego e che il medesimo lo riconosceva come beneficio derivatole dalla liberalità del Gran Maestro.’ Ibid., foll. 104v–106r, 21 August 1754. 28 Ibid., foll. 84v–85v, 18 July 1754. 29 ASVen, CSM, Diversorum, busta 403, 25 July 1754. 30 AOM, Cod. 515, foll. 69v–70r. 31 AOM 2166, pp. 284–285. 32 ASVen, CSM, p.s., reg. 184, Scritture 7, foll. 84v–85v, 18 July 1754. 33 For Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s four quarters of nobility, APV, sezione III, busta 166, n.26. 34 AOM, Cod. 515, foll. 69v–70r; APV, sezione III, busta 166, n.26. 35 AOM, Cod. 2166, pp. 284–285. 36 ASVen, CSM, p.s., reg. 184, Scritture 7, foll. 84v-85v, 18 July 1754. Also ibid., Diversorum, busta 403, 25 July 1754.

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accredited Huomo to the grand master court in Valletta on 25 September 1754,37 and on 4 December that year he arrived in Malta in that capacity.38 The immediate purpose of his mission, as identified in the correspondence files and other papers of the Cinque Savi, was negative: ‘not to leave the interests of our subjects in the hands of [consul] Filippo Grasso any longer.’39 However, his terms of reference as formally drawn up in his Commissione were more diplomatic: he was instructed to protect and help all subjects of the Venetian Republic who ‘proceeded to Malta for purposes of trade’, or who were ‘conducted’ to the Hospitaller principality by shipowners and Christian corsairs. In the latter case, the marquis was to employ all his efforts ‘to produce the immediate release of the ships, effects, and persons’ and to take cognizance of ‘all the minute details of the circumstances’, particularly the exact locality in which such ‘arrests’ had been made.40 In the Savi’s view, the new mission about to be established on Hospitaller Malta deserved better treatment, and therefore a higher honorarium than that accorded to the long-standing Venetian consulates at Genoa, Livorno, and Otranto.41 The fortress island in the Mediterranean appeared to them relatively more important, for unlike each of the other three port cities, an uninterrupted stream of grievances reached Valletta on a regular pattern from Venetian subjects in the Levant and almost invariably involving western corsairs. Such cases demanded immediate attention.42 Once informed of Senate’s decision, Buzzaccarini Gonzaga called at the offices of the magistracy of trade to express his gratitude for the trust the Senate had shown in him and his readiness to undertake the journey to Malta. In fact, for reasons of his own personal advancement, he had already planned to do so before he even knew he was being considered for the new job.43 He felt he had to give the magistracy a clearer picture of how the Order’s system operated. Each of the seven langues or ‘nations’ into which the Hospitaller institution was divided, he explained, had its own auberge or palace at the Convent in Valletta, which offered residence to some of its knights and visiting Hospitallers.44 In 1754 the marquis claimed ‘in noble modesty’ 37 ASVen, CSM, Diversorum, busta 403, fasc. 76. 38 AOM, Cod. 2231, p. 6; In the Service of the Venetian Republic: Massimiliano Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s Letters from Malta to Venice’s Magistracy of Trade 1754-1776, ed. Victor Mallia-Milanes (Malta, 2008), hitherto MBG, 7 December 1754. 39 ASVen, CSM, Diversorum, busta 403, 25 July 1754. 40 ASVen, CSM, Diversorum, busta 403, fasc. 76, ‘Commissione per l’Huomo della Repubblica di Venezia in Malta’, 25 September 1754. 41 ‘Molto più poi merita questa destinazione’. Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 ‘Si presentò egli prontamente al Magistrato, e protestandosi pieno di debito e di riverenza verso l’Eccellentissimo Senato per il grande onore impartitogli nel trascieglierlo a sostenere le ragioni sue e de suoi sudditi presso la Sacra Religione e suo Gran Maestro, si dimostrò pronto ad intraprendere il viaggio, che gia in avanti per oggetti del suo avanzamento era disposto di voler fare a suo tempo.’ ASVen, CSM, p.s., reg. 184, foll. 104v–106r, 21 August 1754. 44 [C]i fece indi sapere che possedeva per legge fondamentale dell’Ordine ogni lingua, o sia nazione, nel Convento un palazzo nominato Albergo, nel quale parte dei cavalieri vengono alloggiati secondo la capacità di questo e la loro anzianità.’ Ibid.

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to have been the senior member of the Langue of Italy and by virtue of that seniority he not only had the right of residence at the auberge but also of enjoying a number of servants and services at the expense of the Common Treasury. That notwithstanding, he was prepared to renounce all conventual privileges immediately to be in a better position to sustain the public lifestyle appropriate to his new rank as Man of the Venetian Republic.45 For the Savi, this had wider implications. The new mission would unfairly involve the marquis into unnecessary hardship. Apart from what they called the maintenance of ‘an open house’ and all that that entailed, he would have to pay for the regular dispatch of letters to Venice – which, on mid-eighteenth-century Malta, was no mean expense – and to keep another person in his employ to perform a wide range of ‘minor tasks’. The annual award of 400 Venetian ducats, which Senate had originally proposed for the new office on 25 April 1754,46 would have been more of a financial burden than an incentive. In fact, within a month of this decree, the trade magistracy succeeded in having the value of the honorarium doubled to 800 ducats. This at least would allow the marquis to have easier access to a legal advisor and a public notary,47 and to keep in his employ a consul and vice-consul.48 Towards the end of his life, when Francisco Ximenes de Texada was elected grand master in 1773, Massimiliano was elected Maestro di Casa, one of the principal officials at the magistral court in Valletta. He interpreted this not only as an expression of trust, but also as giving him greater access to better means of helping Venetian subjects.49 Shortly after, in August 1774, he was awarded a commandery in the Priory of Venice, one lying within the territories of the Papal States.50 Neither too bold nor too self-assertive, experience taught him to place a fairly moderate estimate on his own abilities, attributing all the promotions and honours he received to the official mission with which he was entrusted rather than to his personal worth. His sense of modesty emerges even more sharply when, at certain stages in his career he confessed to his superiors in Venice that he feared his efforts alone, no matter how indefatigable these may well have been, would not achieve the desired effect, that he would not (in other words) succeed in constraining the corsairs or their patrons to satisfy the rightful claims of the Venetians. Indeed, his dream was his only guilt, the belief he seems to have so convincingly entertained earlier in his career in his capacity to change social and economic structures under his own steam. He set out to conquer the world of corsairs, which hardly differed from that of crocodiles, tigers, and lions, preying on anything they came across. In the end he felt he had no option but to resort to the Cinque Savi, asking them 45 ‘Ritrovasi egli, stante il riportato vantaggio di servire l’Eccellentissimo Senato con l’obligo di vangare con gl’altri soggetti, che per altri Principi sostengono una pari incombenza, nella precisa necessità di rinunciare immediate a tali vantaggi, ed in loro vece di sottostare a tutti quei dispendj che seco porta il decorosamente tenere Casa aperta in parità con gl’altri.’ Ibid. 46 ASVen, Senato, Deliberazioni, Mar, reg. 220, fol.78, 25 May 1754. 47 ASVen, CSM, p.s., reg.184, foll. 196v–197v. 48 See Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta, pp. 296–297 and n. 87. 49 MBG, letters CLXXIV, CLXXVIII. 50 Ibid., letter CXCVI.

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to exert their own influence at the princely court of Monaco, to intervene directly through Venice’s other, more effective, diplomatic channels.51

III On 25 July 1754 the Senate officially approved the choice of Buzzaccarini Gonzaga and to have him accredited, in the interests of the Republic, to the Hospitaller Court in Valletta.52 In a report drawn up a month later,53 the Savi confessed that The public decision to elect a Hospitaller with the title of Man of the Republic to reside on Malta has been an act worthy of the discretion and dignity of the Most Excellent Senate. Without such a figure, we would have been left with no other choice but to entrust the interests of the nation either to private persons or to the so-called consul who shares no perspectives with this government, is entirely dependent on the Order’s Grand Master, and feels he owes his appointment to the Religion rather than to Your Serenity. [On the other hand,] on account of his citizenship, his nobility, and his appointment, the newly accredited individual is dutifully expected to dedicate himself entirely to the service of the Republic, promote truthful responsibilities, and be equally regardful of the interests and concerns of private subjects of the Republic. For Buzzaccarini Gonzaga this was not only a task, an ordinary assignment; what for the Venetian Senate and the Cinque Savi was purely a diplomatic mission like so many others, he turned into a lifelong vocation. With him, his consent to the Savi, his acceptance to serve his native land and his fellow countrymen, in a sense reflecting the noble ideal of the Hospital, ‘was not,’ to quote a Russian author, ‘an insensate swing of an ever-moving wheel’; rather it was a commitment which ‘touched the vital centre of his life now’ in 1754 and for all the unpredictable lengths of time he would spend on Malta.54 He believed his religious commitment to serve endowed his own personal existence with some greater positive value. Barely seven months had passed since the marquis’s arrival on Malta in his new capacity when the trade magistracy felt confident to report to the Senate that matters concerning Venetians in Malta were assuming a physiognomy completely distinct from the one they had had in the past; it was indicative, they claimed, that current conditions were improving; intelligence, ‘reaching us from that part of the

51 See ibid., letters LVI, LVII, XC, CI. 52 ASVen, CSM, p.s., reg. 184, foll. 104v–106r, 21 August 1754. 53 Ibid. The report or scrittura was signed by four Savi alla Mercanzia – Antonio da Riva, Andrea Corner, Francesco Venier K.r, and Polo Querini. 54 Quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn, We Never Make Mistakes: Two Short Novels (London, 1972; first published 1963), p. 38.

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world’, they reported, was growing more interesting, more revealing, and more worthy of reflection.55 One of the problems the marquis had to address on assuming office was the noticeably marked trend among a growing number of Venetian subjects employed in the merchant navy to arbitrarily abandon their ship during the course of their voyage.56 Frequent desertions, which depleted crews and rendered sailing vessels inoperative, was one aspect of it. Insubordination of Venetian sailors to their master was another. One such case occurred in May 1755 on board captain Pietro Iannich’s vessel. Iannich had just finished unloading a cargo of wheat and was about to sail towards Trapani when ‘several disorders’ broke out. Antonio Tarabochia from Venice, the mate on board the ship and the leading rebel, declined to perform any duty at all. Two other members of the crew, Antonio Todorovichi, a watchman, and Nicolò Lidovich from Perast, decided to leave the vessel ‘and live capriciously on land’.57 The former pretended to have been ill on arrival and unable to do any work; the latter began to mix socially with the locally-based corsairing community and was about to enrol on a privateering venture. These were not isolated cases. And that was precisely what worried the marquis. At about the same time, another two Venetian subjects from Cephalonia were observed living in Malta in extreme poverty (in estrema necessità). They had been sacked by their Greek master who, having found himself in financial difficulties, refused to keep them on his payroll. The chances of their being offered an enticing job by one of the several corsairs operating from Malta were great.58 This was dangerous play: the goings-on of western Christian corsairs often exposed Venice’s trade, merchants, and islands in the Levant to Ottoman reprisals. Venetian deserters roaming about in the hustle and bustle of the unruly harbour area in search of better conditions of work, mixing with notoriously ‘lazy parasites’, were suspiciously ‘out of place’, metaphorically ‘dirty and polluting’.59 This practice if left unsanctioned could be contaminating; it could create unease. By the early decades of the eighteenth century, desertion, lack of experience of sea-captains, indiscipline ashore and on board, badly-trained crews recruited

55 ‘Faccia assai diversa del passato, e molto più vantaggiosa, prendono gl’affari de sudditi di Vostra Serenità in Malta, et assai più interessanti e degne di riflesso sono le contezze che da quella parte ci giungano.’ ASVen, CSM, p.s., reg.185, foll. 13r–14v, 24 July 1755. That notwithstanding, Buzzaccarini Gonzaga had not yet received his credentials from Venice. Ibid. In another scrittura to Senate of 16 December of the same year, the Cinque Savi again refer to the several occasions when they had drawn Senate’s attention to the need to have Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s lettere credenziali sent to the grand master. They cite the ‘decreti 24 agosto e 5 ottobre dell’anno decorso [1754]’ and the ‘due scritture 24 luglio e 20 agosto [1755]’. Ibid. foll. 38r–39r, ‘Circa fruttuosi studij che presta il Marchese Buzzaccarini in Malta e circa credenziali per lo stesso’. 56 Ibid., fol.13r. 57 MBG, Letter III. 58 Ibid. 59 The three quoted phrases belong to David D. Gilmore, Carnival and Culture: Sex, Symbol, and Status in Spain (London, 1998), p. 133.

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from among the worst elements – all these forces had for long been undermining, indeed reducing the strength and reputation of the Venetian fleet. They were all contributory factors to what historians, with the benefit of hindsight, call a process of irreversible decline, one whose wider scope encompassed too the dearth of resources, foreign competition, and the systematic war of corsairs. Collectively they had rendered exorbitant the costs of construction, freight, and insurance. All previous experiments – the convoy system, access to armed escort, the introduction in 1736 of the navi atte (fit, that is, to defend themselves and sufficiently confident to be allowed to sail unescorted), and the setting up of a nautical college – had each failed in turn to guarantee security.60 In the mid-1750s Buzzaccarini Gonzaga was calling the Cinque Savi’s attention to what he was currently experiencing on Hospitaller Malta. On the slightest motive of discontent, it would appear, members of galley crews would immediately escape from public or private service and engage with the corsairs. To this sense of disorder, albeit of long standing throughout the Mediterranean, the Cinque Savi were highly sensitive. The marquis’s mission was quintessentially intended to maintain, and where necessary restore, respect for Venetian law and authority. Deserters and other ‘rebels’ could not be allowed to act and behave in open defiance of all rules and conventions. Access to the Consolato del Mare and other fairly recently enacted (in questi ultimi anni) legislation (copies of which Massimiliano had requested in his initial correspondence to the Cinque Savi)61 would help the marquis regulate more efficiently and more securely the conduct of Venetian subjects involved in such deviant patterns of behaviour, which was often the cause of a wide range of anxieties and conflicts. Local and foreign corsairs with their inner circles of wily collaborators were renowned all over the Mediterranean for their shameless exploitation. In 1755 Buzzaccarini Gonzaga attributed most of such disorders where Venetians were drawn into the presence in Malta of large numbers (la quantità) of Perastini engaged somehow in the various sectors of the island’s privateering industry. These sought to encourage, often successfully, idle hands, including Levantine Venetians, to enrol in what was very lucrative business.62 The city of Perast, the civitas Pirustarum of Roman days, occupied a strategic position at the Bocche di Cattaro on the Montenegrin coast, dominated by a fort and marked by a wide expanse of cultivated terraces. It was a leading commercial centre, south of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), subject to the Venetian Republic. Relations between the two 60 See Roberto Cessi, Storia della Repubblica di Venezia (Milan-Messina, 1968), ii, p. 245. Some of these shortcomings were already evident in the sixteenth century. See, for example, MalliaMilanes, ‘Corsairs Parading Crosses’, pp. 108–110. For the naval college, Massimo Costantini, Luisa Florian, ‘The Nautical School of Venice’, in Library of Mediterranean History, ed. V. MalliaMilanes, ii (Malta, 1995), pp. 3–50. 61 ‘necessarie mi sono particolari instruzzioni per il modo in cui contenermi, ed a ciò potrebbe anco giovarmi le costituzioni de consolati, le quali io non tengo, e l’Eccellenze Loro potranno farmi avvere.’ MBG, Letter IV. 62 Ibid., Letter IV.

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were generally cordial.63 In times of war Perast enjoyed the privilege of providing la guardia del gonfalone to the Venetian fleet.64 The Cinque Savi appeared to have found the marquis’s comments on the Perastini somewhat baffling. Using courtesy and caution, they pointed out that such alleged behaviour attributed to these inhabitants did not quite conform to the norms they believed to have been traditionally entertained by the city of Perast.65 Nevertheless they could not afford to take chances. The Venetian Provveditor General for Dalmatia was instructed to inform the city’s merchant and mercantile community that Venice was looking at these events and developments with censure and disapproval. It was unacceptable to see citizens of Perast, held in so high esteem by the Republic that they had been singled out precisely ‘to defend the Venetian gonfalon’, disgracefully participating in the corso, a loathsome activity which affronted the same Lion of St Mark whose safety and honour it was their duty to protect. If the urban community of Perast really wished to have its time-honoured privileges reconfirmed by the Republic, its members would have to distance themselves completely from the slightest involvement in privateering.66 Moreover, as one would expect, several were the occasions when, in the performance of his mission, Massimiliano encountered persons difficult to deal with. This of course reflected the true social reality of everyday life. One such occasion occurred in 1766 when the peace treaty between Venice and Tripoli was broken. The episode concerned a Tripolitan merchant captain, whom Buzzaccarini Gonzaga described as one who ‘tried to be funny’, ‘eccentric and arrogant’ and who caused him serious trouble,67 because he refused to undergo the necessary quarantine or to disembark his belongings from on board the vessel. Massimiliano tried to deal with him ‘in the sweetest of manners’, we are told, to persuade him to respect normal international practices. The merchant remained stubborn, refusing to listen ‘either to me or to the consul, to the Health Commissioners or to his own cadì.’ Massimiliano confessed he did all he could to avoid resorting to the use of force; but it was not correct, he explained, to allow a ship ‘to suffer major

63 See Lessico Universale Italiano di Lingua, Lettere, Arti, Scienze e Tecnica, xvi (Rome, 1976), sub voce ‘Perast’ (Perasto). 64 The term gonfalone has been defined as ‘antica denominazione dello stendardo del Comune medievale, e generalmente del vessillo militare e delle varie insegne di magistrati cittadini, di corporazioni civili o di compagnie religiose.’ See Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana, comp. Salvatore Battaglia, vi (Turin, 1970), sub voce. Gonfaloniere was the official who carried the gonfalone. 65 ‘Per dir il vero, il contegno di questi Perastini non corrisponde alla fede e vassallaggio professata dalla Nazione, destinata in tempo di guerra alla difesa del Publico Gonfalone.’ ASVen, CSM, p.s., reg. 185, fol.13v. 66 ‘cosiché rilevino che per ottener la conferma de lor privileggi necessario si rende che il detestabile mestier di corsale venghi da Perastini totalmente abbandonato.’ Ibid., fol.14r. At that particular moment, in July 1755, the Cinque Savi reported that ‘li Nunij della comunità di Perasto che qui s’attrovano per implorare la conferma di loro privileggi’. Ibid. 67 ‘non poca inquietudine’. MBG, letter XCIX.

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damages’ because of the caprice of a member of its crew. The ship, of course, could not proceed to its destination before being granted pratique.68 On other occasions, he had to deal with whole Christian crews who adamantly refused to sail out for fear of falling slaves, of being captured by Barbary corsairs, or as result of a Barbary Regency’s declaration of war against the Venetians.69 On one such occasion, behind the collective refusal to obey instructions to proceed with their voyage, lay one Alessandro Amigazzi, from Verona, whom the captain, knowing his relatives, allowed to embark at Corfu. The youth Amigazzi, in order to delay the ship’s departure from Malta to continue to enjoy himself on the island, spread fears and panic among the members of the crew. The young lad (un giovine assai legiero nel pensiere) was later placed in ‘one of these towers’.70

IV In his middle and later years Massimiliano was afflicted by gout, often complaining of severe painful attacks. The clinical condition is generally attributed to an abnormal increase in the amount of uric acid in the bloodstream. It is characterized by arthritis that is usually confined to a single joint which causes extreme pain and immobilization. It can also cause cardiac and renal complications. Massimiliano’s long sojourn on damp and humid Malta could not have been very helpful. Indeed, in March 1763, barely ten years since he had first set foot on the island, he complained of what appears to have been his first sudden attack of gout. From then on, in his correspondence to the Cinque Savi, he kept consistently referring to such ‘long’, ‘painful’, and ‘atrocious’ spells of this affliction. When it struck, it was so overpowering that for days he would not be able to get out of bed. There were moments, like those of October 1773, when, he claimed, tremendous pain, begun in his right hand, spread to his knees and feet, making it impossible for him not only to lay his feet to the ground, but also to write letters to Venice.71 From the tone of his letters and from that alone (we have no other evidence), he seems to have been resigned to these moments of actual suffering and real agony, a personal acceptance of the will of God, indeed an evangelical expression of satisfaction in the theology of the Cross, the symbol which he valiantly bore in times of war and peace, on land and at sea. Now if this assumption is correct, then it would be 68 Ibid., letter XCVII. 69 Ibid., letter XCIX. 70 Ibid., letter C. On undisciplined Venetian crews, letter CLXXXVII; Also ibid. p. 298. Another case of indiscipline on Venetian vessels was that on board the Venetian captain Bevilaqua’s vessels. Four or five sailors refused to obey. Massimiliano calls them tumultuari (letter LV) and sussuratori (letter LVI). Having also refused to obey Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s instructions, they were conducted to prison immediately after their quarantine was over. Both captain and crew were to blame, according to Buzzaccarini Gonzaga. For important details, letter LVI; also letters LIX (first paragraph) and LXXI (last paragraph). A similar case involved the captain of a Dutch ship which, laden with gunpowder, was forced to enter Malta by bad weather. Letters LIX and LX. 71 See ibid., letters CLXXXIII, CLXXXVI, CLXXXVII, CXCIII.

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quite significant, for he hardly ever made a passing reference to his spiritual life and religious observance. When, en passant, he mentioned Christmas and Easter, he did so simply as specific points in time, without any allusion to their liturgical significance.72 He did however write about the great joy he felt, as a subject of the Venetian Republic, a professed religious, and a Catholic, on the election of Carlo Rezzonico as Pope Clement XIII, himself a Venetian patrician.73 A few years later he again wrote of the elation and excitement that accompanied his short visit to Rome in 1761 where he sought an audience with the Pope.74 Again, in March 1774, he gave a vivid account of what he called ‘the worst evil’ – the acute and persistent drought the island was then experiencing, especially in anticipation of the long dry summer months ahead. ‘The countryside,’ he wrote, ‘is in a terrible state; there is no hope of any harvest [this year].’ It was strongly feared, he pointed out, there would not be enough water in the wells to sustain the animals and for cotton cultivation. Divine help was sought, he reported; prayers were said throughout the island, and a public procession was organized with the holy relic of the arm of St John the Baptist, in which the grand master and all the members of the Order resident on the island were expected to participate.75 There were other moments when he invoked God’s help against storms and other mishaps,76 Though loyal to his institution and respectful towards his grand master, there were occasions when Buzzaccarini Gonzaga was highly critical of Emanuel Pinto’s style and method of government. In the 1760s the Ottoman Crown episode offered one such. This was the name of ‘the most beautiful vessel of Constantinople’ which in 1761 had been seized by members of the Order and taken to Malta. This caused widespread public consternation at the Porte, which threatened the Hospitallers with a second siege of their island headquarters if the vessel was not immediately restored to its rightful owners.77 While massive preparations were being made at Constantinople, Sinope, and Mytelene for a ‘war on Malta’ and new defence measures taken on the Mediterranean island, negotiations were going on between the Order and France in search of a feasible solution. It was here that Massimiliano almost howled with outrage that he had nothing reliable to report on the subject to the Adriatic Republic. The episode could have had wide international repercussions, especially for Venice whose relations with the Ottoman Porte were extremely fragile. Everything, he complained, appeared purposely shrouded in utmost secrecy. Nobody knew what was happening. There was a thick atmosphere of uncertainty in the country, a widespread fear of an imminent assault, which, according to our Hospitaller, the grand master had wantonly allowed to

72 For references to Christmas Day, ibid., letter 21 February 1774; for Easter, ibid., letters 9 February 1760, 20 May 1763, 10 April and 13 May 1764, 5 April 1773. 73 Ibid., letter XXXIV. 74 Ibid., letter XLIII. 75 Ibid., letter CXC. 76 Ibid., letter 11 November 1757. 77 Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta, pp. 232–233.

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prevail. Not even the Sacred Council itself, he said, was aware of the details of the negotiations. In the end it was agreed that the Bailiff De Fleury, the Order’s ambassador at the court of Louis XV, would, on behalf of France, purchase the Crown for c.400,000 Maltese scudi to have it in turn resold to the Ottoman Porte.78 Buzzaccarini Gonzaga died on 16 April 1776.79 The twenty odd years he spent on Malta had failed to change his perspective, the perception he entertained of the international role the island had assumed since the Order first made it its headquarters. In 1758, shortly after he had settled there, he called the island ‘so very necessary for the whole of Christendom’.80 Seven months before he passed away, he still entertained the idea that Malta, entrusted as it had been centuries earlier to the crusading Order by European sovereigns to protect Europe against the enemy of the Christian faith, was still performing that mission admirably.81

V This is the portrait of a little-known Venetian Hospitaller and his mission on eighteenth-century Malta – his joys and tribulations, his strengths and weaknesses, his failures, his difficulties, his achievements, not least, the painful sense of disillusion that persistently lay behind his mighty struggle against certain aspects of the prevailing system. All these emerge progressively from the articulate collection of letters that has survived him and the often-devastating passage of time. Above all, his ideas on practically anything that occurred in and around Malta that, in his judgement, could have been of any interest, immediate or remote, to the Adriatic Republic, together with the piercing insights these provide into so many aspects of everyday life, make this collection a significant historical source for any endeavour to reconstruct aspects of social reality in the central Mediterranean in early modern times. In accepting the meaningful role he was assigned and which he played for so many years, Massimiliano Buzzaccarini Gonzaga had set himself a task whose determination to perform it was not only extremely absorbing; it taxed all his faculties. For built against all his efforts, he found an insurmountable ‘smooth straight wall of rock’ rather than ‘a clean firm beach’.82 Nevertheless, he carried out his mission with grace, dignity, and humanity, with passion and conviction. The letters which he wrote in the performance of his mission reveal the full measure of his indefatigable efforts, sometimes in exhaustive detail. Replete with touching interest, they provide a deep and compelling commentary on a wide range of themes. His perceptive analysis of situations developing on Hospitaller

78 For Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s remarks on the episode, MBG, letters 7 April, 27 July, 10 August, 6 September, 12 October, 20 December 1761, 24 February, 1 April, and 19 May 1762. 79 ASVen, CSM, p.s., busta 601, fasc. ‘Lettere del Commendatore di Malta Alviso Zacco, Letter 1, Malta 20 April 1776. 80 ‘una piazza così necessaria alla Christianità tutta.’ MBG, letter 14 August 1758. 81 Ibid., letter 18 December 1775. 82 The quotes are from Henry James.

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Malta; his insightful observations on events and trends in Europe and the Mediterranean; his discreet dealings with the grand-magistracy and other local institutions; his great humanity towards less fortunate beings; his constant endeavour to alleviate the appalling conditions which wrecked the lives of so many of his fellow Venetians; conditions which touched him deeply, which pained him too at times – all these qualities made the marquis a highly accomplished personality with a temperament of great sensibility. There was another intrinsic worth which it would not be fair to omit or lightly bypass – a conscious commitment (it must have been) to an articulate style for letters written in a distinct, invariably elegant hand, one which contrasted so sharply with his cousin’s. His commentary washing around his letters to Venice pulses with themes of sad adventure, of dramatic exploitation of the unwary. And woven into it was his allegiance and loyalty to the charitable and hospitaller institution in which he had professed in 1712. As for his sources, he drew upon the true stories of living creatures torn between hope and infinite despair – the silence, the wrath, the seasonal storms, and the misery of his fellow Venetians. What he revealed in writing and what he did helped the policy makers in Venice to understand Hospitaller Malta, ‘a perfectly despotic little state’,83 better; and along with it the conditions and changing situations which prevailed in the central Mediterranean and in the world of corsairs in the second half of the eighteenth century. That knowledge was to them of immense value. But corsairing was not the only subject with which Massimiliano Buzzaccarini Gonzaga was concerned, however large the space it occupied in his correspondence. In his letters from Malta, he has turned up new details on a much wider range of themes. In some of them he provides revealing glimpses, in others sharp intuitive perceptions. One often comes across some colourful touches, like the observation he makes on the real dangers of travelling through Calabria in southern Italy. The threatening mountains, the wild passage of rivers, the constant presence of murderous thieves, the hazardous health conditions – all rendered the place hostile and unsafe.84 Other instances include the sorrowful account of the fate of the San Giovanni in January 1765 after having encountered a terrible storm at the end of her three-month cruise in the Mediterranean;85 the sad experience of two fearful days in 1757 (29 October and 5 November) when whirlwinds caused widespread havoc in Malta, houses and other structures collapsed, a number of ships and other craft lying in the harbour were smashed, and several people lost their lives;86 the popular food riots of 1766 when, to calm down the populace, knights 83 Baroness Eugenia Münster to Robert Acton, in Henry James, The Europeans (Penguin Books, 1976 reprint), p. 81. 84 MBG, letters 7 and 13 May 1764. 85 Ibid., letter 7 May 1765. 86 ‘Due spaventose giornate abbiamo sofferte, il dì 29 scaduto e 5 corrente, per due turbini consecutivi, i quali arrecorono sommi danni, avvendo rovesciate molte case e fabriche, sotto le quali molte persone perdetero la vita. Spaventoso fu il secondo, perché accompagnato da fulmini, i quali non cessorono in tutto il giorno, vedendosi l’aria tutto foco e sempre invilupata; per il che si fece temere sempre di qualche nuovo disastro. Li bastimenti tutti nel porto scorrevano con sommo

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were sent out to distribute bread to the homes and to succour the old, the sick, and those women who were unable to venture out to obtain it.87 Other valuable insights (again to mention only a few) are provided on the sorry state in which Naples found itself in the summer of 1764 as a result of the wild spread of disease when ‘that great city’ (as he calls it) was abandoned by the foreigners and the nobility who had retired to their country residence for health safety;88 on the expulsion of the Jesuits from Malta in April 1768 on ‘instructions’ from the court of Naples and with ‘intelligence’ from Rome;89 on the French siege of the Tunisian ports of Sousse and Biserte in the summer of 1770;90 the revolution in Palermo in 1773;91 the uprising of the priests in Malta two years later;92 the possibly close ties between the two;93 and on the initial measures Grand Master Ximenes took in October 1775, a month or so before he died, to summon a general-chapter, the first after nearly 150 years, to implement whatever reforms were deemed necessary.94 In brief, Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s correspondence has plenty to offer researchers who are interested in matters other than those pertaining solely to the world of corsairs. Trade is one such major theme. Health is another. As the subject of trade has already been discussed elsewhere, especially in my Venice and Hospitaller Malta,95 I shall refrain from revisiting it, except perhaps for making one or two observations. Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s endeavour to widen the scope for Malta’s commercial links with Venice, was one task which he carried out with almost religious scruple. In trying to promote the diversification of the island’s traditional trade pattern, he was confronted with a difficult situation marked by deep-rooted Hospitaller prejudices which had been for long years moulding the constraints of Malta’s trade structures, the innate conservatism of the insular Maltese merchant, the established role of the Greek merchant within this pattern, and the growing attraction to the Maltese merchant of the formidable development of the southern Austrian ports of Trieste and Fiume, declared free since 1719, into international markets. These were among the major ‘push’ factors. The ‘pull’ factors behind the island’s purchase-market capabilities included the Hospitallers’ own lifestyle, the Order’s aspirations to political grandeur, the steady growth of the local population, and

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pericolo, ma solo un mercante inglese restò intieramente smatato, ed altri acconsentiti negli albori. Il comandante francese diede con il timone sopra una punta, però non ha sofferto niente più degli altri. Molte barche di passo furono rovisciate, delle quali alcune poche persone restorono morte.’ Ibid., letter 11 November 1757. Ibid., letters 4 August, 29 September 1766. Ibid., letter 30 August 1764. Ibid., letter 25 April 1768. Ibid., letters 27 August, 10 September 1770. Ibid., letters 4 October, 15 November, 20 December 1773, 7, 21 February, 7, 21 March, 18 July, 1 August, 24 September, 7 November 1774. Ibid., letters 18 September, 2 October 1775. Ibid., letters 16, 30 October, 20 November 1775. Ibid., letters 16, 30 October, 20 November 1775. Particularly Chapter VIII, entitled ‘From Traditional Foes to Trading Partners’. Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta, pp. 221–269.

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the island’s meagre natural resources which rendered it heavily dependent on foreign sources of supply. In his early years on Malta, the marquis surveyed these structures very carefully and made some bold suggestions to the Cinque Savi. His efforts and those of Michele Sagramoso, an acting Hospitaller receiver in Venice, resulted in the Senate granting Malta a five-year concession, commencing in 1762, exempting a whole range of commodities (some forty-seven of them) from customs dues – whether these were paid on entering Venice on goods of Germanic origin or on other merchandise before leaving Venice. These concessions were eventually allowed to evolve into an informal bilateral trade agreement, later modified and renewed. Between October 1768 and July 1774 Russia was at war with the Ottoman Empire. During the earliest phase of the war, the marquis happened to be away from the island,96 and it was only from 11 August 1770 that this important episode in Mediterranean history began to feature, at times fairly prominently, in his letters. It is important because by the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji, which marked the end of hostilities, imperial Russia gained a tiny stretch of the northern coast of the Black Sea, ‘additional territory on the Sea of Azov’, and direct access through the Straits of the Dardanelles to the Mediterranean.97 Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s sources for his comments on the progress of the war were the first-hand reports he received from visiting captains and members of the crews on board English, French, or Muscovite ships. These called at Malta at almost regular intervals either on their way to the Levant or from the theatre of war on their return to the west. He sifted the evidence very carefully, distinguishing clearly between what he knew was certain, factual, and reliable and what was simply based on widespread rumours. Whenever there was doubt about the accuracy of his sources, he would declare it at the outset. His commentary on the war opens with a reference to the ferocious encounter of 5 July 1770 between the two hostile armadas at the Bay of Tchesmé. The Ottoman fleet was ‘entirely routed’ and ‘burst into flames’.98 The Turks who survived the disaster were reported to have fled to Smyrna, putting all Greeks they came across to the sword. A division of the Muscovite naval armada was then dispatched to the Archipelago to seize one of the islands which could offer them shelter whenever weather conditions demanded it; the other division proceeded to the blockade of the Dardanelles to prevent shiploads of food supplies and other war materiel from reaching Constantinople.99 Meanwhile a French squadron along with a number 96 In his letter of 8 June 1767, he was already seeking somebody to replace him in his imminent absence. He was not yet sure whether Alviero Zacco would be in a position to do that as he was then deeply involved in the Order’s naval establishment. Antonio Poussielgues, the Venetian consul, was not sufficiently trustworthy to be asked to assume that responsibility. In the end, Zacco stood in for the marquis. See Letters CXXII, CXXXVII, and CXXXIX. 97 Norman E. Saul, Russia and the Mediterranean 1797–1807 (Chicago/London, 1970), p. 8. 98 MBG, letter CXXXVIII. The news of the Turkish armada was later reconfirmed by French ships proceeding from the Levant. Letter CXXXIX. 99 Ibid.

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of Hospitaller galleys were besieging Tunis, causing widespread devastation at Bizerte and Sousse.100 Venetian ships destined to either of these ports were left stranded in Malta until peace was restored.101 For the next four years Buzzaccarini Gonzaga kept feeding the Cinque Savi with novel developments in the Levant. He made sure that every significant event, anything he judged newsworthy, reached Venice. These included, to instance a few, the rumours that the most powerful division of the Russian squadron was about to lay siege on Tenedos. It consisted of 14 warships and several transport vessels. On board were 7,000 men, 3,000 of whom were Russian soldiers; the rest were Greeks and Albanians. Once the siege was lifted, it would then undertake the passage through the Dardanelles.102 Shortly after that, he wrote on the Muscovites’ determination to take the island of Negroponte, besieging it with 20 warships, frigates, and other craft and disembarking a land force of some 6,500 men.103 The island was eventually pillaged and massive supplies of foodstuffs taken.104 There was then the battle for the Danube105 and the sack of Mytelene, a city on Lesbos in the Aegean, where vessels found at the island’s shipyards were destroyed by fire.106 On 8 October 1770, reported Buzzaccarini Gonzaga two or three days after receiving the news, eight ships, laden with provisions for Constantinople, lay anchored in the port of Rhodes. Four of them were Venetians. They were unable to sail out for fear of the Muscovites, ‘current masters of those seas’. On the other hand, Russian land forces were not far from the Ottoman capital, a distance they would cover in less than two days. What was worse news however was the severe outbreak of plague and famine in Constantinople.107 Throughout his correspondence, the Hospitaller marquis from Padua showed greater regard for almost visual detail than any French exponent of naturalism, capturing in the process the feel and smell of the age. His partiality for sending the Cinque Savi consistently regular dispatches bordered almost on the pathological. This regularity was interrupted solely by unusually stormy weather and deteriorating health. In his later years he often complained of sudden attacks of gout. On their part, the Savi were appreciative of his serious contributions. They found them useful and practical in issuing instructions to consuls overseas and safe guidelines to their merchants and sailors.108 During the war years, Malta was, in a sense, in a state of alarm. The conflict in the Levant restricted severely what by the eighteenth century had become some of the island’s traditional sources of supply for several commodities. To make 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108

Ibid.; also letter CXL. Ibid. Ibid., letters CLII and CLIII. Ibid., letter CLIV. Ibid., letter CLVII. Ibid., letter CLVIII. Ibid., letter CLIX. Ibid., letter CXLI. See, for example, the first sentence in ibid., letter CLX.

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matters worse, the Sicilian tratte were either withheld or delayed. The result was disastrous. On 16 December 1771109 Buzzaccarini Gonzaga expressed great concern over the severe shortage of all sorts of foodstuffs. The island was unable to obtain any modicum of relief from Sicily. The dearth of meat and oil, he wrote on more than one occasion, ‘is afflicting everyone, and especially the common people.’110 By April 1772,111 the situation worsened. Malta began to experience too the effects of a severe drought (somma sicità). There was hardly a drop of rain all winter. Water reserves were running alarmingly dry. ‘It is strongly feared,’ he lamented, ‘that we would have no water all through the summer,’ not even for the bare essentials.112 Such conditions dragged on, almost uninterruptedly, to at least 1774 when the war finally ground to a halt. Although it would be wrong to attribute all these ‘miseries’113 solely to the Russo-Turkish conflict, Buzzaccarini Gonzaga claimed that with the coming of peace, Levantine markets would reopen, and it was hoped that the island would regain the advantages it had traditionally enjoyed from that region.114 The alarm which gripped Malta in the early 1770s may also be explained partly in terms of the ever-present fear of contagion (the morbo contaggioso), which ships, proceeding from the eastern Mediterranean, infetti ed attaccati, could easily spread,115 and partly for the danger of unwitting involvement in the war. Hospitaller Malta was a neutral principality whose facilities were offered to all Christian Europe; its Hospitaller government was careful to respect and to be seen respecting its principle of neutrality. English, French, and Muscovite fleets called regularly at Malta – some sought shelter from bad weather, others needed to refit at the island’s arsenals, and others preferred to undergo quarantine at the Hospitaller lazaretto before proceeding to western ports. Any problems arising from the unavoidably tense relations between subjects of the belligerent powers during their sojourn on Malta had to be dealt with exclusively by their resident ministers on the island. The Order deliberately stayed out of them.116 The Hospitaller Toussaint de Vento des Pennes, of the Langue of Provence, had been France’s chargé d’affaires, or l’Homme du Roi, since 1764.117 Angel Rutter looked after English interests;118 he had succeeded the notorious Francophobe William Dodsworth, removed from office for having defiantly sought diplomatic immunity behind

109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117

Ibid., letter CLVIII. Ibid. Also letter CLIX. Ibid., letter CLXII. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., letter CLXXIII. Ibid., letter CXLIII. Ibid., letter CLX. See Des Nouvelles de Malte: Correspondance de M. L’Abbé Boyer (1738–1777), ed. Alain Blondy (Brussels, 2004), p. 3 and passim. 118 See Victor Mallia-Milanes, ‘Six Letters by Angel Rutter, British Consul in Malta’, Melita Historica, vii, 1 (1976), pp. 17–24.

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the royal arms of George III.119 In 1769, with her Russian fleet navigating the Mediterranean, the empress Catherine II had the Venetian marquis Georges André Cavalcabo accredited as her own representative at the grand master’s court in Valletta.120 Contacts between Moscow and Valletta, which could be traced back to the times of ‘western’ czar Peter the Great,121 remained conveniently cordial during the war. Buzzaccarini Gonzaga often referred to the movements of Count Alessio Orlov, who was trusted with the overall command of the Mediterranean campaign of 1769–1770,122 and to some irregular form of correspondence that went between him and Cavalcabo.123 On 4 January 1771, for example, two Russian privateers with Greek crews were reported to have arrived in Malta from Paros with 86 slaves and an accompanying letter to Grand Master Pinto. The letter was from Count Orlov; the slaves were a gift from his empress in recognition of the care and consideration the grand master had years earlier extended to six young men who had been sent to Malta from Moscow to gain naval experience on board the Hospitaller fleet.124 On 9 August 1772, the count, said Buzzaccarini Gonzaga, sailed incognito on board a heavy ship, entered Malta’s harbour, and presented himself at the lazaretto to speak to Cavalcabo. Meanwhile his ship underwent necessary repairs. To complete this task in as short a time as possible, he asked to have the workforce employed on his warship doubled. In the end, in return, he offered a thaler to each of the Maltese workers involved.125

119 MBG, letters LXI and LXV. Also Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta, p. 216 and n.131. 120 Saul, p. 34. 121 See, for example, Schermerhorn, p. 280 et seq. 122 Saul, p. 6. 123 For occasional references to the correspondence between the two, MBG, Letters CLIII and CLXVII. 124 MBG, letter CXLV. 125 Ibid., letter CLXVII.

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X VENICE, HOSPITALLER MALTA, AND FEAR OF THE PLAGUE Culturally conflicting views

The present communication seeks to understand a theme which has been far too long kept in the shadows – the nature of the relationship between Venice and Hospitaller Malta as determined by the two States’ fear of the plague and other forms of disease, and by their controversial assumptions on such epidemics. These differences reflected yet another reality. The stage which medical science had reached in this regard allowed ample room for wide divergence of opinion on causation, on the very nature of the disease, and on the effective measures to contain it. To say that the plague was a more lethal force than any other deadly phenomenon is to state a selfevident truth. Much more destructive than the corso, it militated against the peaceful and legitimate movement of merchants and merchandise between one port-city and another, relentlessly interrupting lines of communication. Much more ruthless than slavery, it ravaged towns and villages, disrupted the tenor and normal rhythm of ordinary everyday life, and decimated populations. This explained the rigour with which Venice and Hospitaller Malta approached quarantine and other related defensive mechanisms. On arrival in Malta in 1530, the Hospitallers applied the same regulations governing public health on early sixteenth-century Rhodes1 and observed them with religious scruple. The extent of such inflexibility on the part of the Order often provoked Venetian opposition, at times suspecting ulterior reasons motivating it. In 1765, to cite one example, the Venetian health authorities (the Provveditori alla Sanità) complained of the excessive rigidity adopted by the Maltese quarantine officials in the fumigation of letters. Having been fumigated on arrival at Hospitaller Malta, letters addressed to Venice from Tripoli on North Africa reached the Adriatic city allegedly torn down – which was not at all pleasant, they said.2 In Venice the fumigation of letters was done differently. The process was not as stringent, and it allowed for more privacy and confidentiality. This explains why it elicited such a reaction.3 1 P. Cassar, A Medical History of Malta (London, 1965), p. 273. Fra Emericus D’Amboise was elected grand master on 10 July 1503 (Malta, Cod. 80, fol. 33v–34v) and died on 13 November 1512 (Malta, Cod. 82, fol. 34). 2 ASVen, Provveditori alla Sanità, busta 194, letter 41, 27 February 1764 mv. 3 Ibid.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003406518-11

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The Venetians attributed the form which such procedures in Malta assumed to lack of discipline. The Venetian resident minister on Hospitaller Malta, to whom the complaint had been addressed, was instructed to approach the island’s health officials on this delicate issue in the hope of persuading them to change their ways, update their methods, and start adopting more cautious and more prudent practices. That, he was told, would spare Malta ‘some very unpleasant consequences’.4 This last remark may well have been vaguely referring to the evil consequences of a plague epidemic. But the tone may also have been one of a subtly concealed threat, betraying the hostile perception which the Republic of Venice traditionally entertained of the Order of St John in early modern times. What Venice implied was quite obvious. Fumigation offered the Hospitallers ‘an excellent opportunity to scrutinize the contents of all incoming correspondence,’5 a practice the Adriatic Republic was not prepared to tolerate. William Hardman calls the procedure, adopted again by the British on early nineteenth-century Malta, a necessary ‘system of espionage’.6 Malta’s sanitary authorities appear to have accepted Venice’s complaint. In fact, in January 1766 the Venetian minister pointed out that the batch of letters addressed to Venice, which had lately reached Malta from Tripoli, were marked, as instructed, on the outside to indicate that they were proceeding from a suspect city, that they were not to be opened in the lazaretto, but to be slightly slit for purposes of disinfection only as required by the local health authorities.7 There were several other occasions when Venice questioned Malta’s decisions in public health matters. In 1726 the Republic’s health commission requested an explanation why one Captain Raimondo Vermalle’s martigliana, proceeding from Tripoli, had been granted a meagre 21-day quarantine. Malta claimed it was conforming to what was being practised in Spain, France, and all ports in Italy for vessels not coming from specifically suspect areas. Tripoli, reads Malta’s response, had been for years free of the remotest suspect. Malta’s decision, it claimed, had been correct, insisting that thoroughness was the hallmark of the Hospitaller system.8 In August 1727, in two separate sheets,9 the Venetian Provveditori referring to the revived contagion in Cairo and Alexandria, which spread to Smyrna, Cyprus, and Rhodes, demanded an explanation on the suspect French tartan of Padron Liotand and its dealings with Malta. The island’s health commission declared coldly and succinctly that ‘in no way does Malta administer quarantine to vessels with a foul bill of health’. They would simply be supplied with

4 Ibid. 5 Cassar, p. 291. 6 W. Hardman, A History of Malta during the Period of the French and British Occupations 1789– 1815 (London, 1909), p. 495. 7 ASVen, Provveditori alla Sanità, busta 550, filza 9, Letter 14, Malta, 8 January 1756. 8 Ibid., Letter 1, Malta, 4 February 1726. 9 See Ibid., busta 678, fol. 26, lettera circolare 2 August 1727; for the letter of 16 August, ibid., busta 676, Letter 69, Malta, 23 September 1727.

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the necessary provisions and ordered to leave.’10 In October 1757, Venice again demanded precise information on the prizes that French and English armateurs had been conducting to Malta. The year before, in 1756, Anglo-French commercial rivalry had been extended to the Mediterranean when the French seized the British naval base of Minorca in the opening sea battle of the Seven Years War in the European theatre. Hospitaller Malta was a politically neutral principality. Over the years it had developed into ‘a French trading post’ and ‘an asylum for war-weary vessels’.11 The Venetian resident minister pointed out that Venice’s observations on this issue were not accurate. For months, he wrote in reply, none of these armateurs had ever approached the island. The latest prize allowed in was an armed English man-of-war seized on its way from the Levant by two French vessels cruising in the central Mediterranean, forming part of a French squadron then anchored in Malta’s harbour. The year before, he continued, English armateurs had transferred several such prizes to the island. They proceeded from all parts of the Mediterranean, east and west, with rich cargoes of silk, wool, coffee, and so on. Parts of these were even allowed to be sold on Malta. Whoever sailed into Malta’s harbour, he stressed, was subject to the same code of sanitary laws, irrespective of rank and nationality.12 Sensitive to her economy’s overwhelming dependence on trade with all the ports and markets of the vast Ottoman Empire (a permanent reservoir of plague infection), her stato da mar’s geographical proximity to the empire’s extraordinarily long coastline bordering on the Adriatic and the eastern Mediterranean, north and south, the unavoidable exposure of her merchants and sailors to such fearsome risks and hazards of infection, and her certain knowledge that such outbreaks would undermine her primacy on international markets, Venice was constantly on the alert for the appearance of the mildest symptoms of the plague. She kept her wide network of consulates and other similar commercial agencies stationed all over Europe, the Mediterranean, and beyond both, fully informed of developments, and in return receiving daily reports of any changing situation. To these centres, which included Hospitaller Malta, Venice circulated news-letters, or avvisi, regularly. A Terminatione was generally attached to them. This was an account of the latest developments, issued in printed form by (in our case) the health magistracy. It included a set of measures, having the force of law, ordained to prevent or contain the spread of plague or other contagious diseases.13 Practical, useful, and rewarding, these avvisi demanded, and often determined, an immediate response from the receiving State. In June 1726, on learning of a plague outbreak in Cairo, spreading to Damietta and Alexandria, the Maltese health authorities immediately chased away from the island two vessels proceeding

10 11 12 13

Ibid. R. Cavaliero, The Last of the Crusaders (London, 1960), p. 132. ASVen, Provveditori alla Sanità, busta 550, filza 9, Letter 40, Malta, 14 October 1757. See, for example, ibid., busta 674, Letter 146, Malta, 10 July 1724.

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from those areas.14 The observations spelled out in these news-letters were radical, emphatic, precise, and exhaustive. They identified the exact locality where the first signs of the contagion had been discovered, the routes taken by the spreading contagion, and the factors to which they attributed the outbreak; they sometimes confirmed rumours, at others denied them; they prescribed, often dictated, the measures to be taken to prevent it or curb its spread; they reported with jubilation the retreat of the contagion, even though at times it re-emerged within a few days in a nearby village or port. In brief, these avvisi left no space for the discretion of local authorities, no room for dissenting views. Was Venice’s public health policy an instrument of power exercised through knowledge and experience and indeed an extended form of spacial control? In almost every reply acknowledging receipt of these letters, the Maltese health commission felt the need to reassert again and again that the Order’s uninterrupted medical tradition, the wide precautions they took, had consistently rewarded Malta’s administrative approach to this recurring affliction with considerable success.15 The Order was generally receptive to the ideas prescribed in Venice’s public health ordinances. Before the Venetian ministry had been set up on Hospitaller Malta, all incoming letters regarding public health were addressed to the island’s Deputazione della Sanità; from the mid-1750s, they were directed to Venice’s own resident minister accredited to the grand master’s court in Valletta. Most of these notices dealt with the identification of all forms of epidemics, which were generally imported from the neighbouring coast of mainland Greece and ports in the south-western Ottoman Empire. On receipt of any such avviso, the minister would pass all the information to the grand master who would in turn take whatever decision he and his venerable council deemed necessary in Malta’s interests and in those of trade and navigation in the area.16 In September 1761, Grand Master Emanuel Pinto confessed that in such difficult circumstances he gladly welcomed Venice’s avvisi as generous instructions whose execution he would not for a moment hesitate to order.17 The next year the minister reconfirmed that all the directives the Venetian State health magistracy was pleased to communicate to Malta were immediately put into practice by the island’s sanitary commission.18 Although Venice kept asking, at almost regular intervals, for detailed information about Hospitaller Malta’s public health policies and practices, her Sanità magistracy was fully cognizant of the methods the Order adopted and the scrupulous way these were observed. Surviving documentation shows that regular correspondence between the health institutions of both States had been going on for long years. The archives of Venice’s Provveditori alla Sanità contain an

14 Ibid., busta 676, filza 66, Malta, 25 June 1726. 15 Ibid., filza 67, Malta, 16 September 1726; ibid., filza 68, Malta, 21 October 1726; ibid., filza 69, Malta, 23 September 1727; ibid., busta 670, filze 121–125, Malta, 1724–1725. 16 Ibid., busta 550, filza 9, Letter 31, Malta, 17 June 1761. 17 Ibid., Letter 30, Malta, 24 September 1761. See also ibid., Letter 25, Malta, 21 March 1763. 18 Ibid., Letter 26, 13 December 1762.

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interesting document, drawn up on 9 February 1721 and signed by Malta’s six health commissioners. It deals in extraordinary detail with the manner with which vessels, persons, and all types of merchandise were thoroughly cleansed at the lazaretto of Malta before being granted pratique.19 Two years later, in 1723, in response to Venice’s persistent requests for information, Malta’s health commissioners drew up yet another meaningful account of the caring measures taken on the island to keep the plague at a safe distance. Venice’s perseverance in having accurate information at this particular point in time was perhaps more than justified as the early 1720s, which marked the ‘last outbreak of plague’ in Western Europe, had devastated Marseilles and most of Provence. No detail in Malta’s report was insignificant. Vessels proceeding from the Levant or the Barbary Coast had first to spend a few days in isolation for observation before being admitted to the lazaretto. This gave the health commissioners time to assess better what the vessel and its crew had experienced during the voyage. If nothing suspect resulted, they were administered quarantine. It was part of Malta’s ‘most exacting precautions’ to impose a 20-day quarantine on vessels, crews, and certain categories of merchandise covered by a clean bill of health. All other goods, including prizes conducted to Malta by corsairs, were administered a full quarantine of 40 days in the lazaretto warehouses. Here wardens would have them ventilated in a way that strictly conformed to the procedures and regulations governing lazarettos and quarantine in Naples and Sicily.20 This compliance with the standards of the two neighbouring kingdoms would spare the local health authorities, explained the report, getting involved in unnecessary political nuisance.21 At the end of their report, the Health Commission pointed out that if all countries felt bound to set strict watches to avoid contagion, how much more cautious and vigilant would a small island like Malta have to be when its government was fully aware that a serious outbreak of plague would instantly convert the island into one massive graveyard.22 The Sanità’s task was a grand commitment. Venice’s persistent, sometimes irritating, search for details on Malta’s public health policy was perhaps pragmatically understandable. Her repetitions reflected her experience of constantly recurring epidemics. The Serenissima imposed quarantine in 1374; she was the first in Europe to set up a permanent plague hospital, the Lazaretto Vecchio, in 1423, followed by a second, the Lazaretto Nuovo, a convalescent home, in 1468 with adjacent warehouses for merchandise and living quarters for people.23 Venice 19 Ibid., busta 562, filza 4, 9 February 1721. 20 Ibid., busta 653, Letter 146. The letter was signed by Malta’s Deputatione della Sanità – the Grand Marshall Carolus de Parnac, the Grand Prior of Lombardy Roberto Solaro, the Grand Prior of Hungary Francesco Antonio de Konigsregg, the Balì Antonio de Paz, Commendatore Don Marius Tedeschi, and Commendatore Joannes Alexius de Margou. 21 Ibid., busta 676, Letter 68, Malta, 21 October 1726. 22 Ibid., busta 653, Letter 147, 1 November 1723. 23 Cfr. Venice: A Documentary History, 1450–1630, ed. D. Chambers, B. Pullan (Oxford, 1992), p. 113; F. C. Lane, Venice: A Maritime History (Baltimore, 1973), pp. 17–18.

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had great practical knowledge of how easily plague could break out and how more easily it spread in all directions. She had ample experience in the forms of quarantine she ‘enforced . . . on persons and goods’ to curb the disease.24 These qualities rendered her ‘exchange of information’ through her wide intelligence networks ‘on the movement of infection’ authoritative and of inestimable value – certainly one of her major cultural contributions to the West.25 What essentially lay behind the avvisi was Venice’s striving towards concerted action. She was sceptical of other States’ methods and their weakly enforced quarantine systems. That regulations were disobeyed and quarantine breached were not rare occurrences. Avarice and market interests often tried to circumvent sanitary rigour. Venice considered her system the best enduring system available at the time to face the supreme test in life. In essence her public health policy was based on an aggregate of vibrant measures – experience, observation, isolation – that over the long term were believed to have positively served individual human needs and public social interests, although there were several tragic instances when they failed to achieve their desired effect. Like Venice, the Hospitallers, with their deep sense of organization and long medical tradition, acknowledged the magnitude of the problem and, like Venice too, gave great attention to public health. On mid-fifteenth-century Rhodes they issued a set of ‘detailed regulations’, later elaborated under D’Amboise (1503– 1512), to protect the island against the plague.26 The Hospitallers’ performance during their eight-year odyssey from Rhodes to Malta between 1523 and 1530 was a public-relations exercise which provided ample evidence of how competent they were to deal with frequent outbreaks and to ensure that infection did not spread further. On arrival in Malta, they applied the same old Rhodian regulations and practices, albeit modified to reflect the evolution in medical thought. The Hospital’s defences against the plague were also evident in the sophisticated procedures it adopted to prevent or contain the transmission of infection. The Grand Hospital in Valletta, and ‘its numerous subsidiary institutions,’ says Anthony Luttrell, ‘formed part of an extensive apparatus,’27 designed, confirms Konvitz, ‘as a first line of defence against the plague’.28 The lazaretto, which offered an extensive range of amenities, was situated on a tiny island in Marsamxetto harbour; the quarantine station was set up on the southern side of the city of Valletta beneath the bastion of Castile and the lower baracca, along the Valletta quay on the Grand Harbour.29 24 F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, trans. S. Reynolds (London, 1972–73), p. 332. 25 The quote is taken from M. W. Flinn, ‘Plague in Europe and the Mediterranean Countries’, The Journal of European Economic History, viii, 1 (Spring 1979), pp. 131–148, 146. 26 A. Luttrell, ‘The Hospitallers’ Medical Tradition: 1291–1530’, MO, 1 (1994), p. 73. 27 Ibid., p. 81. 28 J. W. Konvitz, Cities and the Sea: Port City Planning in Early Modern Europe (Baltimore, 1978), p. 16. 29 D. Panzac, Quarantaines et Lazarets: L’Europe et la Peste d’Orient (Aix-en-Provence, 1986), pp. 170–172.

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Notwithstanding the obsession of both States with stringent precautions, neither the Venetian Republic nor Hospitaller Malta succeeded in remaining entirely free from visitations of this killer disease. Both had their own scarifying experiences – like the major devastating outbreaks of plague of 1575–1577 and 1630–1631 for Venice and 1676 for Hospitaller Malta. Hospitaller Malta was not only the recipient of this continuous exchange of knowledge on such delicate issues. If Venice sent regular dispatches to the island, so did Malta to the Adriatic Republic. The dissemination of information regarding outbreaks of infectious diseases and their movements was a universal public obligation, a service to humanity. Hospitaller Malta acted, every time the need arose, as the original source of information. A few instances would suffice. • •

•

On 21 October 1726 Malta informed Venice that there had been no further signs of the plague in Alexandria since 10 or 15 June.30 In mid-October 1761 the Adriatic city was informed that there was an outbreak of plague at Benghazi. It dragged on to late December.31 It was only by the end of March that one Venetian captain, Giuseppe Bevilaqua, on arrival in Malta from Benghazi reported that the contagion in that city had disappeared.32 On 13 December 1762 Venice’s attention was again drawn to the fact that Malta itself was then suffering a contagious influenza, marked with high fever. It was not a deadly disease; ‘only the odd person, advanced in age, perhaps’ pointed out the minister rather uncharitably, ‘succumbed from the effect’.33

The list can be drawn up indefinitely. On 27 July 1764, in a separate letter this time to the Venetian magistracy of trade,34 the minister pointed out that the latest news he received from plague-stricken Naples was distressing. It was painful to learn, he wrote, of the numerous cases there of illnesses and deaths, and heartrending to behold a grand city like Naples, a centre of prosperity, transaction, and sociability, abandoned by all foreigners and deserted by its own nobility retiring hastily to the country to escape that particular wave of infection. A week earlier he felt the need to inform Venice’s health commission of the situation. On 21 July, he had sent Venice an excerpt from a letter his friend had received from Abruzzo, depicting the prevailing situation in an almost surrealistic style. The writer was one such nobleman fleeing Naples. His graphic observations, according to the minister, were worthy of serious reflection. He was careful not to alarm Venice’s 30 31 32 33 34

ASVen, Provveditori alla Sanità, busta 676, Letter 68, Malta, 21 October 1726. Ibid., busta 550, filza 9, Letter 28, Malta, 20 December 1761. Ibid., Letter 27, Malta, 1 April 1762. Ibid., Letter 26, Malta, 13 December 1762. See In the Service of the Venetian Republic: Massimiliano Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s Letters from Malta to Venice’s Magistracy of Trade 1754–1776, ed. Victor Mallia-Milanes (Malta, 2008), Letter LXXX, p. 349.

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Sanità unnecessarily, stressing the point that although the person writing from Abruzzo was a first-hand witness to the horrors he recounted, the contents of his letter had not yet been reconfirmed by other sources. The traumatic impact the horrible image of the plague had had on his imagination and emotions may have distorted the true picture. ‘My friend,’ reads the vivid letter from Abruzzo, ‘the current hardships have exhausted all my energy to the extent of having felt compelled to retire to my country residence with all my family and leave the city where the infection is spreading at an excessive speed. Doctors call it’, he wrote, not without a sharp sense of biting sarcasm, ‘a benign contagion, where one simply passes away benignly, and indeed crowds are dying benignly. Those taken ill are transported in wagons to the hospitals; the dead are carried away from inhabited places to their resting place and given a benign burial. Oh what a spectacle! What a humiliating panorama! Here [in the country] we have so far been spared the benign contagion, but this week a vast number of peasants have returned from Puglia where they had been harvesting their produce. In Puglia the disease has wrought as much havoc as in Naples. These peasants carried the infection with them back home, to their hitherto healthy wives and children who had remained behind. Within four days, 12 have passed away and 40 others have been reported ill. I’m afraid this place can no longer remain unscathed [by the outbreak],’ he bemoaned, ‘something which is terrifying me.’35 Not all sources, of course, were reliable. Valid views mingled with wild, false, and malicious rumours on the outbreak, spread, or disappearance of infectious diseases throughout the Mediterranean and were as conflicting and erratic as they were dependable.36 In 1775, for example, the Turks disseminated a malicious rumour that plague had broken out in the Morea in order to scare creditor States away.37 Such rumours, or claims based on such rumours, had to be instantly corrected to avoid unnecessary hardship. In 1767 Malta’s trade links with Sicily and Naples were unexpectedly suspended as a result precisely of a false rumour reaching the two southern Italian States via Rome that a contagious disease had broken out on Malta, when in fact the island ‘has always been enjoying perfect health, without the remotest fear of any such threat.’ The Venetian minister felt the need to inform directly the sanitary commission of his sending State of these events lest they might think there was something suspicious if he concealed them. After all Venice would still receive a very likely distorted version of the events from her resident minister Gabrielli in Naples and from that city’s health authorities. This was the month of September. The worst part of summer was over. The malignant fever that had intensely afflicted the whole of Italy had subsided. At no time had there been the faintest signs of any noxious disease on Malta. What could 35 ASVen, Provveditori alla Sanità, busta 550, filza 9, Letter 19, Malta, 18 August 1764. 36 See, for example, ibid., Letter 1, Malta, 18 December 1775: ‘[E]sserne stata falsa la notizia e maliciosamente da’ turchi inventata per allontanare le nazioni creditrici dalle parti della Morea.’ 37 Ibid., Letter 1a, Malta, 18 December 1775.

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have possibly given rise to this malicious rumour was the return of the Order’s squadron to Malta in mid-July. On their way they had called at the ports of Naples, Gaeta, Capo d’Anzo, and Portofino. At none of them did the squadron encounter any sanitary problems, but on arrival in Malta, thirty crew members fell ill with fever; they were kept under observation and after ten days were granted pratique. ‘This,’ claims the Venetian minister, ‘is a sincere account of all that happened.’ On being provided with this information, he continued, Sicily lifted its ban, and commerce with that kingdom resumed. Several vessels, found anchored at Malta, sailed out to their original destination.38 But Naples was not convinced, questioning the Sicilian Viceroy’s decision. A member of the Health Commission of Syracuse had to be sent to Malta to see at first hand the true situation.39 Reaching Malta on 19 September, he did not take long to realise from the brisk movement of the people within and outside the city and the normal vigorous activities in the harbour that all was well.40 The only problem that remained was the characteristic bureaucracy of the Court of Naples, its proverbially slow pace to reach a decision, and the voracity of the harbour custodians in Sicily and Calabria.41 Again on 11 November 1763 the Venetian minister was the first to report to the health board in Venice that Malta itself had been placed in quarantine as a result of a Dutch war vessel anchored in the main harbour earlier that month, after having left Gibraltar thirty-five days earlier. According to the captain’s sworn declaration, during the voyage all men on board enjoyed perfect health although two had died of an ordinary illness. With Gibraltar having close trade contacts with the Barbary Regencies, they were given a 20-day quarantine of observation. On 10 November, during the night, two of the soldiers managed to escape on their own skiff but were caught and arrested the next morning. They confessed that what they had done was to save their lives. The captain’s declaration was false. During their voyage, twenty-two members of the crew had died and several others taken ill. The grand master ordered a two-man medical team – a principal physician and a surgeon, both from the Holy Infirmary – to examine every single person on board the Dutch vessel at the lazaretto. On examination the team ruled out at once the existence of any contagious disease. The several illnesses, according to their diagnosis, ranged from an acute fever to chest pains to infected wounds that had been badly treated and allowed to turn gangrenous. The team attributed the illnesses and deaths to physical exertion and to the ill-treatment by the captain whom the document describes as eccentric and heartless. Delving deeper, one of the team dissected two of the corpses. In one the lungs were found drenched and rotting; the other died of gangrene. Sicily was informed of these developments.

38 39 40 41

Ibid., Letter 11, Malta, 12 September 1767. Ibid., Letter 10, Malta, 20 September 1767. Ibid. ‘[L]a lunghezzza della Corte di Napoli sarà un motivo che noi ne soffriremo più a lungo li danni, prima che il Regno ne sieno spediti l’ordini, e che venga riconosciuta falsa e ideale la voce precorsa.’ Ibid. Also ibid., Letter 9, Malta, 26 October 1767.

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The Dutch vessel was granted pratique on 22 November 1763, but the Hospitaller island, though calm and released of any preoccupation about public health, remained in quarantine – in political quarantine, to be more accurate, pointed out the minister.42 Sicily, ‘which loves to exploit incidents like these,’ he wrote, ‘may very well persist in keeping us deprived of all essential commodities as a result of the purposely prolonged suspension of trade.’43 To conclude: the concern Venice and Hospitaller Malta showed in matters of public health highlights a different aspect of their relations, one that differed from the perception that has normally been entertained of the two States. That concern did not reflect the several occasions, motivated by the desire of self-preservation, when the two put up a common front against the Ottoman Turk’s ambitious westward drive. Neither did it mirror the settlements, whenever and however these were reached, of their traditional rivalry over privateering activity in the Mediterranean. These three forms of relations moved simultaneously at three different levels, each retaining its own pace and rhythm, each moving independently of the other two. I have not come across any shred of documentary evidence in support of any determining interaction among them. The dimension and motives of each appear to have been different. Within the broader socio-economic context, what was really at stake with a plague outbreak was not the perpetuation of the original or existing nature of political institutions, but the preservation of humanity. Alongside the occasional conflict of ideas and the tension and spirited exchanges that this often created, and behind the obstinate defence of the methods adopted by either State in matters of public health, there were fundamental points of similarity and cross-fertilization. The driving force was the common good. Man occupied the centre stage of this aspect of the relationship. It was in man’s general interests, in the interests of public health and those of man’s main sources of livelihood, commerce and agriculture in particular, that the two States complied so readily with the prevailing emergencies. The cultural differences that at times stand out so sharply in their correspondence over plague manifestations were marked steps in their conscious endeavour to understand the malady’s mysterious character and reach the best solution possible. Fear of the enduring threat to public health stimulated closer cooperation and generated over the years more effective defensive measures. This notwithstanding, however, the true extent to which the waning of plague epidemics may be attributed to the sanitary measures imposed by Venice and the Order of the Hospital is perhaps difficult to determine at the present stage with any modicum of plausibility.

42 Ibid., Letter 16. 43 For the episode, ibid., Letters 24 (11 November 1763), 23 (23 November 1763), and 22 (27 December 1763).

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XI TOWARDS THE END OF THE ORDER OF THE HOSPITAL Reflections on the views of two Venetian brethren, Antonio Miari and Ottavio Benvenuti

I Introduction The writings of perceptive contemporary observers are relevant to the reconstruction of the past as they provide source material and, more often than not, determine the pattern which later historians adopt.1 Such literature has exercised an enormous influence, still echoing through the work of historians today. This paper will focus on two such eyewitnesses who lived through the trauma of the agonizing last years of the Order of St John on Malta and whose correspondence constitutes a first-hand account of contemporary developments as they evolved or as they were seen to evolve. Both observers were high-ranking Venetian members of the Order. One is Antonio Miari, from Belluno, De Rohan’s secretary for Italian affairs and, since 1 February 1793, Resident Minister for the Venetian Republic at the magistral court in Valletta. His attainments are not sufficiently or adequately documented. He has been called an accomplished scholar, but what his true intellectual pursuits were remains obscure. It has been claimed that he was a ‘distinguished diplomat’,2 but all that can be established is that, after the fall of the Order State of Malta to the French, he acted as the Order’s envoy at Vienna in 1815 and at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, where his performance does not appear to have been very impressive: indeed his achievements there have been described as almost negligible.3 His ministerial mission on Malta was to look after Venice’s several interests in the central Mediterranean in general and on the Hospitaller

1 The detailed relationi of Venice’s ambassadors and those of its Terraferma rectors, drawn up at the end of their mission, are classic examples. On the former, see, for example, E. Albèri, Le relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al Senato durante il secolo XVI, 3rd ser. (Florence, 1844); on the latter, Victor Mallia-Milanes, ‘Venice’s Terraferma Rectors and the Republic’s Trade in Salt’, in Karissime Gotifride: Historical Essays presented to Professor Godfrey Wettinger on his Seventieth Birthday, ed. P. Xuereb (Malta, 1999), pp. 81–88. 2 H. P. Scicluna, ‘Notes on the Admiralty House, Valletta’, Archivum Melitense, 9/2 (1933), p. 71. 3 H. J. A. Sire, The Knights of Malta (London, 1994), pp. 247–249.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003406518-12

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principality in particular. After the rapprochement of the 1760s,4 political relations between the two States grew steadily cordial.5 Venice’s major concerns then included her declining commerce, the security of navigation, and the safety of her merchants and sailors. Through his regular letters from Malta, Miari would keep the Doge and the esteemed Cinque Savii alla Mercanzia well-informed of the prevailing conditions in that area, about developments in current issues, and if and when they’re resolved, and about problems that might yet emerge.6 This task he appears to have accomplished admirably, and it is probably because of his correspondence, that we are more familiar with this aspect of his career than with any other. Above all, he would write with fervour on the harmful impact that the Revolution in France was having on his Order, a passionate manifestation of where his true loyalties lay. Within the limitations of our factual knowledge of the man, the present collection of his original letters to Venice provides valuable insights into his thought and personality. The second eyewitness is Ottavio Benvenuti, from the Lombard city of Crema. His career within the Hospital is also largely unknown, except that in 1795 the Venerable Council elected him minister plenipotentiary and resident receiver in Venice.7 His letters, dispatched from the Adriatic Republic, were addressed to the Lords of the Common Treasury on Malta and cover the long torturous days from 6 May 1797 to 14 April 1798.8 Benvenuti’s correspondence offers a complementary, though different, perspective to Miari’s. Not only did he witness the violent overthrow of the Venetian Republic in May 1797, but he experienced at first hand the disastrous impact of Napoleon’s systematic exploitation of Hospitaller estates in the Veneto, including the Grand Priory itself. While the grand master and his Sacred Council were engrossed in discussions on the potential threat to the

4 See Victor Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta 1530–1798: Aspects of a Relationship (Malta, 1992), pp. 221–269. For the long years before the 1760s, id., ‘Corsairs Parading Crosses: The Hospitallers and Venice, 1530–1798’, in The Military Orders: Fighting for the Faith and Caring for the Sick, ed. Malcolm Barber (Aldershot, 1994), pp. 103–112. 5 For an overview of the relationship, id., In the Service of the Venetian Republic: Massimiliano Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s Letters from Malta to Venice’s Magistracy of Trade 1754–1776 (Malta, 2008), Introduction, pp. 1–100. 6 ASVen, Cinque Savi alla Mercanzia, prima serie (hereafter CSM, p.s.), Diversorum, busta 403, filza 76, Malta, 21 March 1793; ASVen, Senato, Secreta, filza 9, Dispacci Malta, Lettere dell’agente veneto in Malta da 27 marzo 1793 sino 30 marzo 1797 da Venerando Antonio Miari. 7 As Receiver, he succeeded Commendatore Antonio Colleoni, assuming office on 21 December 1795. He was apparently the only Hospitaller receiver in Venice to have been simultaneously appointed also minister plenipotentiary. On the role of the Order’s receiver in Venice, Victor Mallia-Milanes, ‘The Hospitaller Receiver in Venice: A Late Seventeenth-Century Document’, Studi Veneziani, n.s., xliv (2002), pp. 309–326. Also Piero Scarpa, ‘Ricevitori e Rappresentanti dell’Ordine di Malta a Venezia in Epoca Moderna nelle Esposizioni del Collegio’, Archivio Veneto, 5th ser., 165 (2006), pp. 191–210. 8 The letters are in Malta, Cod. 1632, Fasci di lettere riguardanti le finanze dell’Ordine Gerosolimitano spedite ai Procuratori del Tesoro da Bologna, Rimini, Venezia (1797–98). On Benvenuti and the fall of Venice, Victor Mallia-Milanes, ‘“Guardando la loro uscita dalla storia”: Venezia e l’Ordine Ospedaliero di San Giovanni alla fine del Settecento’, Studi Veneziani, n.s., 43 (2002), pp. 389–398.

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security of their convent on their Mediterranean principality and how best to deal with it, Benvenuti’s series of letters presents a graphic depiction of the slow disintegration of innumerable estates in Venice’s mainland territory that had for ages belonged to the Hospital and had helped pay for its activities. Now confiscated, these lands, like all other lands in Ancien Régime Europe, would now directly finance France’s enormous military effort and dramatic expansionism. The striking picture that so vividly emerges from both sets of correspondence – Miari’s and Benvenuti’s – is one of explicit realism, the sorry state of the Hospitaller institution in the mid- and late-1790s, a living and visual portrayal of the collapse of what had been so piously assembled, so diligently consolidated and sustained, and so fiercely defended over eight centuries in the service of Man.

II Antonio Miari At the beginning of 1796, Antonio Miari confessed to the Serenissima that the Order was endeavouring to curtail its expenses as far as it could, so as to balance them against its revenues that had shrunk considerably since the outbreak of the French Revolution. That would be extremely difficult to realize without resorting to the extortion of further taxes on its estates in Europe.9 Three years earlier he had already pointed out that the Order’s common treasury in Valletta experienced ‘a serious shortage of capital’, which not even a loan of 400,000 scudi would be able to mitigate.10 Nor would the situation be relieved if all the brethren made, as they had been asked to make, generous contributions to their Order, each according to his own ability. There would still be the need to raise the value of the responsions, a fixed portion of the annual revenue from the Hospitaller estates that belonged to the treasury.11 He admitted that although this was the surest, perhaps simplest, method of achieving the desired effect, it was, nevertheless, insensitive to the current needs of all members of the Order, who themselves were experiencing a host of other locally imposed financial burdens.12 The Order would delay resorting to these expedients for as long as possible.13 Miari feared that measures as extreme as these would announce with signal clarity ‘the final stages of our existence’. The financial deficit created by the Revolution in France was itself exceedingly difficult to contain. The situation grew worse with the certain prospect of war: the island had to be placed in a state of defence, with the Hospitallers having to build and man what he called ‘new forts that would guarantee security against any hostile

9 ASVen, p.s., Diversorum, busta 403, filza 76, 25 February 1796. Antonio Miari is referred to as ‘Persona della Republica in Malta’. The only ‘calcolabile accrescimento’, he wrote, was precisely ‘quello di aumentar l’imposizioni e li diritti a favour della Religione sulli stessi suoi beni e proprietà.’ 10 On the loan, Malta Cod. 274, fol. 223v, 5 July 1793. Also F. Panzavecchia, L’ultimo periodo della storia di Malta sotto il governo dell’Ordine Gerosolimitano (Malta, 1835), pp. 321–322. 11 ASVen, p.s. Diversorum, busta 403, filza 76, 11 April 1793. 12 ‘già aggravate . . . per li pesi locali e per l’imposizioni de respetti sovrani’. Ibid., 25 February 1796. 13 Ibid.

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attack’.14 France in fact declared war on Austria on 20 April 1792. Worse was yet to come. Between 19 and 22 September that year, the loi spoliateur nationalized all Hospitaller estates on France; the French monarchy, the Order’s greatest patron and protector, was abolished; and France was declared a Republic. Within a month of these fateful events, on 22 October, the National Convention decreed the end of the Order of the Hospital in France.15 There is no doubt that Miari’s ideas reflected those of Grand Master Emanuel De Rohan, his Venerable Council, and all those who were devoted to the Order. His was a very good pen – fluent, profound, and penetrating. Those who remained loyal to the Order, who still felt genuinely attached to it, sought to find long- or short-term measures that would effectively provide a way out of the crisis.16 One of the more promising proposals involved the revival of the Order’s corsairing activities in the Levant,17 a venture that would guarantee no mean return. It may perhaps not be historically accurate to claim that by then privateering activity in the Mediterranean had become almost ‘negligible’; there was an evident resurgence of that activity vigorously instigated by the North African regencies.18 Miari was knowledgeable about the recent history of Malta’s privateering and its sad impact on the Order’s relations with the Venetian Republic.19 It was almost certain, he explained, that these adventures in the eastern Mediterranean were about to be revived.20 The subject was brought up again in another letter. The tone this time was more reassuring. Licenses issued by the Order’s chancellery in Valletta

14 Ibid., 11 April 1793. In fact, a new redoubt, known as Fort Tigne’, was constructed on Dragut Point in the Grand Harbour a year before, in 1792, consisting ‘of four wings at right angles to each other and a round tower towards Valletta, surrounded by a ditch and well mined throughout.’A. Hoppen, The Fortification of Malta by the Order of St John 1530-1798 (Edinburgh, 1979), pp. 97–98. 15 For a general history of the Order during these turbulent years, F. W. Ryan, The House of the Temple: A Study of Malta and Its Knights in the French Revolution (London, 1930); M. Miège, Histoire de Malte (Paris, 1840), 2, pp. 267–480; and 3, pp. 1–13; R. Cavaliero, The Last of the Crusaders: The Knights of St John and Malta in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1960). 16 ‘Frattanto tutto quello ch’è qui attaccato a questa Religione di spirito zelante, attivo, ed inventore non in altro s’occupa puremente che in suggerire dei mezzi di risorsa per la Religione più o meno efficaci durevoli ed anche quasi momentanei poiché essa ò in caso per l’attuali sue ristrettezze ò veramente gravissime di profittare di tutto.’ASVen, CSM, p.s., Diversorum, busta 403, filza 76, 25 February 1796. 17 ‘far rinovar a bastimenti della Religione il corso in Levante’. Ibid. 18 See, for example, Sire, p. 98. 19 ‘veramente era in altri tempi il corso per quest’Isola una vera sorgente di dolizie.’ ASVen, CSM, p.s., Diversorum, busta 403, filza 76, 25 February 1796. 20 Miari was here seeking advice from Venice, his accrediting State, how to respond if he were to be approached by the grand master on the matter as he knew for certainty that he would. ‘Supplico umilmente la sua benignità e saviezza,’ he petitions the Doge, ‘prescrivermi la condotta che dovrò osservare per essere più sicuro di non far cosa ch’esser possa di suo spiacimento.’ Ibid. From the Venetian point of view, what was at stake was whether the new magistral licenses would allow the Hospitallers to enter Venetian waters and would the reintroduction of the Maltese corso in the Levant sour the relationship between the two States as in the past? On 26 March 1796, Miari’s letter was sent to the Venetian Magistracy of Trade, the Cinque Savii alla Mercanzia.

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to cover Maltese corsairs included clear instructions to keep away from Venetian waters. Severe penalties would be imposed on transgressors.21 The grand master was determined not to allow the good relations his Order and principality enjoyed with the Adriatic Republic be weakened or destabilized. New measures were issued to regulate the activity in the Levant, including ‘the most rigorous and positive’ penalties for any Maltese corsair captain who dared, for whatever motive, sail into Venetian waters and anchor in any of the Republic’s ports. If someone, out of sheer provocation, approached forbidden waters ‘with no positive or visible need’, Venice would, in line with the grand master’s wishes, be fully reimbursed for any damage the Republic, or its subjects, might suffer. If, on the other hand, any Maltese corsair was driven there against his will, Venice’s Public Representatives were directed to limit themselves to supplying the corsair solely with the very bare essentials.22 Miari appears to have had first-hand knowledge of the social context and conditions in which Maltese corsairs lived. He was aware how extremely difficult it would prove to try to extract any reimbursements from them. The rigidity and rigour with which De Rohan assumed this stance was a clear indication that, ever since its revival under his magistracy, privateering activity in that area appears to have spread considerably. Constant vigilance or surveillance would not have been necessary for isolated cases. Numbers must have been a determining factor. In fact, in 1796 alone, the Maltese corso yielded some 117,000 scudi, while the average annual income from the same source for the decade 1787–1797 had been slightly over 65,500 scudi.23 By April 1796, the pitiable situation within the Order remained unchanged, marked solely, observed Miari, by a vicious discord between the French and the other nations on Hospitaller Malta – all constituting ‘this moral institution’.24 There were three major categories of French Knights – the republicans; the moderates; and the counter-revolutionary émigrés, some of whom sought refuge on

21 ‘si sono renovate a’ medesimi [corsari maltesi] le proibizioni più positive colla minazione dei più severi gastichi a chi di essi ardisse di trasgredire gli ordini ora ripetuti.’ Undated letter, apparently in April 1796, in ibid. In this second letter, Miari refers to the first as having been written ‘quasi due mesi sono’. Notwithstanding the rigour of these precautions, incidents defying such prohibitions occurred. One involved a Maltese xebec that preyed upon a martigo from Ceffalonia in the waters of Prodano. ‘Il Capitano del sciabecco maltese trovasi gravemente malato in questo Spedale, sebbene in luogo di carcere, e il di lui Tenente, ch’è stato il più colpevole di tutti non è pervenuto nelle mani della giustizia, che avanti ieri, essendosi egli prima rifuggiato in Chiesa.’ De Rohan, explained Miari, was determined ‘nella sincera intenzione di dare sodisfazione alla Serenissima Republica proporzionalmente all’offesa fatta e al suo decoro e dignità.’ Ibid. On another occasion, the same Maltese corsair, unidentified in the document, had also been reported to have attacked Gerosino Metaxà, a Venetian subject from Cephalonia – ‘aggredito e spogliato al Prodano’. Details about this incident had reached Miari through a letter, dated 11 April 1796, sent by Venice’s Provveditor General da Mar. Miari demanded the reimbursement of ‘seicento Tallari’. Ibid. 22 ‘soltanto il pure indispensabile per il sostentamento’. Ibid. 23 A. Luttrell, ‘Eighteenth-Century Malta: Prosperity and Problems’, Hyphen [Malta], 3/2 (1982), p. 45. 24 ASVen, CSM, p.s., Diversorum, busta 403, filza 76, 25 February 1796.

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Malta.25 Having lost practically everything, the three French langues – Provence, Auvergne, and France – were, so we are told, deeply sunk in a pervasive spirit of despair, resigned to the oncoming tide of total destruction. Three years earlier Miari had already called them ‘exceedingly uncompromising’, employing every effort to coerce the Order into declaring war on the new Republic.26 De Rohan, though French, and all the others who were not and had some influence in the government of the Order were determined against that stand. ‘And I dare say,’ wrote Miari, ‘that we will never ever accede to such an acute measure, even if we were all indiscriminately to suffer a sudden attack of lunacy. Each one of us is prepared to defend himself to the very end,’ if any nation, whichever that might be, decided to invade the island. Some, too, feared the English as potential aggressors.27 There were fairly widespread rumours, he claimed, that the Order had earlier been secretly seeking protection from Great Britain, partly in the form of an award of a lifelong pension for the French Hospitallers who had found themselves impoverished overnight by the Revolution.28 In return, the Order was prepared to cede its strong strategic fortress with its superb harbours in the central Mediterranean to Britain, then at war with France since 1 February 1793.29 According to Miari, these were foul and filthy rumours, which he had no hesitation in denying categorically.30 Were they perhaps maliciously fabricated by the French Hospitallers themselves who, in his view, were unable to entertain anything positive or constructive? They tended to obstruct any proposed project believed to be potentially useful for the economy by rejecting them outright.31 But what exactly were these contemplated reforms?32 Miari does not specify; he only points vaguely to 25 Ryan, p. 170. The moderates were the ‘Feuillants’, those ‘ready to stand by the Constitution, the King, the nation and the law’. 26 ASVen, CSM, p.s., Diversorum, busta 403, filza 76, 11 April 1793. 27 ‘poichè ora sembra che si voglia vivere in sospetto anche degli inglesi.’ Ibid. 28 ‘È possible che costà giunga una voce, che ha corso in qualche altra parte, cioè che l’Ordine Gerosolimitano fosse sul punto di concludere un trattato colla Gran Bretagna di cession ad essa di quest’isole, sotto certe condizioni non ben enunciate se non in quanto alle Pensioni vitalizie che dovrebbonsi accordare ai Cavalieri Francesi, rimasti nell’indegenza per la Rivoluzione succeduta nel loro Regno.’ ASVen, CSM, p.s., busta 601, fascicolo Lettere Miari, 24 May 1793. Also Miari’s letter to the Doge, ASVen, Senato, Secreta, filza 9, Dispacci Malta, 27 June 1793. 29 See R. Vella Bonavita, ‘Britain and Malta 1787–1798’, Hyphen, i, 1 (1977), pp. 3–4. 30 ‘Io non ho però difficoltà,’ he told the Cinque Savii, ‘di assicurare Vostre Eccellenze nella maniera piú positiva, che una tale imputazione è della piú grande falsità; e che la Religione non ha mai sognato una cession di questa natura, che certissimamente non potendosi fare con grande segretezza, sarebbe impossibile che neppur si tentasse dai meno considerate, giaché risapendole le persone adette al servigio dell’altre Potenze, costituirebbero l’Ordine nella piú precisa necessità di preventivamente ottenere il rispettivo consenso, che non credo sarebbe accordato da alcuna Potenza Protettrice conosciuta dell’Ordine. ASVen, CSM, p.s., busta 601, fascicolo Lettere Miari, 24 May 1793. 31 ‘Ogni utile progetto di riforma e d’economia è rigettato dal partito che per se non ha più che l’annihilamento e la disperazione.’ ASVen, CSM, p.s., Diversorum, busta 403, filza 76, 25 February 1796. 32 I owe this point to Dr Theresa Vann, who made the question at the end of my lecture at Cardiff.

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their economic nature. That was the Order’s overwhelming preoccupation after 1792. The proposed increase in responsions had been one such radical ‘reform’. Another pertained to the navy, which had already been cut back in the 1780s. Now, in the 1790s, it was the turn of the galley crews to be drastically reduced.33 This change does not find an echo in any of Miari’s letters. Then there was the grand master’s forceful attempt at reaching agreements with Great Britain, Catherine II’s Russia, and the United States of America to counter the impact of the loss of the three French langues.34 None of the intended outcomes was realized. Reason, the tone of his remarks seems to have suggested, no longer inspired the current climate of opinion. Should the Order depart from its traditional practices and beliefs? Should it now abandon the sacred principle of neutrality it had always professed and indiscriminately practised towards all Christian States? On Malta, talk of war was widespread, in Miari’s words, ‘now perhaps more than ever’.35 In reality, according to a confession he made in one of his letters, not only were there no sufficient funds in the common treasury to finance a long and hugely expensive war, but there were hardly any to sustain the Order’s own existence. The direction the revolution was taking overwhelmed the Order, leaving what Miari called an intoxicating effect over all its brethren. ‘It is blinding’ the entire Hospitaller community, he wrote, making it waste the little precious time it had left, instead of seeking solutions, instead of undertaking any necessary reforms that would yield positive results for the economy. Rather, this precious little time was callously dissipated in enhancing discord and dissension, in the joy of annihilating ‘whatever remnants of tranquillity our [external] enemies have left us’, indeed ‘in upsetting the very confidence of being able to hope that someone might come to our rescue.’36 On 10 October 1793, shortly after Naples had declared war on France, that De Rohan, in a formal manifesto,37 declined to acknowledge the French Republic.38

33 U. Mori Ubaldini, La marina del Sovrano Militare Ordine di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme di Rodi e di Malta (Rome, 1971), pp. 508, 512. 34 For Britain, see nn. 28 and 29; for Russia and America, see nn. 54–57 and 58 respectively. 35 ‘Qui si continua a parlare di dichiarazione di Guerra, ed ora anzi più che mai.’ ASVen, CSM, p.s., Diversorum, busta 403, filza 76, 25 February 1796, 25 April 1793. 36 Ibid. 37 See A. V. Laferla, The Story of Man in Malta (4th edn, Malta, 1972), p. 131. The manifesto is reproduced, in translation, in Ryan, p. 220, and in Panzavecchia, pp. 323–324. 38 On 25 April 1793, Miari wrote thus: ‘Coll’ultimo ordinario è giunta a questo Gran Maestro una lettera di Monsieur Fratello dell’infelice Luigi XVI, con cui gli partecipa l’assunta Reggenza del Regno di Francia in occasione della minoretà di Luigi XVII ed invitandolo a dare delle publiche e solecite prove dell’attaccamento dell’Ordine alla Corona di Francia ed ai suoi Rè. Questa notificazione, che si è saputa dal Publico, ha cagionato una sensazione e consolazione grandissima nell’animo della maggior parte, ma che pur non riflette al vero stato ed alle circostanze dell’Ordine. Il Governo però temendo di compromettersi, ha differito la sua risposta sin tanto che non siano meglio conosciuti li sistemi dell’altre Potenze; massimamente delle nostre Protettrici, alle quali, permettendolo la nostra situazione per ogni notevole motive dobbiamo cercar di uniformarsi; potendo una troppo sollecita risoluzione portare tra tanti altri inconvenienti il sagrifizio di molti

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These were disquieting issues. There were others of a different nature and as unsettling. ‘My only hope,’ he confessed, ‘lies almost in [the onset of] a [new] crisis.’ This is ‘always dangerous,’ he admitted, ‘and often fatal.’ The Order had just survived one such, only recently, at Rome. ‘The Pope has been so furious with us,’ he explained, ‘or rather with our head [the grand master], that he seriously threatened to extend to us the same treatment his immediate predecessor had dealt the Jesuits.’39 Miari’s comparison was apposite. Pope Pius VI (1775–1799) was indisputably contemplating the dissolution of the Order of the Hospital,40 in the same manner that Clement XIV (1769–1774) and, centuries earlier, Clement V (1305–1314) had, for different reasons, suppressed the Society of Jesus and the Templars respectively. It would appear difficult, indeed impossible, wrote Miari, to understand how a man so enlightened as Grand Master De Rohan, should have exposed his Order to such potential danger simply on account of an ecclesiastical jurisdiction that, contrary to the holy wishes of the papacy, he was so vigorously determined to reform. In the end it was precisely his enlightened vision and experience that gave him sense to realize the magnitude of the Pope’s threat. ‘We are too small,’ remarked Miari, to resist adamantly papal admonitions, to persist in our direct confrontation with so powerful and respectable a sovereign,’41 and, though ‘commanding very little authority,’ as Georges Lefebvre claimed,42 was nevertheless the Order’s own ultimate head – ‘il nostro Supremo Superiore’.43 Was Miari accusing De Rohan of acting out of character or of being passionately driven by an over-ambitious objective? The answer to both questions is, in my view, in the negative. There can be no doubt that De Rohan was a man of reform, of progressive ideas and ideals, as indicated in the first step he took on being elected grand master. In perfect harmony with his predecessor’s desire, he summoned a chapter general, the first for 144 years. This was a daunting task, a challenge with potentially devastating consequences for the magistracy. Any attempt at a massive legislative overhaul of the Hospitaller institution, any serious endeavour to revisit the security of the fortress-principality, and any effort to address and remedy the several unforeseen demands made by the substantive grievances that had been allowed to accumulate over the years, from individual brethren, from priories, from langues, as any chapter general would have envisaged, needed courage and stamina, an iron will and unfaltering determination. In a sense, it also manifested a genuine expression of love for the institution – intrepidly

39 40 41 42 43

nostri individui che tuttavia si ritrovano in Francia.’ ASVen, CSM, p.s., Diversorum, busta 403, filza 76, 25 April 1793. ASVen, CSM, p.s., Diversorum, busta 403, filza 76, 25 February 1796. ‘si trattava realmente della nostra non-esistenza.’ Ibid. Ibid. Georges Lefebvre, The French Revolution, from Its Origins to 1793, trans. Elizabeth Moss Evanson (London, 1971), p. 167. ASVen, p.s., Diversorum, busta 403, filza 76, 25 February 1796.

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acknowledging the Order’s need to return to its magnificent origins, to its sacred mission and charitable practices, to revisit its sacred commitments of hospitality in the midst of such social, political, and intellectual upheaval. Grand Master Ximenes de Texada (1773–1775), De Rohan’s immediate predecessor, had felt the urgency of such reform and resolved to summon a chapter general but did not live to realize it.44 Partly under the overbearing influence of his enlightened advisors,45 De Rohan endeavoured to rationalize the legal and judicial framework within which the state in all its traditional institutions functioned. The jurisdiction of secular tribunals deserved a large measure of autonomy that would restrict the competence of ecclesiastical courts and curtail the powers of the Inquisition. The ultimate objective appears to have been to loosen the traditionally close ties, old and anachronistic by late eighteenth-century European norms, of the local church to Rome. Even if the papacy was constitutionally the ultimate head of the Order of the Hospital, why should Rome, too, be allowed to dictate the domestic and foreign affairs of the island-principality? Similar issues had emerged during Manoel Pinto’s magistracy, in perfect harmony with Bernardo Tanucci, the kingdom of Naples’ prime minister. In secular matters, why should Hospitaller Malta not ‘resist the will of the papacy’ and allow itself ‘to drift away from Rome’? Pinto had fully supported Naples’ political endeavour to have Rome’s presence on the island reduced to the barest minimum.46 They also found favour with De Rohan. In 1793, the Hospitaller Lorenzo Grimaldi, Naples’ resident minister on Malta, submitted to De Rohan a plan, consisting of fourteen articles, designed to reform the ecclesiastical jurisdiction on the island. In the view of Bishop Vincenzo Labini, to quote one historian, its purpose was ‘to destroy ecclesiastical immunity entirely’. According to the same historian, the grand master was determined to implement it.47 More radical reforms of this nature had been successfully introduced in Catholic kingdoms like Austria and Spain, Portugal and Naples, not to mention enlightened, revolutionary France. In the mid-1790s, the Hospitaller principality felt small and stood alone. The intricately pronounced role the Church had been playing on the island ever since early medieval times and its vigorous resistance to such reform measures, which it viewed with suspicion, not only generated deep animosity. It constituted a bitter, implacable obstacle and a fertile source of serious grievances and litigation.48 Miari was not questioning the soundness, legitimacy, or wisdom 44 Victor Mallia-Milanes, In the Service of the Venetian Republic, p. 78 and corresponding notes. 45 Nicolò Muscat was one such. See, for example, F. Ciappara, ‘Gio. Nicolò Muscat: Church-State Relations in Hospitaller Malta during the Enlightenment, 1786–1798’, in Hospitaller Malta 1530– 1798: Studies on Early Modern Malta and the Order of St John of Jerusalem, ed. V. Mallia-Milanes (Malta, 1993), pp. 605–58. 46 For a fuller treatment of the subject, F. Ciappara, ‘Malta, Napoli e la Santa Sede nella seconda metà del ’700’, Mediterranea: Ricerche Storiche, v (April 2008), pp. 173–188. 47 Ibid., p. 187. 48 On the issue of De Rohan’s reforms, F. Ciappara, The Roman Inquisition in Enlightened Malta (Malta, 2000), passim.

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of De Rohan’s programme for local church reform. Beneath his seemingly genuine and considerate apprehension lay a very subtle irony which only a perceptive Venetian observer of manners knew how to conceal in eloquently restrained and courteous language. If there was a flaw in De Rohan’s intriguing stand, it could not be attributed either to the Order’s frailty at this point in time or to the diminutive territorial extent of the Hospitaller island. Rather, Miari’s fears and criticism rested on its timing. From his perspective, De Rohan’s stand was not entirely absurd. The only problem was that, within the framework of the turbulent international situation of the mid-1790s, his grand master no longer enjoyed the power and the means to sustain the stance he had assumed. With hindsight, historians of the Order have viewed the institution and its marvellous powers of resilience as an astonishing phenomenon. Contemporary eyewitnesses, like Miari, did equally marvel at it. He was sufficiently realistic, however, to comprehend the forces behind the fast-evolving political drama in Europe. Conditions, he admitted, were not the same as they had been in the past. They had changed radically to the Order’s discomfiture. His institution could no longer boast the powerful patronage it had enjoyed before. Solid, deep-seated moral support and formidable political protection, both vital components of its long and chequered history, no longer lay comfortably at its disposal.49 ‘It is not in our power,’ he pointed out, either ‘to change current circumstances’, or even less to grind the revolutionary drive effectively to a halt. The grand master, with an exquisite sense of balance, had no choice but to give in. Resistance to Rome disintegrated, with his leading advisor, Nicolò Muscat, stubborn, enlightened, anticlerical, apparently the true author of the plan, dismissed on instructions from the Holy See.50 If De Rohan’s allegedly anti-ecclesiastical measures had not been intended to undermine the ‘positive and real rights of the Church’ on Hospitaller Malta, commented Miari, they certainly were meant to restrict drastically both its privileges and the traditional practices it had always laid claim to. His ultimate objective was not, it would appear, to curtail the local church’s prerogatives but to defend the autonomy of the State’s secular tribunals against the encroachment of the Roman curia. Not much to the satisfaction of the Kingdom of Naples, Rome had had its way. Its threat to the Order’s existence appeared to have been dispelled. For Miari, the crisis was over. In this sense, peace and tranquillity returned.51 The crisis, as Miari had hoped it would, had indeed solved the Order’s immediate problem of its continued existence. A whole wide gulf still yawned, however, between the present and the past. Would the passage of De Rohan’s revolutionary measures through his Venerable Council have offered the institution a ray of hope, implicitly invoking the future rather than the past?

49 ‘le circostanze non sono più quelle de’ tempi passati, quando avevamo degli appoggi fortissimi quasi a nostra disposizione.’ASVen, CSM, p.s., Diversorum, busta 403, filza 76, 25 February 1796. 50 Ciappara, ‘Church-State Relations’, passim. 51 ASVen, CSM, p.s., Diversorum, busta 403, filza 76, 25 February 1796.

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Miari grasped every opportunity to reflect on the situation then prevailing within his Order, even though the issue might have been of no particular concern of the Venetian authorities. In 1793, for example, Bailiff Giovanni Battista Tommasi, a Hospitaller grand cross from Arezzo in the upper Arno region and captain general of the ship-of-the-line squadron between 1784 and1785, was appointed resident minister for the Grand Duke of Tuscany at the grand master’s court in Valletta. On several occasions in the past, pointed out Miari,52 he was known to have stood up for Venice’s interests and those of her subjects on the island. From what he wrote in one of his letters to the Adriatic city, Miari considered Tommasi an admirable Hospitaller, one of those few, currently within the Order, whom Miari respected as an exceedingly worthy person – upright, unwavering, and above all, he said, so graciously devoted, so firmly committed, to his Order. Miari believed that in ‘these critical times,’ Tommasi would have achieved much for the Order had he enjoyed a wider internal support and had his innate characteristic determination and deep sense of purpose been more pervasive within the institution. Miari regretted that these rare qualities were not to be found so profusely, so lavishly within the convent. Tommasi’s rivals portrayed him as of meagre intellectual abilities.53 Miari appears to have been a gifted observer of manners. His brief penportrait of the Tuscan minister is interesting in view of the turbulent developments within the Order after the loss of Malta. Pope Pius VII appointed Tommasi grand master on 9 February 1803 at the age of 72. He died two years later. The Second Partition of Poland (1793) had two immediate consequences on the Hospital. First, what had practically made up the Grand Priory of Poland within Volhynia went to Russia as part of Catherine II’s share of the spoil. Secondly, the responsions which the Priory owed the common treasury were suspended. It was at this point that De Rohan was trying to promote what Miari defined as ‘a novel spirit of cordiality’ with Orthodox Russia, one designed to create ‘new Muscovite langues’ as a substitute for those of Provence, Auvergne, and France. Miari’s letters on this issue show him as a sharp critic of this potential alliance ‘with Moscow’. In fact, his only consolation in 1793 was that, at several levels, the project would prove extremely difficult to materialize. In his view, it infringed upon the statutes of the Hospital, the Order’s state council ‘was far from unanimous’ over the question, and, thirdly, Rome would definitely create ‘insuperable’ obstacles. In the end, by the time of Catherine II’s death on 16 November 1796, Giulio Litta’s mission to St Petersburg failed to produce the desired results.54 The czarina’s indifferent attitude towards the Hospital in the 1790s may have probably owed its origin to the Order’s negative response, on grounds of neutrality,55 to Catherine’s

52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 54 See ASVen, Senato, Secreta, filza 9, Dispacci Malta, 27 June, 8 August, 14 November 1793, 2 and 28 January, 11 June 1796. 55 For the Hospitaller Commission’s report on Catherine II’s request, Malta, cod. 272, 31 January 1770, fols. 185–186, 31 January 1770.

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earlier requests to Grand Master Pinto to have her mighty Muscovite squadron anchor in Malta’s harbour, to be allowed to use the port as a base of operations ‘against the common enemy’ during the Russo-Turkish war of the early 1770s, and to have the Hospitaller squadrons participate in the war against Turkey.56 It was Russia’s objective to seize the Dardanelles and guarantee secure access to the Mediterranean.57 To De Rohan’s two abortive attempts at mitigating the impact on his Order of the loss of the three French langues – the offer to Great Britain of unrestricted access to limited naval and other related facilities available at Malta’s harbour (like troops, seamen, munitions, stores, and so on), and the request to Catherine II to have new Hospitaller langues established in Moscow – a third should be added. A few contemporary documents refer to De Rohan’s endeavour to reach an agreement with the United States of America in 1794. In return for landed estates there for the mass of Maltese unemployed ‘to clear, cultivate, and settle thereon’, Hospitaller Malta would make a similar offer as that extended to Great Britain. Two years later, either in response to a real commercial need, or simply as a diplomatic gesture, the grand master appointed one William England American consul on the island.58 We have no further archival evidence of how things developed. What is odd, however, is that Miari’s correspondence, so eloquent on other issues, remains entirely silent on this particular question.

III Ottavio Benvenuti Ottavio Benvenuti’s first letter, dated 6 May 1797,59 defines his mission to Venice and sets the running theme and general tone of his subsequent correspondence. With the French invasion of the Republic having rendered the situation particularly tense, it was the purpose of his mission, he pointed out, to keep the Lords of the Treasury in Valletta knowledgeable about developments. The Order owned vast estates within Venice’s Stato da Terra and therefore had vested interests there. The current circumstances in the Republic now dictated, as they had done on Hospitaller Malta, a resort to extreme measures. Public funds were exhausted. All interest on deposits had had to be withheld, creating chaos and undermining public trust. Commerce ground to a halt. The impact on Hospitaller interests on the Venetian mainland territories was predictable. The collection of outstanding debts depended on the outcome of the pending peace negotiations. The day Benvenuti was writing

56 For Catherine II’s letter, ibid., 272, fol. 184, 18 July 1769; Panzavecchia, pp. 17-18; A. Mifsud, Knights Hospitallers of the Venerable Tongue of England (Malta, 1916), p. 282. For the Russian Admiral Spiritoff’s letter, Malta, Cod. 272, fol. 184, 26 December 1769; Panzavecchia, p.18; Mifsud, p. 282. 57 On Hospitaller Malta and the Russo-Turkish war, Mallia-Milanes, In the Service of the Venetian Republic, pp. 79-85. 58 See Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta, p. 290. 59 Malta, Cod. 1632, filza ‘Venezia’, 6 May 1797.

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his first letter in this collection, 6 May, Venetian deputies were expected to meet General Bonaparte in the hope of reaching an amicable solution.60 A gripping fear of the unknown and the ferment of public opinion caused a general exodus of patricians from the city, including ambassadors and other diplomatic representatives. His ‘intimate and inexpressible attachment’ to the Religion and his belief that his presence in the city was vital for it, declared Benvenuti, left him calm, almost impervious to passion or emotion. Such qualities, he confessed, made him more capable of speculating on the potential advantages his Order could gain from the widespread chaos than of assessing the scope of his personal danger. He refused to leave the city against the advice of many of his colleagues.61 The prevailing atmosphere of ‘uncertainty, bewilderment, and ill-defined apprehension’62 rendered it difficult to have daily events reported with any modicum of accuracy or precision. Indeed, no sooner had he announced his determination to remain in Venice, than the threat of an imminent popular insurrection constrained him to flee the city, to follow swiftly on the heels of the Nuncio, Mgr Scotti. His fears were well founded. On 12 May a fierce popular insurrection broke out. The Maggior Consiglio had abdicated. The sovereign authority in what was now termed a provisional democratic municipality lay with the newly formed Committee of Public Safety.63 The moment the uprising was suppressed, Benvenuti returned to the city to discover a completely different Venice from the one he had known two or three days earlier. The fast, dramatic, and sensational pace of events was changing the physiognomy of the city with incredible speed into a totally unfamiliar shape – a city ‘shivering’, he said, and ‘deformed’, ‘as befalls any metropolis in a state of revolution.’ On the first hint of insurrection, he reported, the populace, a wild and terrible force, accustomed as it had been for long centuries to servile obedience and to considering itself divested of any rights, went on the rampage, ravaging everything that it could lay hands on. Such radical upheaval was greeted in Venice by a mixture of youthful enthusiasm on the one hand, and the excitement and agitation of divergent opinions and contrasting factions on the other. Benvenuti, addressing the cream of European nobility stationed on distant Malta, underscored what he described as the shrieking grievances of the ‘miserable aristocracy’, who claimed to have been deceived by illusions of security and seduced by false promises of solid financial support.64 Benvenuti was sending the Convent on Malta a clear message. The fears that Miari entertained on the Mediterranean island were sustained by Benvenuti’s accounts from Venice. Was he unwittingly anticipating a similar fate to Hospitaller lands elsewhere in Europe? After all, what was

60 61 62 63 64

Ibid. Ibid. J. J. Norwich, Venice: The Greatness and the Fall (London, 1981), p. 371. Malta, Cod. 1632, filza ‘Venezia’, 20 May 1797. Ibid.

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happening in Venice was a perfect replica of what had already occurred throughout France. To the popular mind, the Republic’s failure to offer any modicum of resistance, symbolized in the Great Council’s abdication, not much unlike the Order’s unavoidable surrender a year or so later, was a spontaneous expression of shame and exasperation. These were moments when no-one felt safe or secure, when official ministerial residences were potential prey to popular assault and plunder. The Hospital’s Grand Priory, explained Benvenuti, was a more likely target than any other because of its reputation for excessive wealth and privilege.65 It was precisely the fate of the Grand Priory that Benvenuti was mostly concerned about. He claimed to have been doing his utmost to spare the priory ‘the fatal consequences impending over us’. In several mainland localities, particularly at Treviso, the French commissioners had demanded a detailed list of all Hospitaller estates. This was forwarded immediately on request, accompanied by documentary evidence of their respective rents and revenues. Their tenants or leaseholders were next ordered to pay what he called un’ intiera annata brutta, holding the Hospitaller Commanders responsible for the usual payment of the annual dues. Thirdly, they demanded all the silver to be found in Hospitaller churches. This, too, was handed over forthwith, fearing, as they threatened they would, the confiscation of the entire property if instructions were not promptly executed.66 Notwithstanding the threat of heavy impositions (gravissime contribuzioni), which would have rendered the Hospitallers in the Veneto unable to satisfy their statutory responsions, by 8 July 1797 none had in fact been extracted. In the prevailing state of moral and physical violence and insecurity, when things changed overnight from bad to worse, the slightest delay in the execution of such orders appeared to offer a pale glitter of hope.67 But in ‘the most calamitous circumstances’ such as these, frail hopes, too, perhaps more than anything else, proved illusory and short-lived. On 15 July Benvenuti could accurately predict the certain confiscation of the Order’s estates in the Veneto: for if the French were adopting the same policy everywhere, why would they exempt Hospitaller property there?68 Indeed, on 2 September he wrote of the appropriation of Hospitaller lands in the Trevigiano on specific directives from Napoleon. Benvenuti instructed the Hospitaller Bertolini, residing in Udine, to submit a remonstrance to the French General in the vain hope of having this measure somehow modified. He knew only too well that he was clutching at the flimsiest of straws. ‘I would have proceeded to Udine myself,’ he confessed, ‘had it not been too expensive and had there been the slightest hope of achieving anything positive.’69 He was right. Within less than a week, not only had Napoleon ordered the confiscation of Hospitaller 65 66 67 68 69

Ibid. Ibid., 1 July 1797. Ibid., 8 July 1797. Ibid., 15, 22 July 1797. Ibid., 2 September 1979.

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property lying within the province of Udine; its Municipality issued without delay the necessary instructions to have that property sold.70 Also suppressed were the juspatronats which the Cornaro and the Lippomano families had been enjoying since 1588 and 1598 respectively.71 What had for long been painfully anticipated carried the same shocking effect on Benvenuti as the unknown or the unexpected. The city of Venice was about to experience what its mainland territories had already suffered. ‘I thought promptly,’ he wrote, ‘of what means I could take to redress in part the fast approaching scourge that would totally destroy the Order.’72 He set up a three-man commission to plead the Order’s cause personally with Napoleon. ‘Who knows,’ he wrote on 9 September, ‘what outcome this would have.’73 Meanwhile, he had all the papers documenting the Order’s ownership rights over its confiscated lands in the former State of Venice packed in a case and stored in a safe place. Once tranquillity and normality returned, they would be found necessary supporting evidence to any eventual claim the Order might wish to make. The three-man deputation consisted of the Fra Fulvio Alfonso Rangoni, the Grand Prior’s lieutenant; Fra Antonio Rota Merendi, Benvenuti’s secretary; and Commendatore Bertolini of Udine. Its mission was to suspend or delay ‘the impending curse’. The first two left Venice and proceeded to Udine in the hope of finding in Bertolini, familiar as he was with recent developments in that city, a helpful guide and the much-needed psychological support. According to Benvenuti, Bertolini was caught in a dilemma: should he act against the interests of his own native land and draw upon himself the certain consequences of the Municipality’s resentment? Or should he fail to honour the solemn vows he took when he had originally joined the Hospital? He decided to help his brethren cautiously and covertly. Rangoni and Merendi therefore proceeded alone to Passariano (the town where the huge luxurious villa, owned by Ludovico Manin, the last Venetian doge, was located) to meet Napoleon on the day fixed for his congress at Udine. Napoleon’s manners and behaviour on that occasion, we are told, contrasted sharply with those he had displayed to the courteous Venetian patrician Pietro Pésaro earlier on. Without betraying any sense of indignation or disdain, he received them well and promised he would consider their case; indeed, he showed them some form of generous disposition by extending to both an invitation to the congress dinner. They were then dismissed amicably and politely. For both of them, this was refreshingly promising. It was an exercise in delusion. They returned to Passariano several times for a definite reply. On these occasions they were treated with indifference. In the end, reported Benvenuti, Napoleon explained that in principle he could not, and would not, act differently from the way he had acted through the greater part of Italy. 70 71 72 73

Ibid., 9 September 1797. Ibid. See also Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta, pp. 186, 190. Ibid. Ibid.

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Hospitaller property was national property. The nations had full right to avail themselves of it according to their needs, such as those of maintaining their troops.74 On 14 October 1797, three days before the treaty of Campoformio was concluded, Benvenuti claimed with some confidence that Venice appeared serene and peaceful. No Hospitaller estates in Venice had yet been confiscated, and he attributed this to what he termed the friendly disposition which the provisional municipality of Venice had all along been showing towards the Order of St John. Indeed, he claimed, it endeavoured ‘with all its might to save us and protect us’.75 Were things changing for the better? ‘Peace has returned, with universal joy, at long last,’ he wrote. He felt tempted to claim that ‘our ills (misfortunes) have, at least in part, come to an end,’ and that it was possible to identify which parts of his institution would survive, which hopes to nourish for an eventual compensation.76 The Grand Priory had been transferred to Austrian sovereignty. In his letter of 23 December 1797, he made it clear to the Lords of the Treasury in Valletta that if he had failed in everything, he had at least succeeded in saving the Grand Priory of Venice from complete destruction.77 There was no reason, therefore, why the Priory should not participate, along with the other foreign missions, in the city’s celebrations in honour of His Imperial Majesty. The façade of the palace where he resided in Calle Malta on the Calle dei Furlani, and which still belongs to the Order today, would be illuminated as a formal sign of gratitude.78 The joyful atmosphere was short-lived. With Austria’s humiliating peace of Pressburg of 1805 after the battle of Austerlitz, Venice and its mainland territories were ceded to the ‘Kingdom of Italy’ in what has been called ‘a second conquest by the French’.79 Four months later, on 30 April 1806, the Grand Priory was suppressed on Napoleon’s instructions, its property confiscated by the State.80

IV Conclusion The two collections of letters upon which the present paper has been mostly based, like similar ones, published or unpublished,81 have much to offer the historian of 74 75 76 77 78

For the whole episode, Malta, Cod. 1632, filza ‘Venezia’, 23 September 1797. Ibid., 21 October 1797. Ibid. Ibid., 23 December 1797. ‘Trovandosi ora questa città in un destino felice, vuole dar saggio della sua esultanza, e riconoscenza, facendo dimani a sera illuminazioni e feste. Ad esempio di altre Corti ministeriali, e della città tutta, farò ancor io la illuminazione della ministerial Residenza. Se non fosse qui impulso, benché bastante, dovrei in vista particolarmente degli ottimi sentimenti manifestatimi dai Commandanti Austriaci per la Sacra Religione di dare contrasegni di giubilo e gratitudine. Questi giusti riguardi saranno dalla loro considerazione, che bene a rispettare i rapporti vantaggiosi pella nostra Comun madre, approvati pienamente.’ Ibid., 20 January 1798. 79 Sire, p. 173. 80 See M. Celio Passi, Il Gran Priorato di Lombardia e Venezia (Venice, 1983). 81 The present author’s recent edition of Massimiliano Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s correspondence is one example. See also Des Nouvelles de Malte: Correspondance de M. L’Abbé Boyer (1738-1777),

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the Hospital – not only for the facts they recorded and the views their authors entertained, often with an unavoidable modicum of bias, but rather as a valuable source of contemporary personal reflection on the spirit of the times. It has almost become established practice for traditional historians of the Order to view the phenomenon of the Hospital’s decline and fall as the logical outcome of a long-drawn-out process of anachronism and internal decadence. By the eighteenth century, claimed the influential Elisabeth Schermerhorn in 1929, the magistracy no longer enjoyed divine creative inspiration; ‘and its faith burned low’. Her description of ‘the brilliancy of Valletta’s court’ as ‘a gilded shell, ready to collapse under the first determined fingers that grasped it’ is a classic example of wild Romantic fantasy let loose.82 She cites lines from the equally influential Patrick Brydone’s account83 of his visit to Malta in support of the general claim of immorality within the Order’s younger generation. She then goes a step further. The Order ‘could not weather the shock of the French Revolution . . . because its Treasury was bankrupt.’84 The reverse is correct. The Hospital’s treasury went bankrupt as a direct outcome of the Revolution and its wars. There were earlier spells, of course, when the Order’s common treasury was marked by a consistently downward trend, but this happened with the finances of practically any state. By the time of the fall of the Bastille, however, the state of the Order’s finances had been restored. The Hospital’s vast estates in Europe, we are told,85 ‘presented an impressive spectacle, rich with the accumulations of centuries.’ By the mideighteenth century, its brilliant naval task of restraining the Barbary corsairs to near-negligible proportions, with the exception perhaps of Algiers, was practically complete, thereby reducing its own performance to seeming inactivity.86 By then too, there was political peace on the Hospitaller principality, in convent and outside it, with a steadily increasing population enjoying a standard of living that compared fairly favourably with neighbouring Mediterranean centres; there was economic prosperity, there was a general state of ‘exceptional tranquillity’, with no evidence that the Order was keeping ‘afloat with difficulty’.87 What the futile and isolated uprising of a small sector of the local clergy had in fact achieved, for example, in September 1775 was to disturb briefly the domestic peace and quiet and somehow shake the government’s full confidence in the people’s loyalty.

82 83 84 85 86 87

ed. Alain Blondy (Brussels, 2004). The National Library of Malta, in Valletta, holds a superb collection of original letters written from Rome by the Order’s ambassador to the Holy See to the grand master from 1596 (Malta, Cod. 1249) to 1790 (Malta, Cod. 1373). Elisabeth Schermerhorn, Malta of the Knights (Surrey, 1929), p. 277. Patrick Brydone, A Tour through Sicily and Malta in a Series of Letters to William Beckford Esq (London, 1773). Schermerhorn, p. 277. Sire, p. 111. Ibid., pp. 97–98. Augusto Bartolo, ‘History of the Maltese Islands’, in Malta and Gibraltar Illustrated, ed. Allister Macmillan (London, 1915. facsimile edn, Malta, 1985), p. 116. F. Ryan’s chapter on the Maltese Renaissance in his The House of the Temple. Also Luttrell, pp. 37–51.

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It failed to inspire any popular response.88 Before the enlightened revolutionary doctrine on the absurdity of privilege was preached in France and permanently enshrined along with the other principles of 1789, no traits of dissolution could be observed in the structural unity of the Hospitaller institution; nor were forces of early nationalism evident to have been gnawing at the centuries-old administrative divisions of the Hospital, except perhaps for a few occasional minor squabbles in the streets of Birgu and Senglea with no serious consequence. Nor has any convincing evidence been produced to show that the Hospitaller community was at any time before 1789, to use Eileen Power’s phrase, ‘stricken by disease’,89 blatantly breaking their three monastic vows, neglecting their statutory charity and hospitality, and defiantly abandoning their holy commitments to Catholic Europe in their various manifestations. The brethren never seriously threatened or questioned the institution of the magistracy, and recruitment of members into the Order never betrayed insurmountable difficulties of consistently dwindling numbers. It was only from 1792 that real, intractable problems began to emerge with the confiscation of all Hospitaller estates in France, which had made up for over half the Order’s revenue from its European sources. The end of the Order of the Hospital on Malta in June 1798 was inevitable, but in no way was it, in the long-term, predictable. It was dramatic and sudden, violent and almost instantaneous. And if by then the unceremonious dislodgement of the Order from its secure Mediterranean island-fortress might not have appeared very astonishing, it was because the upheaval in France had broken out a whole decade earlier and had already spread through most of Europe. Although in the long-term perspective of historical development a decade is hardly significant, within the framework of daily human relations, ten whole years of radical devastation, terror, and bloodshed are far too long. By 1798, the conscious rejection of the past had almost become the norm. Rather than being the obvious result of slow and steady disintegration, what was in fact remarkable in 1798 was the speed with which the institution disappeared from behind the admirably massive stone walls of Valletta. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the military-religious Order was still a healthy institution and able to convince its powerful patrons that the threat confronting Christian Europe was real and that its role in trying to contain it was essential. To prolong its own survival, it successfully endeavoured to keep the crusade alive by promoting and sustaining the fearful image of the common enemy. In the massive correspondence between Venetian resident ministers on Hospitaller Malta and the Adriatic Republic and between the Order’s resident receivers in Venice and the Lords of the Common Treasury, it was only in the 1790s that talk was made of the serious dangers challenging the Order’s existence. It was only the direct impact of the Revolution. There was no serious talk of it before. There was no single reference to any conceptual symptoms of decline in Massimiliano

88 See Mallia-Milanes, In the Service of the Venetian Republic, pp. 43, 78, 598–601, and notes. 89 Term quoted from E. Power, Medieval People (New York, 1992; 1st edn, 1924), p. 3.

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Buzzaccarini Gonzaga’s long and detailed letters from Malta between 1754 and 1776. On the contrary, in one of his later letters, he could still perceive the Hospitaller principality in the central Mediterranean as fulfilling its professed and accomplished commitments – to physically and spiritually rehabilitate the sick, the poor, and the needy through charity and hospitality at what had become one of the leading hospitals in Europe and to extend their naval and military establishments and their medical knowledge and expertise in defence of Christian Europe as much against Islam as against the plague and other natural catastrophes. The Order’s immediate response to the earthquake that devastated Sicily and Calabria in 1783 is a classic example.90 Nowhere is there in these letters, which were at times fairly critical of the Order and the magistracy, the slightest or vaguest suggestion that the Hospitaller institution was approaching its end. There is no such intimation either in Alviero Zacco’s equally thorough and exhaustive correspondence written from Malta when Buzzaccarini Gonzaga was on extended leave of absence, visiting his hometown, and after the latter had passed away in 1776. It is quite revealing that it was not the myth of the aging process that struck almost fatally at the Order in the 1790s. Nor ironically was the blow delivered by the Ottoman Empire, its traditional enemy, which, under the progressive Selim III, had unsuccessfully tried to reach some form of a peace settlement and trade agreement with the Order in 1796.91 As the two Venetian brethren so eloquently acknowledged in their correspondence, the swipe came from revolutionary France. The enlightened doctrine of 1789, encompassing the powerful concept of equality, challenged the old principle of privilege and destabilized the entire social structure. In so doing, it sounded the death-knell of the Ancien Régime and announced the collapse of the Hospital of which it had formed so intimate a part. If by the time the Order resolved to sojourn temporarily on Cyprus five centuries before the fall of the Bastille and the collapse of the system it symbolized, the defence of the Holy Land had for long been one of its main reasons for existence, then its loss and the loss of any hope of re-taking it had indeed, as Jonathan RileySmith argued years ago, turned the Order into an anachronism.92 The disastrous surrender of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187 and of Acre to the Mamluks in 1291 had indeed been grievous, humiliating and embarrassing to the crusaders and the military orders, frustrating to their patrons in the Latin West, themselves embroiled in their own territorial wars and politics. But the story, as we all know, did not end there. The Order of St John survived. Hospitaller Rhodes would soon evolve into

90 Bartolo, p. 117. 91 ASVen, Senato, Secreta, filza 9, Dispacci Malta, 22 September 1796. Also Malta, Cod. 275, fol. 24, Lettera del Principe della Pace [Spain’s Prime Minister Emanuel Godoy] che partecipa al Gran Maestro le premure fatte al Re dalla porta per stabilire una tregua tra la medesima e l’Ordine, 31 July 1796. Godoy’s letter is reproduced in Panzavecchia, pp. 340–342; Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta, pp. 291–294. 92 This has been discussed in J. Riley-Smith, The Order of St John in Jerusalem and Cyprus, c. 1050–1310 (London, 1967), pp. 475–476.

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a formidable fortress-state, a significantly strategic base of operations against an expanding Ottoman Empire, converting the whole of Christendom into a new and more extensive ‘holy land’ whose defence against the Saracens’ successors would again render the Order and the role it now assumed not only as politically relevant but as indispensible to Europe as it had hitherto been. Its spirit of resilience, its ability to recover readily from any temporary setback, or relentlessly resist being affected by it, had once more succeeded in transforming what its detractors denounced as weaknesses into strengths. Historically, the same argument would be as valid for developments after 1522, 1798, and the chaos that distinguished the early half of the nineteenth century leading to the constitutional restructure of the institution in a brave response to novel demands from a new world. The Hospital’s chequered past was consistently marked by alternating stages of struggles against unexpected obstacles emerging at remote intervals and successful attempts at prevailing over them. The French Revolution was one such. At no time was there a complete rupture in its over 900 years of history. The Order, like any living organism, knew how to adapt to radically changing conditions.93 Its innate powers to exploit adverse circumstances stubbornly to its own advantage helped it to prolong its existence indefinitely. Survival was a historically permanent triumph, not a shameful symptom of failing strength.

93 See J. Riley-Smith, ‘Towards a History of Military-Religious Orders’, in The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and Europe: Festschrift for Anthony Luttrell, ed. K. Borchardt, N. Jaspert, H. J. Nicholson (Aldershot, 2007), p. 284.

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XII A LIVING FORCE OF CONTINUITY IN A DECLINING MEDITERRANEAN The Hospitaller Order of St John in early modern times

Preamble History is exploration, reconstruction, and interpretation. It is a means ‘to explain and understand,’ pointed out Fernand Braudel, the finest twentieth-century historian, in 1984,1 and should not be turned into ‘an instrument’ to pass judgement on our ancestors, their ideas, motives, and beliefs, their methods, their frailties, lifestyle, strengths, and weaknesses, their failures and achievements. It is within this conceptual context that the present paper seeks to address the multiple function the Hospitaller Order of St John, an international, supranational, and supra-diocesan organisation2 played as a dynamic force of continuity in the early modern Mediterranean. The paper will also briefly revisit the conventional assumptions about the latter’s decline.

The Hospitaller institution From its modest inception in eleventh-century Jerusalem, the Order of the Hospital, as it came to be known, the only one of its kind in the Mediterranean,3 began gradually to assume its four predominant roles, each evoking an alluring image of the Knight Hospitaller – the kneeling monk absorbed in silent prayer, the humble servant attending to his Lords the sick and the poor, the brave and experienced

1 ‘Come possiamo proprio noi . . . erigerci a giudici del passato?’. See F. Braudel, Venezia, trans. Giuliana Gemelli (Bologna, 2013), pp. 57–58. 2 A. Luttrell, ‘Military Orders 1312–1798’, in The Oxford History of the Crusades, ed. J. Riley-Smith (Oxford, 1999), p. 334; J. Riley-Smith, ‘Towards a History of Military-Religious Orders’, in The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and Europe: Festschrift for Anthony Luttrell, ed. K. Borchardt, N. Jaspert, H. J. Nicholson (Aldershot, 2007), p. 276. 3 ‘Only the [Order of the] Hospital,’ writes Anthony Luttrell, ‘could claim that it underwent no essential change between 1312 and 1798.’ Luttrell, “Military Orders’, p. 361.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003406518-13

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soldier on the battlefield fighting for the Faith, and the efficient feudal seigneur, though at times admittedly arrogant and disdainful. It was precisely the integrated performance of all these various, intimately related roles that determined the character and function of the Hospitaller in society. He was ‘a constructive factor in European civilisation,’4 one that turned his Order into a living force in the Mediterranean over the subsequent seven hundred years until the French Revolution evicted it from central Mediterranean Malta in 1798. Elizabeth Schermerhorn, writing in 1940, asked: ‘How did [the Order] manage to persist and endure among the ruins of feudalism down to the very eve of the [French] revolution?’5 In her endeavour to explain this ‘endurance’, she identified a number of determining ‘elements’.6 Of these the one that had perhaps lain at the root of its ‘heritage’ was its massive landownership. The extensive estates it had gradually acquired through donation, purchase, inheritance, and absorption spread all over Europe and consisted of all sizes, shapes, forms, architectural styles, and purposes, each betraying the geography and culture of its place of origin. The Order’s intelligent management and efficient administration of these lands, their cultivation, in ways like ‘farming and stock-raising’ and various other forms, the meticulous statutory measures rigidly governing their regular maintenance and others as stringently observed against any form of alienation – exposed in a relentless way the Hospitaller institution’s contribution to ‘the development of the feudal manor’.7 These lands, organised into commanderies, the Order’s basic units of administration, gave the institution wealth and power. Each constituted a secure source of regular revenue, a centre to recruit and train new brethren,8 and a means of social connectivity, of maintaining contact with the common peoples of Europe. They financed all its activities in the Holy Land, on Rhodes and on Malta, in Europe and throughout the Mediterranean. They sustained its crusading ideals and traditions. They were also important ‘as retirement homes [and] residences for the Order’s many priests’.9 By the end of the sixteenth century the Order owned 564 commanderies. Through them the Order survived in its original privileged status until the enlightened thought of égalité was put permanently into rude practice. The ancien régime finally succumbed to the rise of the unprivileged, dragging with it the Hospitaller institution of pre-1789. The Order that eventually emerged with renewed vigour like a phoenix from the ashes was a reformed institution, an 4 5 6 7

E. W. Schermerhorn, On the Trail of the Eight-Pointed Cross (New York, 1940), pp. 10–11. Ibid., pp. 11–12. Ibid., p. 12. Ibid. Riley-Smith, p. 276. Z. Hunyadi, ‘Hospitaller Estate Management in the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary (Thirteenth to Fourteenth Centuries)’, in The Military Orders, Volume 4: On Land and by Sea, ed. J. Upton-Ward (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 145–153. N. Coureas, ‘Hospitaller Estates and Agricultural Production on Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Cyprus’, in Islands and Military Orders, c.1291-c.1798, ed. E. Buttigieg, S. Phillips (Surrey, 2013), pp. 215–224. 8 Luttrell, ‘Military Orders’, p. 340. 9 Ibid.

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Order, religious and charitable, as it had originally been before being militarised, responding to the powerful ideals, spirit, and mood of early nineteenth-century nationalism.10 For the umpteenth time, it showed convincingly its uniquely remarkable powers of resilience. Resilience was the Order’s strongest shield – its remarkable ability to recoil fairly quickly into its former shape after having experienced a severe crisis. This distinct quality had been callously tested on several occasions in its historical evolution – in 1187 the Hospitallers were evicted, along with the other military orders, from Jerusalem by Saladin; in 1291 they lost Acre to the Mamluks, never to return to the Holy Land; in 1522 they surrendered Rhodes to Suleyman the Magnificent; and in 1798 French revolutionary forces under Napoleon drove them out of Malta. After each of these occasions, the Order succeeded in regaining its former state and strength. Landownership was only one element which lay behind these powers of resilience. The other was the patronage the crowned heads of Europe were consistently willing to extend to the institution. Statute 2, on the Rule governing it,11 makes specific reference to the liberality with which the Holy See, the Catholic monarchies, principalities, duchies, republics, and devout Christians dealt with the Order, enriching it with landed estates, together with a wide range of powers, jurisdictions, privileges, and exemptions. It was vital for the Hospitallers to cultivate a perfectly healthy relationship with its powerful patrons. This was a reciprocal ‘moral code’, for in return the Order offered Europe ‘direct and constant assistance against the enemies of the Christian faith.’

Hospitaller activity in the Mediterranean The Order of the Hospital was a religious-military institution. Its activities in the Mediterranean may be grouped into two large categories, two overwhelming obligations, which corresponded neatly with its character – charity and war – and which, in an early seventeenth-century document, were placed nearly on a par with the three monastic vows which every professed Hospitaller took on admission into the Order.12 One was of a widely ‘defensive’ character, intended to extend forms of piety and protection, epitomised in its guiding principle of hospitality in its widest possible connotation. Inspired by the evangelical concept of ‘love they neighbour’, it was offered to whoever needed any form of caring attention, with no restrictive qualifications of age, class, faith, gender, colour, or country of

10 For the Order after the loss of Malta, H. J. A. Sire, The Knights of Malta: A Modern Resurrection (London, 2016). 11 See Volume che contiene gli Statuti della Sacra Religione Gerosolimitana; Le Ordinazioni dell’ultimo Capitolo Generale . . .; il Nuovo Cerimoniale prescritto dalla Santità di N. Sig. Papa Urbano VIII sopra l’Elezione de’ Gran Maestri. . . . Borgo Nuovo MDCCXIX. Per Antonio Scionico, Stampatore Generale. 12 This is discussed in V. Mallia-Milanes, Lo Stato dell’Ordine di Malta, 1630 (Taranto, 2017).

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origin. The second category was combative or ‘offensive’ in nature, always ready to launch an aggressive action. This comprised the militia principle or obligation, to wage an incessant war against the enemy of the Cross. James Reston Jr.’s assertive definition of the state of the Knights Hospitallers after losing Rhodes as ‘refugees without portfolio . . . wondering aimlessly’13 is wrong and misleading. In the eight long years from 1 January 1523 the Order’s movement from one place to another was partly motivated by its strong desire to secure the permanent residence on Malta which Grandmaster L’Isle Adam had requested before leaving Crete,14 and partly dictated by persistent outbreaks of plague. Negotiating the difficult conditions which Charles V had originally decided to attach to his enfeoffment of the island was a protracted diplomatic process. These years constituted a perilous odyssey indeed, where the homeless institution was exposed to potential dissolution, but they were not wasted years. Rather, immediately following the humiliation the Knights suffered at Rhodes, these years were a true trial of Hospitaller strength, an audaciously bold publicrelations exercise, where their spirit of charity and hospitality, their medical expertise, and participation in corsairing were, as circumstances determined, openly manifested at every stage on their tortuous way from Rhodes to Malta via Crete, Sicily, Viterbo, Nice, and Villefranche.15 These activities underscored, and were perhaps meant to underscore now more than at any other time, the institution’s relevance to the general interests of Christian Europe.

Health and hospitality The Hospitallers’ conventual fortress on Malta, as on Rhodes, militated against two implacable enemies. Its massive walls surrounding the new city of Valletta and the rest of the Grand Harbour, together with its numerous coastal towers, had been allowed to grow into their awesome architectural grandeur to defend the island and scare any potential enemy away. It was a standing symbol of another traditional scourge. The Mediterranean faced a worse threat than either the Crescent or the Cross could offer the opposing half of the great sea – north and west and east and south. The plague was more brutal and devastating than the characteristic violent confrontation between the two, worse than either piracy 13 J. Reston, Jr., Defenders of the Faith: Christianity and Islam Battle for the Soul of Europe 1520– 1536 (Harmondsworth, 2009), p. 365. 14 Grand Master Philippe Villiers de L’Isle Adam, before leaving Crete, had specifically requested Emperor Charles V to grant the Order either Malta or the port city of Brindisi in Southern Italy on the Adriatic coast, offering him 100,000 ducats for the award. V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘Introduction to Hospitaller Malta’, in Hospitaller Malta, 1530–1798: Studies on Early Modern Malta and the Order of St John of Jerusalem, ed. V. Mallia-Milanes (Malta, 1993), p. 2. Also R. Fulin et al. (eds.), I Diarii di Marino Sanuto (Venice, 1879–1903), vol. xxxiv, p. 98. 15 V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘Vol veder di aver Brandizo ovvero Malta: The Hospitaller Odyssey from Rhodes to Malta, 1523–1530’, in The 1522 Siege of Rhodes: Causes, Course, Consequences, ed. S. Phillips (London, 2022), pp. 115–130.

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or slavery in its deadly consequences, worse than any crusading warfare in its destruction. The Hospitallers approached its potential outbreak with unwavering rigour. Their long medical tradition, their knowledge of hygiene, their expertise and direct involvement in health management, and their inflexibility in dealing with quarantine and other related mechanisms endeavoured, though not always successfully,16 to keep the plague at a comfortably secure distance, to the extent that their aggressive severity at times provoked a storm of protest from Venice’s own health authorities.17 The Grand Hospital which the Knights built on migrating from Birgu to the new city of Valletta, and ‘its numerous subsidiary institutions,’18 constituted their first line of defence against this scourge. The lazaretto, lying on an islet in Marsamxetto Harbour, and the quarantine station on the Valletta quay on the Grand Harbour, offered a wide range of amenities – accommodation for crews and passengers under observation or in isolation, accommodation for animals, stores and warehouses for merchandise, facilities for disinfection and fumigation, and a chapel for spiritual needs dedicated to St Roche. These services marked an authentic continuity of those that had already been offered to the pilgrims, the sick, the poor, and the homeless at the conventual hospital four centuries earlier in Jerusalem.19 It was an unbroken tradition of extensive alms-giving to the poor, of doctors and surgeons, of nightly prayers in the hospital for benefactors and others led by the Order’s priests, of provisions of orphans and lepers, of maternity wards, and of financial support, medicine and diet, burial arrangements, and the treatment of those wounded in battle.20 These services included, too, ‘a mobile tented hospital that accompanied Christian field armies,’ singularly rare for the twelfth century.21 As his predecessors had done in Jerusalem, Acre, Limasol on Cyprus, and Rhodes, and as he and his successors would do again on Malta, Grand Master l’Isle Adam continued, wherever the Order sojourned, to serve from his own hands thirteen poor persons every morning in honour of Christ and his twelve apostles, offering bread and wine to the most wretched. The French Secretary to Grand Master Gregorio Carafa, Fra 16 Hospitaller Malta experienced severe outbreaks of plague epidemics in 1592–1593, 1623, 1655, and 1675–1676. See P. Cassar, Medical History of Malta (London, 1964), pp. 164–175. 17 V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘Venice, Hospitaller Malta, and Fear of the Plague: Culturally Conflicting Views’, in The Military Orders, Volume 6.1: Culture and Conflict in the Mediterranean World, ed. J. Shenk, M. Carr (London, 2017), pp. 197–198. 18 A. Luttrell, ‘The Hospitallers’ Medical Tradition: 1291–1530’, in The Military Orders, [Volume I], Fighting for the Faith and Caring for the Sick, ed. M. Barber (Aldershot, 1994), pp. 64–81. See also Riley-Smith, ‘Towards a History of Military-Religious Orders’, pp. 278–279. 19 See, for example, V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘The Knights Hospitaller’s Service of Love’, in Tra Fede e Storia: Studi in onore di Don Giovannino Pinna, ed. M. Contu et al. (Cagliari, 2014), pp. 163–175. 20 Ibid. 21 See B. Z. Kedar, ‘A Twelfth-Century Description of the Jerusalem Hospital’, in The Military Orders, Volume 2, Welfare and Warfare, ed. H. Nicholson (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 3–26; also J. Riley-Smith, ‘900 Years of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta’, History Today (November, 1999), pp. 2–3.

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Gio. Batta Le Marinier de Cany, remarked in 1670 that these qualities formed the quintessence of the true grandeur of the Hospitaller ethos.22 Over the very long perspective, the Order’s hospices and hospitals were true centres of selfless commitment and dedication to those in need. The difference between the two conventual hospitals in Jerusalem and Malta lay solely in policies and practices that reflected the progress made in medical knowledge.23 Over one hundred years after de Cany, the Order, now economically weakened and reduced to near impotence by the revolution in France and with hardly any powerful patron other than the papacy, was still loyal to its original principles. In 1930, on the strength of what he defines as ‘a vast amount of evidence,’ including fruitful eye-witness accounts of travellers visiting Malta in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,24 Frederick Ryan claimed that the Order remained ‘faithful to the duties of “Hospitality” to the end of its days in Malta’,25 and that its hospital ‘was well abreast of its time from the scientific point of view, and that from the religious standpoint this great hospital was ably fulfilling, with a multitude of other activities in Malta, the great function of a centre for corporal works of mercy’.26 From the early origin of their hospice in Jerusalem ‘shortly before 1071’27 to their surrender of Malta in June 1798, over seven hundred years had passed. It is remarkable that, during this very long term, generation after generation of Hospitallers never failed to understand and positively respond as dispensers of charity and hospitality to the needs and condition of the marginalised in society and to the ever-pressing demands of public health. Irrespective of where their convent stood, irrespective of the prevailing socio-economic context of the Mediterranean world, and irrespective of the state of their priories throughout Christian Europe, the Hospitallers’ main concern was ultimately the preservation of humanity. The dynamic driving force behind this ancient and unbroken tradition was their unwavering concern for the common good. As pointed out elsewhere,28 Man occupied the centre stage of their charitable activities.

22 National Library of Malta (NLM), Archives of the Order of Malta (AOM), Cod. 1697, Riflessioni di un Cavaliere di Malta, Religioso dell’Ordine Militare degli Ospedalieri di S. Giovanni di Gerusalemme, sopra la grandezza e i doveri del suo stato, 1670. See also, B. Dal Pozzo, Historia della S. Religione Militare di S. Giovanni Gerosolimitano detta di Malta (Verona, 1703–1715), pp. 582–583. 23 Mallia-Milanes, ‘Service of Love’, p. 175. 24 These include H. Teonge, The Diary of Henry Teonge . . . 1675–1679 (London, 1927), section on Malta, pp. 121–122, 264–265; G. Sandys, Travels . . . (6th edn, London, 1670), section on Malta, pp. 177–183; and J. Campbell, The Travels and Adventures of Edward Brown . . . Containing His Account of the Isle of Malta (London, 1739), section on Malta, pp. 174–191. 25 See V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘Decline and Fall? The Order of the Hospital and Its Surrender of Malta, 1798’, Symposia Melitensia, 12 (2016), p. 129. 26 Ibid. 27 A. Luttrell, ‘The Hospital’s Privilege of 1113: Texts and Contexts’, in Schenk, Carr (eds.), p. 3. 28 Mallia-Milanes, ‘Venice, Hospitaller Malta, and Fear of the Plague’, p. 204.

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Hospitaller crusading warfare Within decades of the fall of Acre to the Mamluks in 1291, the Templars ceased to exist, and the Teutonic Knights shifted their focus to north-eastern Europe. The Knights Hospitaller were the only Order for whom crusading warfare in the eastern Mediterranean retained its original appeal and enthusiasm. They continued to operate from their conventual base first on Cyprus, then on Rhodes, and from 1530 from nearer Western Europe on Malta. Their direct and persistent involvement in holy warfare prolonged the life of the crusade to the end of the eighteenth century. Organising and participating in holy warfare justified the Order’s retention of its western priories and commanderies.29 This early-modern form of the crusade was distinct from the old, medieval one associated with Jerusalem. Its objectives were different: the Holy Land was gone and gone forever; no vows, temporal or spiritual privileges, no plenary indulgences or remission of sins, no papal sponsorship appear to have been attached to it; no age restrictions were imposed; no physical fitness or material wealth were demanded. This post-Acre role was in harmony with the normal expectations of a dynamic religious-military institution, whose raison d’être after all was to pray, help, and fight. It was an uninterrupted continuation of the Order’s old practices, methods, and beliefs. On Malta, more perhaps than on Rhodes, Europe was converted into a new ‘holy land’ for the Hospitallers to defend against Islam. On the central Mediterranean island, as on Dodecanese Rhodes, the Order’s military role assumed four distinct forms.30 It participated in practically all the holy leagues, like that formed by Paul III in 1538 or by Pius V in May 1571, placing all its naval forces at the disposal of the allied Christian fleets. On other occasions it contributed its entire galley squadron and other craft to the Habsburgs’ punitive campaigns against the infidel. To instance one classic example: in preparation for Charles V’s large-scale expedition to regain Tunis, which Khaireddin Barbarossa had seized in 1534, exposing the southern coasts of Spain, Italy, and Sicily to Muslim attack,31 the Order first secured the necessary supplies of food from Sicily and then had its galley squadron strengthened, raising it from four to five by launching the Santa Caterina in mid-April 1535. The sixth was under construction. To the four Hospitaller galleys, 200 Knights were assigned.32 On board the caracca Sant’Anna, which accompanied the Hospitaller squadron, there were another 70 Knights and a strong regiment of soldiers.33 By 29 Luttrell, ‘Military Orders’, p. 334. 30 See V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘L’Ordine dell’Ospedale e le spedizioni anti-islamiche della Spagna nel Mediterraneo. Dal primo assedio di Rodi (1480) all’assedio di Malta (1565)’, in Sardegna, Spagna e Mediterraneo: Dai Re Cattolici al Secolo d’Oro, ed. B. Anatra, G. Murgia (Rome, 2004), p. 112. 31 K. M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), iii: The Sixteenth Century to the Reign of Julius III (Philadelphia, 1984), pp. 393–398. 32 I. Bosio, Dell’Istoria della Sacra Religione et Ill.ma Militia di San Giovanni Gierosolimitano (3rd Impression, Venice, 1695), iii, p. 141. 33 Ibid.

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the end of June 1535, the allied fleet, not without great difficulty,34 took the fortress of La Goletta. By 21 July the fortress and city of Tunis were both in Christian hands. That gave the Habsburgs complete control over the entry into the western Mediterranean from the east. The only criticism of this great achievement was that Charles V failed to follow the logic dictated by geopolitics – to follow up that victory by an immediate assault on Algiers. That came six years too late and ended up in disaster. The list of similar collective enterprises can be stretched indefinitely. From Tunis to Lepanto the role played by the Hospitallers pursued a predictably regular pattern of participation in nearly all the activities of the allied Christian fleet. Its four-galley squadron was present at Corfu (1537),35 Prevesa (1538),36 Otranto and Castelnuovo in Dalmatia (1539),37 and the waters of Taranto (1540).38 That same year, too, the Order, allied to the Sicilian forces, took part in the conquest of Monastir and Susa39 and in the unsuccessful siege of Sfax.40 The next year Charles V decided to repeat at Algiers what he had achieved at Tunis six years earlier.41 The allied forces reached Algiers towards the end of October. When the fall of the fortress was about to be secured, the ‘natural elements’ intervened in favour of the besieged. ‘The besiegers,’ observed Mori Ubaldini, ‘were immobilised for three whole days by a violent storm with torrential rains and raging winds.’42 Giacomo Bosio, the great historian of the Order, draws a very dramatically detailed portrait of the situation on the morning of 28 October.43 In 1550 the Hospitallers found themselves once more engaged in the allied campaign against the port town of Mahdiya (today a Tunisian coastal city south of Monastir and southeast of Sousse),44 and in 1564 they participated in the conquest of Peñón de Velez.45

34 See Reston, pp. 366–368. 35 Bosio, iii, pp. 170–172; Setton, iii, pp. 425–427. 36 Bosio, iii, pp. 178–180. Setton, iii, pp. 445–447 and n. 208. ‘Prevesa gave Islam that control of the sea of which the Christian victory at Lepanto was to deprive it in 1571.’ F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, trans. S. Reynolds (London, 1972–1973), p. 873; H. Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600 (London, 2000), p. 36. Also S. Mercieca, ‘The Battle of Preveza 1538: The Knights of Malta’s Perspective’, in Proceedings of the Second International Symposium for the History and Culture of Preveza (16–20 September 2009), ed. N. D. Karabelas, M. Stork (Prevesa, 2010), pp. 107–120. 37 Bosio, iii, pp. 186–187. Setton, iii, p. 446. 38 Bosio, iii, pp. 186–187. 39 Ibid., p. 194. 40 Ibid., pp. 194–195. 41 Ibid., pp. 199–200, 205–211. 42 U. Mori Ubaldini, La Marina del Sovrano Militare Ordine di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme di Rodi e di Malta (Rome, 1971), p. 159. 43 Bosio, iii, p. 208. 44 Ibid., pp. 243, 257–258, 266–277. J. B. Wolfe, The Barbary Coast: Algeria under the Turks 1500– 1830 (London, 1979), pp. 34–35. Braudel, The Mediterranean, p. 910. 45 S. Bono, ‘Naval Exploits and Privateering’, in Hospitaller Malta 1530–1798: Studies on Early Modern Malta and the Order of St John of Jerusalem, ed. V. Mallia-Milanes (Malta, 1993), p. 357.

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So much has been written on the Ottoman siege of Malta (1565) and on the battle of Lepanto (1571) that they hardly need any further remarks here, but their historical significance will be brought up towards the end of the present paper. After the siege of Cyprus and Lepanto, the Order continued to respond equally positively to requests for help from the Republic of Venice. The long-drawn-out Venetian wars first of Crete (1645–1669) and then twice at the Morea, towards the end of seventeenth century and the second decade of the eighteenth. The Order could hardly decline requests to contribute to either of these two types of formal anti-Muslim war. Invitations emanating from the papacy, the Order’s ultimate authority, were synonymous with instructions. They could not be turned down unless for a very serious reason. Neither could it dismiss with any modicum of comfort requests from the powerful Spanish monarchy, its feudal lord. The intervals between one formal war and another, between one Holy League or Habsburg campaign (which were hardly distinguishable) and another, gave the Order some respite to accommodate its statutory provisions, ambitions, and aspirations, to live up to its naval and military tradition. This was the third form of Hospitaller crusading activity when it could design its own priorities and organise similar expeditions on a less spectacular scale in all parts of the Mediterranean. The objective of such ventures on seasonal crusading cruises was to harass Muslims on land and by sea, ravage their coastal towns and villages, harass Muslim merchants, raid their shipping, seize their merchandise, and carry their men, women, and children into slavery.46 The corso was the fourth genre of Hospitaller warfare. The initial involvement of individual members of the Order in formal anti-Muslim corsairing activity has been assigned to the first years of Spain’s Siglo de Oro,47 when individual Hospitallers were authorised, like other ordinary privateers, to set out on their own on what may be termed a private crusade. On 25 November 1503, for example, the Knight Ynyogo Ayalla, was licensed to arm the Order’s barcia Santa Maria and sail out on a privateering expedition in Levantine waters on condition that two-thirds of his booty would go to the Order’s Common Treasury. The event coincided with Spain’s Reconquista, whose unintended repercussions delivered the birth of the Barbary Regencies and dramatically widened the scope for the ruthless excesses of the pirates of Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and, after 1551, Tripoli, spreading their activities over a vastly grander scale, and extended the Ottoman empire’s sphere of direct influence all along the Maghribi coast. The Barbary corsairs’ activities in the Mediterranean, the sense of insecurity they created, and the general threat they offered to Christian trade proved beneficial to the Order as they highlighted the Hospitallers’ political relevance in the region, providing tangible evidence in support of their claimed indispensability.48 46 G. Wettinger, Slavery in the Islands of Malta and Gozo ca. 1000–1812 (Malta, 2002). S. Bono, Schiavi musulmani nell’Italia moderna: galeotti, vù cumprà, domestici (Naples, 1999). 47 Mori Ubaldini, p. 108. 48 P. Earle,. Corsairs of Malta and Barbary (London, 1970). S. Bono, I Corsari Barbareschi (Turin, 1964). Id., ‘Naval Exploits and Privateering’, pp. 388–397. M. Fontenay, ‘Corsaires de la foi ou

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These years indicated the first stages in the Mediterranean’s gradual loss of the primacy it had long been enjoying in global economy.49 Hospitaller privateering, under the guise of crusading activity and covered by the magistral emblem or the Order’s eight-pointed cross, eventually escalated into an endemic warfare, reaching spectacular peaks in the next century. These colourful exploits against Islam undertaken both by individual members of the Hospital and by a wide section of the native population were reconfirmed when the Order moved from Rhodes to the central Mediterranean and encouraged to develop into a major industry on Malta. Indeed, the island itself was transformed into a thriving corsair base with a flourishing international slave market. No wonder the Venetian Senate in the late 1580s dubbed the Hospitallers ‘corsairs parading crosses’,50 who fostered a culture of piracy, ransom, and plunder.

‘Coexistence and symbiosis’ In history long-held assumptions often need to be revisited. In Venetians in Constantinople, Eric Dursteler argues how thin the distinction was between word and action, between rhetoric and reality, how ‘porous’ and ‘pliable’ the borderline or frontiers were between the two in matters of faith and geopolitics in the early modern Mediterranean world. Within the broad framework of the ideological chasm between Christianity and Islam not only were ‘coexistence and symbiosis’ possible; they were ‘almost certainly the quotidian norm rather than the exception.’ He questions the historical validity of the traditional reconstruction of these two powerfully determining forces as being in perpetual engagement ‘in a life-and-death struggle’.51 The relationship between Venice and Constantinople provides a perfect example. They cannot be defined as two friendly empires by whatever criterion is adopted. They were declared enemies. They fought several wars against each other. But when times ‘were not distorted by hostility,’52 their relationship was marked by ‘interaction and coexistence.’53 This state of living in near harmony despite different ideologies and interests marked almost the entire history of the Republic. It has now been claimed that the Hospitaller regime on Rhodes too adopted such a sensible and realistic approach towards the Ottomans and the Mamluks, one based on practical rather than on theoretical consideration.54 Unlike what we have hitherto

49 50 51 52 53 54

rentiers du sol?: Les chevaliers de Malte dans le corso méditerranéen au XVIIe siècle’, in Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, xxxv (July–September 1988), pp. 361–384. D. Valerian, ‘The Medieval Mediterranean’, in A Companion to Mediterranean History, ed. P. Horden, S. Kinoshita (Chichester, 2014), pp. 77–78. M. Greene, ‘The Early Modern Mediterranean’, in ibid., p. 92. A. Tenenti, Piracy and the Decline of Venice 1580–1615, trans. J. B. Pullan (London, 1967), p. 39. E. R. Dursteler, Venetians in Constantinople: Nation, Identity and Coexistence in the Early Modern Mediterranean (Baltimore, 2006), p. 11. Ibid., p. 20. Ibid., p. 19. T. M. Vann, ‘The Role of Rhetoric and Diplomacy in the Creation of Muslim Identity in FifteenthCentury Rhodes’, in Mediterranean Identities in the Premodern Era: Entrepôts, Islands, Empires, ed. J. Watkins, K. L. Reyerson (Surrey, 2014), pp. 109–119.

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believed, the inflexibility of the Order’s stance towards Islam was more apparent than real. Geography, the weather, war, and the overall political atmosphere prevailing throughout the eastern Mediterranean at the heart of which lay the island orderstate55 of Rhodes dictated an unavoidable form of ‘interaction and coexistence’ with its otherwise hostile neighbourly Muslim powers. The general perception entertained of the institution’s unwavering militant opposition to Islam was of the Order’s own creation. It was the intended outcome of its profession of its mission and propagated through the wide network of its experienced diplomatic representatives in Europe for the consumption of its Christian patrons in the West. There is no doubt, of course, that the Hospitallers were sworn enemies of Islam. But concealed underneath the art of Renaissance rhetoric stood another Order. The fifteenth-century picture that emerges of the Hospital from its surviving chancery records does not in fact correspond very neatly to this traditional interpretation.56 The reality of this other phase of the institution uttered a different dialect. The brutal truth, we are told, is that safe-conducts, licenses to arm ships, and licenses to trade, tell of the peaceful passage of Turkish merchants and diplomats through the Port of Rhodes. The Master of the Order licensed trade with Muslim ports in Syria and Egypt and enacted treaties with Muslim powers, with or without papal consent.57 Rhodes’ ruling regime, it has been pointed out, could not afford to alienate the Ottomans completely because Constantinople was an important grain source for the region. Likewise the Hospitallers maintained diplomatic relations with the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt because Rhodes and Alexandria were trading partners.58 55 According to Anthony Luttrell, the island order-state of Rhodes ‘demanded the establishment of a naval tradition and the arrangement of the local economy and government in ways which would support defensive measures. The harbour brought shipping, pilgrims, pirates, trade, and taxes; the island was populated to produce foodstuffs and auxiliary forces; its forests furnished timber for shipbuilding; the inhabitants constructed and manned towers and castles or served as galley oarsmen.’ Luttrell ‘Military Orders’, pp. 334–335. Most of these attributes applied equally well to Hospitaller Malta. Like the Greeks on Rhodes, the Maltese too were ‘reasonably fed, protected . . . on the whole the population felt reasonably well treated and was prepared to collaborate.’ Ibid. The central Mediterranean island-fortress offered all captains of vessels sailing the Mediterranean, all sailors, passengers, and merchants of Christian States access to a strongly fortified, fully equipped base for all forms of operations, a safe neutral port of call, an arsenal, a lazaretto with other quarantine facilities, an efficient hospital, a flourishing market, spacious warehouses, courts of justice, and consular assistance. They produced ashes and cultivated cumin and cotton for export. These attractive conditions explain why very few riots or protests occurred over 268 years of Hospitaller rule. Mallia-Milanes, ‘Introduction to Hospitaller Malta’, pp. 1–42, passim. Id., ‘Society and the Economy on the Hospitaller Island of Malta: An Overview’, in Buttigieg, Phillips (eds), pp. 238–256. 56 Vann, pp. 109–119. 57 Ibid., p. 110. 58 Ibid., p. 116.

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The pragmatism of Hospitaller policies is still under-researched. It needs to be scrutinised further, more deeply, over a longer timeframe, and on a much wider spacial scale. Was the Order on Malta as pragmatic in its attitude towards the Ottoman Empire and the Muslim powers on North Africa as it had been on Rhodes? If so, such interaction must have been much more subtle and refined. Archival documentation does indicate a few isolated cases of apparently similar practices during its Maltese phase, but these were carried out through the mediation or intervention of French agencies, exchanges under cover of the French flag. In 1754, for example, severely strained relations between the Order and the Kingdom of Naples resulted in the suspension of Malta’s trade links with the Kingdom of the two Sicilies. To counter the effects of the embargo, Grand Master Emanuel Pinto’s Uditore sought the help of the French consul in Tunis to provide the order-state with some 5,000 heads of cattle and other livestock.59 Another example concerns Hopsitaller Malta’s relations with Morocco in the 1760s.60 The geographical proximity of central Mediterranean Malta to Europe, especially to the papacy, probably placed the Order under closer observation than it could have possibly been in the south-east Aegean. The Inquisitor was the resident papal representative on the island and from 1575 assumed too the function of a nuncio or apostolic delegate. His double surveillance role could not have been too enticing or comforting for the Hospitaller regime. His regular correspondence with the Secretariat of State at the Vatican shows a much wider interest than the eradication of heresy. And along with the nuncio, there were several other resident ministers and consuls representing the interests of various European royal courts on the island. France, for example, had her Homme du Roi; Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, Tuscany, the tiny principality of Monaco, and others: each had their own minister or chargé d’affaires. From the mid-eighteenth century, Venice had her Uomo della Repubblica in the person of Massimiliano Buzzaccarini Gonzaga. Each corresponded regularly with his sending State to report, at times in minute detail,61 on what was going on in and around Malta. As late as 1770, for example, during the Russo-Turkish war of 1768–1774, the Venetian Minister received a note from Venice’s Magistracy of Trade saying that it would be greatly appreciated if he continued to keep the Senate abreast of developments in the central Mediterranean.62 Though himself a high-ranking member of the Hospital, like all the other similar representatives on the island except the nuncio,63 there were moments when 59 NLM, AOM, Cod. 1511: the two letters, each dated 11 March 1754, addressed to the French consul Plowman in Tunis. 60 Mallia-Milanes, Al Servizio della Repubblica di Venezia, Letter CCVI, p. 596, n. 496. 61 V. Mallia-Milanes, ‘A Man with a Mission: A Venetian Hospitaller on Eighteenth-Century Malta’, in The Military Orders, Volume 4: On Land and at Sea, ed. J. Upton-Ward (Aldershot, 2008), p. 255. 62 The note, addressed too to various Venetian consuls, said: ‘[Il Senato] trova opportuno e necessario di aver da voi una regolare anticipata cognizione di tutte le cose che vanno succedendo a codesta parte.’ Mallia-Milanes, Al Servizio della Repubblica di Venezia, Letter CXXXIX, p. 449, n. 355. 63 V. Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta 1530–1798: Aspects of a Relationship (Malta, 1992), pp. 212, 214–218.

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the Venetian minister was quite critical both of Grand Master Emanuel Pinto’s style and method of government64 and of Benedict XIV.65 It is also interesting to observe, and quite revealing and enlightening, that no such foreign representation existed on Hospitaller Rhodes,66 which goes some way to make the Order’s stance there perhaps more understandable. There was a Venetian consulate for a while, but it was discontinued in about 1410 on the grounds that other nations wanted consuls as well.67

The siege of Malta and the battle of Lepanto Within the context of what Samuel P. Huntington has defined as the ‘clash of civilisations’,68 the epic siege of Malta (1565) and the large naval battle of Lepanto (1571) were the two most outstanding events in the history of the early-modern Mediterranean. In both, the Hospitallers were involved directly: in the first, they were the leading protagonists; in the second, they participated in Pius V’s Holy League with three fully equipped galleys and manned with experienced Knights and soldiers along with the allied forces of Spain, Venice, the papacy, and other Italian principalities.69 In 1565, the small, weakly fortified island, exposed and vulnerable, succeeded in withstanding, for four whole months, a furious assault unleashed by Suleyman’s mighty armada. In 1571, the fragile Holy League destroyed nearly the entire Ottoman naval forces. News of both developments, a mere six years apart, spread all over Christian Europe like wildfire, followed by widespread rejoicing and celebrations on a grand scale and commemorated by contemporaries and later generations in various shapes and forms – in eyewitnesses’ accounts, in literature, on canvas, in music, in archival records. But euphoria of victory and jubilation do not recast near-permanent structures. Historians have tended to identify the outcome of both events as a determining stage in the gradual decline of the Ottoman Empire. Halil Inalcik claims that the withdrawal of Suleyman’s forces from Malta in September 1565 ‘marked the beginning of a halt in the Ottoman advance into . . . the Mediterranean.’70 Colin Imber assigns ‘the end of the Ottoman maritime expansion towards the west’ to the conquest of Chios, the Genoese island in the Aegean, in 1566.71 Thomas Dandelet asserts that Lepanto ‘signalled the end of Ottoman expansion beyond Crete’.72 64 Mallia-Milanes, Al Servizio della Republica di Venezia, pp. 77–78. 65 Ibid., p. 79. 66 I thank Dr Anthony Luttrell, Professor Juergen Sarnowsky, and Professor Helen J. Nicholson for this observation. Emailed communications, 13, 16 March 2017. 67 Dr Anthony Luttrell, in a private communication, 13 March 2017. 68 S. P. Huntington, ‘The Clash of Civilisations?’, in Foreign Affairs, no. 72 (Summer 1993), pp. 22–49. 69 Mori Ubaldini, p. 270. 70 Inalcik, p. 41. 71 C. Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power (Basingstoke, 2002), p. 60. 72 T. J. Dandelet, The Renaissance of Empire in Early Modern Europe (New York, 2014), p. 156.

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This historiographical discourse casts grey clouds over reality, somehow obscuring the skyline. It should be discreetly relegated to the mythical spheres of the past where it comfortably belongs. The true significance of both events lies elsewhere. The outcome of the siege greatly enhanced Philip II’s ‘imperial reputation . . . because it revealed him to be living up to the old . . . humanistic programme of reviving ancient Roman military power to crush the Ottoman threat.’73 It was to him that the Order, Malta, and the central Mediterranean owed an enormous deal. His timely Spanish intervention had ‘saved [them] from the Turks’.74 On landing on the island, the relief force of some 10,000 men instantly scared the enemy away without even engaging it in battle. Within the narrow sphere of Hospitaller and Maltese history, the siege helped the Hospitallers to survive and retain their Convent firmly in the central Mediterranean. It revamped their political relevance to Christian Europe much more than Tunis had done three decades earlier and reconfirmed their institution’s traditional role as a force of continuity. The siege also transformed their island order-state into an almost unrecognisable form, turned it into a formidable fortress, and ushered it into the forefront of Mediterranean politics and the modern world. It may well have set the Ottoman naval expansionism temporarily back, but it failed to reverse the Turk’s dominance in the Middle Sea. It simply defined his Empire’s ‘geographical limits’. On the other hand, the battle of Lepanto was not a collective effort to eliminate Christian Europe’s common enemy as it has often been depicted. Venice depended so much on the Empire for its trade. Judged from its short-term result, it was an implicitly professed reconfirmation of the major Latin protagonists that their own interests held pride of place in their scale of values. At Lepanto the bitterly divided Christian West, allied in a tenuous holy alliance, confronted Islam through extreme, inbred religious fanaticism, a pervasive spirit of raw intolerance, and a hysterical ideology of hatred of ‘the other’, so evident in the rejoicing and jubilation celebrating the horrors and atrocities of the battle. These were the ingredients which formed the texture of contemporary life in the sixteenth-century Mediterranean. The Ottomans failed to realise their objective in 1565 and were defeated in 1571. Notwithstanding both disasters, they took the Venetian island of Cyprus, ‘the greatest feat of Ottoman arms’.75 They defended their new acquisition with a newly built armada that within a few months had replaced the one destroyed at Lepanto.76 The new fleet, reflecting the innovative technological evolution,77 consisted of bigger vessels, including eight galeasses, larger than the Venetian ones

73 74 75 76 77

Ibid. p. 153. J. H. Elliott, Europe Divided 1559–1598 (London, 1968), p. 178. Inalcik, p. 41. Ibid. F. C. Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic (Baltimore, 1973), pp. 370, 372.

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and fully armed, apart from other galleys and smaller craft.78 Its recovery, and the perception of that extraordinary dynamism, helped it retain the new acquisition and dictated Venice’s ‘betrayal’ of the Holy League and the latter’s dissolution. Neither of the two events, nor their collective impact, succeeded in destroying the Ottomans’ naval power. Ottoman ‘presence in the Levant and North Africa’ survived and remained as threateningly ‘real and dreadful’ as before.79 ‘The years after 1571 still gave enough evidence of the aggressive power of the Turks at sea and on land.’80 In 1573 they ravaged the coasts of Southern Italy and Sicily. They occupied La Goletta and permanently seized the fortress of Tunis in September 1574, with which they recovered their ‘self-respect’.81 In 1576 they raided Palermo and captured Fez in Morocco.82 In 1588 they harassed ‘Valencia and its surroundings’. ‘The shores of Calabria and Sicily,’ points out Alexander De Groot, ‘were raided in 1592, 1593, and 1594 by the corsair galleys from Bizerta . . . and the main Ottoman fleet . . . with 90–120 galleys.’ In the last years of the century and the beginning of the next, Naples and Sicily experienced similar aggressive pressure. ‘The main fleet passed Malta and Gozo on its way to and from Algiers in 1598.’83 In the seventeenth century, the Turks took the Venetian island of Crete and early in the eighteenth they again confronted the Venetians in the Morea. ‘The peace made at Passarowitz in 1718 confirmed the naval superiority of the Ottomans over the Venetians.’84 Drawing his data from Giuseppe Bonaffini’s La Sicilia e i Barbereschi,85 Thomas James Dandelet claims that between 1570 and 1606, ‘Sicily alone was attacked 136 times’.86 Not only were the Ottomans reconfirmed masters of the eastern Mediterranean, a dominance they had established since 1538 at Prevesa, but they even strengthened ‘their hold upon the Maghreb.’87 That was Lepanto’s legacy. Voltaire was not far from the truth when he claimed that ‘the victory of Lepanto seemed rather to have been on the side of the Turks.’88

78 G. C. Melleuish, ‘The Significance of Lepanto’, in Quadrant Online (April 2008): https://quadrant. org.au/magazine/2008/04/the-significance-of-lepanto/. Accessed 20 March 2017. Also in J. R. Mitchell, H. B. Mitchell (eds.), Annual Editions World History: Volume 1-Prehistory to 1500 (10th edn, New York, 2009). 79 A. H. De Groot, ‘The Ottoman Threat to Europe, 1571–1830: Historical Fact or Fancy?’, in MalliaMilanes, Hospitaller Malta, p. 254. 80 Ibid., p. 203. 81 Braudel, The Mediterranean, p. 1139. 82 S. J. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, i: Empire of the Gazis: The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire, 1280–1808 (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 178–179. 83 De Groot, pp. 215–216. 84 Ibid., p. 230. 85 G. Bonaffini, La Sicilia e i Barbereschi: Incursioni corsare e riscatto degli schiavi (1570–1606) (Palermo, 1983). 86 Dandelet, p. 152. 87 K. M. Setton, Venice, Austria, and the Turks in the Seventeenth Century (Philadelphia, 1991), p. 1. 88 The Works of M. de Voltaire: The Ancient and Modern History, Ch. cxxxii, ‘Of the Battle of Lepanto’, p. 262.

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Alexander De Groot argues that the term Ottoman decline ‘is devoid of any real meaning.’89 My position on this issue does not diminish the importance of either event by one iota. Both the siege and the battle had indeed been stunning victories for the Christian West; both were extremely injurious to the dignity and pride of the Ottoman Empire. But humiliation is a psychological condition, an obvious discomfiture that was however fairly quickly overcome. The two events were strategically inconsequential in the long-term perspective of historical development, both of the Ottoman Empire and of the Mediterranean. The spirit of ideological confrontation which had inspired them both and, indeed, similar other occasions before and after them, did not disappear; nor did the prevailing mood grow fainter. The status quo in the Mediterranean was reconfirmed. ‘The cultural shape of the lands around the Mediterranean,’ writes Gregory Melleuish, survived unimpaired, ‘with a largely Islamic East and South staring across the waters at a Christian North and West’.

Conclusion The idea of the decline of the Mediterranean needs revisiting and redefining. Did the Great Discoveries, to which it is generally attributed, convert the sea into an isolated backwater, perhaps tranquil and undisturbed? Did the ‘great sea’ shrink into insignificance as a result? Was its unity, its internal coherence,90 shattered? From the evidence to date it would appear that the decline was only partial: the Middle Sea was deprived only of the primacy it had been for long enjoying in global economy and international exchange. But was economic pre-eminence, however central and determining, the only feature that had constituted the sea’s true greatness? Today the validity of the claim of ‘the economic decline of the eastern Mediterranean’ has been questioned.91 After 1492 the Mediterranean still retained the natural distinct elements of cultural unity that had been so intimately characteristic of it. The homogeneity of its climate92 remained unaltered. Its winter temperatures did not grow colder with the ‘massive invasion’ of the Northerners from the 1580s. Nor did the latter turn its often fiercely hot summer months into a pleasantly mild season. The sea kept its ‘blue transparency’. The cultivation of the vine, the olive tree, and the palm tree does not appear to have been diminished or discontinued. The Mediterranean still held on to the ‘relatively easy navigability’93 and ‘maritime interconnectedness’ it

89 De Groot, p. 253. 90 Braudel, The Mediterranean, p. 14. 91 S. Pamuk, ‘Braudel’s Eastern Mediterranean Revisited’, in Braudel Revisited: The Mediterranean World 1600–1800, ed. G. Piterberg, T. F. Ruiz, G. Symcox (Toronto, 2010), pp. 101–108. 92 Braudel. The Mediterranean, pp. 234–238. 93 W. V. Harris, ‘The Mediterranean and Ancient History’, in Rethinking the Mediterranean, ed. W. V. Harris (Oxford, 2006), p. 4.

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enjoyed since ancient times.94 The peoples inhabiting its ancient world still nourished their natural inclination and attitude towards the sea long after Christopher Columbus had crossed the Atlantic. Fishing, pastoralism, and farming remained constant features of local economies through the entire region. Plague and other deadly diseases were also shared experiences. Inhabitants from each of the four corners of the Mediterranean who survived such characteristic catastrophes had frightening stories to narrate about these phenomena.95 Piracy, corsairing, and slavery, on either side of the ideological fence, remained vigorous activities that marked everyday life. And the open clash of religion between Christianity and Islam did not diminish in its intensity with the enormous structural changes that followed 1492 – the great voyages to the New World, the discovery of the new route to the East round the Cape of Good Hope, the fall of Granada, the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian peninsula and the massive migrations of exiled peoples that these changes set in motion,96 the sudden conversion of the brilliance of Renaissance Italy into a savage theatre of war between Habsburg Spain and Valois France, and the steady spread of Lutheranism. One other relevant observation. Notwithstanding its loss of economic primacy in the world, the sixteenth-century Mediterranean retained its explosive civilising power and remained as inspiring as ever before. By the time the Order was about to settle on Malta, ‘the curtain,’ we are told,97 had already fallen ‘on the splendours of the Renaissance.’ It soon became the cradle of the volcanic eruption of the ‘sprawling and extravagant’ Baroque.98 From affluent Italy it flourished rapidly for centuries, with the Spanish galleons carrying it to the newly discovered lands across the Atlantic. ‘The Mediterranean,’ asserts Braudel, ‘was the donor, the transmitter and therefore a superior power, whose teachings, way of life and tastes were adopted in lands far from its shores.’99 The Baroque, an expression of the vitality of Italian society, demonstrated that Italy, at the core of the Mediterranean, had once more transformed itself into a ‘competitive and predominant’ civilising force, whose dynamic influence ‘spread to cover almost all of Europe, the Catholic and indirectly the Protestant as well: curious evidence of the unity of a world divided.’100 Whether this civilising overflow of exuberance, which ushered in a new age, was indeed ‘a sign of . . . economic failure’101 is debatable.

94 N. Purcell, ‘The Ancient Mediterranean: The View from the Customs House’, in Harris, Rethinking the Mediterranean, p. 218. 95 N. Varlik, Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347–1600 (New York, 2015). 96 J. S. Ray, After Expulsion: 1492 and the Making of Sephardic Jewry (New York/London, 2013. 97 Braudel, The Mediterranean, p. 828. 98 Ibid., p. 827. 99 Ibid., p. 829. 100 F. Braudel, Out of Italy: 1450–1650, trans. Siân Reynolds (Paris, 1989), p. 12. 101 Braudel, The Mediterranean, p. 900.

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W. V. Harris draws up a list of other ‘essential elements’ which should be reconsidered.102 The unchangeableness, or ‘immobility’ as he calls it,103 of certain Mediterranean attributes can be seen, by way of a tiny isolated illustration drawn from the island of Malta. Today the colourful Maltese luzzu (or fishing boat) still sails elegantly in and out of Marsamxetto Harbour in the south of Malta, and several fishermen still cast their nets in the blue Mediterranean and have them spread out on the quay to dry, to mend, to have them cleared of weeds, much as their ancestors had done hundreds of years before them. The majestic Dingle Cliffs, over 250 meters above sea level, on the island’s western coast, have hardly changed from prehistoric times, except perhaps as a result of natural erosion. These are classic symptoms of Braudelian timelessness: ‘permanent’, ‘unchanging’, and ‘motionless’ features, the ‘constants’ of the past. But Malta may perhaps be too small an island to demonstrate convincingly the vast recurring realities of the Mediterranean with an estimated total population ranging from 68 to 92 million between 1600 and 1800.104 An indefinite host of similar instances can be safely, and perhaps more convincingly, sought at Sicilian and southern Italian ports, in southern France and Spain, along the Adriatic, and on Greek islands. Within this context of near-permanent structures, life did not stand still. The region would have stagnated, it would have been transformed into another ‘dead sea’, had there been no change at all. Life in the Mediterranean changed, for, after all, is not change the quintessence of history? But change and decline are not synonymous concepts. Only a persistent process of change for the worse over the long perspective can define the idea of decline accurately. In the midst of this historical process of change there are always opposing forces of resistance, of continuity: they confront and delay the whole process of restructuring, conversion, or indeed decline and therefore slow down the whole course of development for better or for worse. The Hospitaller Order of St John had been one such living force. In its dynamism, and its traditional operations first from Rhodes and then from Malta, it helped preserve, as has been shown, some of the basic features of early modern Mediterranean culture, lifestyle, and society. When Buzzaccarini Gonzaga had first set foot on Malta as Venice’s first resident minister to the grand master’s court in the early 1750s, he observed that the island order-state was playing a vital role for the entire Christendom. Shortly before he passed away in 1776, he was still convinced that the Order was performing its mission in protecting Europe against the enemy of the Christian faith consistently and admirably.105 Despite this strong element of continuity, the Hospitaller institution, points out Anthony Luttrell, ‘did not embody a decayed medieval ideal being lived out in a state of terminal anachronism.’106 102 103 104 105 106

Harris, pp. 11–20. Ibid., pp. 9–10. Pamuk, pp. 100–101. Mallia-Milanes, ‘Man with a Mission’, passim. Luttrell, ‘Military Orders’, p. 355.

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XIII VENICE, HOSPITALLER MALTA, AND THE LITTLE SOLDIER FROM AJACCIO A semi-autobiographical rhapsody

The Bridge of Liberty (Il Ponte della Libertà), the umbilical cord joining the ‘strange and mysterious’ island-city of Venice with its mainland, is slightly less than four km long. Inaugurated by Benito Mussolini in the early 1930s, it ironically assumed its present name to commemorate Italy’s liberation from the Fascist dictator and Nazi occupation at the end of the Second World War. The moment one passes over it by car or coach and steps onto Piazzale Roma, time grinds gracefully to a complete halt. It is a silent implosion into multiple labyrinths, intricate, confusing, in which hundreds of eloquent medieval yesteryears find themselves trapped. The past dissolves into the present. The present, as unexpectedly and as abruptly, fades out in a thick mist of oblivion separating it from its ancestors, immediate and remote. The past becomes the present, and centuries, long centuries, begin to unfold leisurely as the clap, clatter, and rattle of oars beating the water, ever so still and yet in perpetual movement, or the creaking noise of the clumsy vaporetto, groaning against the bank, not more than a few paces away, grows more audible. Or indeed the tranquil sound of the almost idyllic gondola floating gently and effortlessly by. The past in Venice is permanently present – sempre e ovunque. The raw hues of every brick, or polished stone, or marble slab, like the rhythm of every shapeless crest or ripple lapping the edge and core of the Grand Canal, have their own intimate tale to tell and infinitely repeat, with hardly any variations. It is a narrative whose texture, shape, and colour no historian’s scrutiny, however close and critical, however rigorous, can ever hope to recapture, absorb, and have it reconstructed in words; a confession no written document could have so eloquently and so freshly recorded on surviving parchment or paper. Jesters rush boldly in where cherubs are too shy and timid to tread. You stand still. And in that stillness memories, unbarred by callous time, start flowing gently along the dark waters of the winding canals, which are rarely ever more than a few arm lengths away. The city of Venice offers a world of its own, sharply distinct from all the other worlds outside it. It is a forgotten world, quiet but demanding, one that few natives

DOI: 10.4324/9781003406518-14

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inhabit with its exorbitant cost-of-living standards not easily satisfiable and to which intruding hordes from all over the rest of the universe flock stridently to visit. It is a mysterious world in seeming decay, in a continuous process of disintegration, ever succumbing to the ever-powerful force of the ever-youthful Adriatic Sea caressing it. And yet a delightfully effortless survivor. It is a unique work of art, a beauty, and a joy. ‘The greatest masterpiece,’ mankind has ever produced, claims rightly Joseph Brodsky, the Russian-born American exile and the 1987 Nobel Prize winner for Literature,1 re-echoing to my mind Evelyn Waugh. Over a hundred years earlier, the great Swiss historian, Jacob Burckhardt, had gone one huge stride further, calling her ‘the fruit of a higher power than human ingenuity.’2 To those who have never been on any of the three grand historic bridges joining the two sides of the Grand Canal – the Rialto, the Accademia, or the Scalzi (a fourth, the controversial steel and glass Constitution Bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava, joining the railway station Santa Lucia with Piazzale Roma, has been constructed in recent years) – I’d tell them: that is all I know about this islandcity, and that is all you need to know. Venice is beautiful. Her beauty is irresistibly seductive. She is the soul of her past, the soul that sustained the most serene Republic, la Serenissima, that inspired the two branches of her one-time powerful empire. What follows, I must confess, is no exuberant flow of lyricism, no ecstatic moment of romantic inspiration. It is a personal perspective reached through a lifelong intimate experience of the Laguna, a vociferous sea of innocent silence, a perfect herald of joy and truth. I mean and feel the sound and sense of every syllable. It is the one force which has kept me go back to the city, again and again and again, these last forty-five odd years or so. There was another, very intimately related to the first – my inexplicable desire to get to know Venice more and more closely. I remember vividly my first encounter with Professor Luigi Lanfranchi, a learned unassuming gentleman, in the first year or two of the 1970s. He was then Director of the Venetian State Archives. I can recall as vividly his very first words to me. ‘Caro dottore,’ he said in a gently patronising tone, ‘however frequent and long your study visits to these Archives are, you are always bound to discover new details on Venice’s living history, new shades of colour.’ He could not have been prophetically more accurate. An intimate, loving relationship is, by its very nature, undefinable. Venice lives. The past here is the present. But the present does not exist on its own. Like the Grand Canal, it is a constant migratory movement, the future unfailingly flowing into time past, the effervescent meeting point where the future itself becomes the past. Tomorrow’s Venice is yesterday’s Venice. She lives. She breathes and moves at the same pace and with the same rhythm dictated by the alternate ebb and flow of the waters embracing her, the intersecting network of canals her arteries; her noble heart beats – her pulse steady and regular. Her most serene psyche, timeless

1 Joseph Brodsky, Watermark (New York, 1992), p. 116. 2 Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy (3rd edn, London, 1995), p. 44.

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and undefiled, dreams on and haunts the entire space, landscape and all, smoothly, profoundly, in deafening silence. Venice, Queen of the ‘everlasting sea’, as the Lake District poet so aptly addressed her, a city with an unconquerable will, defied her actual and potential executioners. She survived the annihilating passage of time, the most destructive of all major would-be predators. She outlived her gradual loss of hegemony that resulted slowly from the great voyages of discovery which uprooted the preeminence the Mediterranean had been enjoying for centuries. Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama were the first to be assigned the blame. She openly and fearlessly resisted every malicious human effort to destroy her, irrespective of its point of origin, whether from the ‘gorgeous East’ or from the Latin Christian West. All these human forces – hatred and ambition, envy and vengeance and contempt – suffered from one common ailment without their even knowing it – a severe degree of myopia. Their poor eyesight could scarcely reach the surface, let alone penetrate the dark depths of this ‘watery paradise’, where lay her quintessentially etherial powers of resilience. The interdict, a lethal papal weapon, imposed four times, was one such. There were several other similar forces that could have caused great, irreparable damage, as indeed they were intended to – the Ottoman Empire, a constant threat to both her Stato da Terra and da Mar; the Spanish Conspiracy, real or feigned; the ravages of the irritating Uskoks inside the Adriatic; Western piracy and privateering, the ponentini, in the Levant. And Napoleon, the little-Corsican-man-turned-Emperor of the French. The leading agent of revolutionary liberty, seeking to suppress violently the ‘eldest child of Liberty’! His was a classic instance. Innately unaware of his myopic vision, not only did he fail to go beneath her watery surface; he barely scratched it. At the age of twenty-eight, he did succeed in extinguishing the Republic. That insensitive stroke of 1797, exactly half a millennium since its constitution had been inaugurated with the Serrata del Maggior Consiglio, appeared bold, but Titian’s and Tiepolo’s brush strokes were far, far bolder. Titian’s were a lasting expression of life and immortality; Tiepolo’s, of the fullness of light, flooding the entire Laguna. And Napoleon’s? An expression of envy, resentment, and death. The ‘voluptuousness of doom’, Thomas Mann would have called it. Reduced to its quintessence, it was a cultural expression of Corsican vengeance. It was sadism at its most ferocious – watching with a feeling of triumphant elation and wild exuberance the frailty and humiliation of the Republic on 12 May 1797, as he would be doing over the Hospital’s surrender of Malta a year later almost to the day, faced as they both were with the Corsican maniac’s demands, obsessed as he was with grand larceny and extortion to enrich and embellish his country of adoption. He systematically demolished churches; dissolved monasteries and convents; confiscated, pillaged, and then dismantled charitable confraternities.3 But

3 See Mary Laven, Virgins of Venice: Enclosed Lives and Broken Vows in the Renaissance Convent (London, 2002), pp. 197–198; Jonathan Keates, The Siege of Venice (London, 2005), pp. 22–23.

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the little man with the raucous Corsican accent4 failed to obliterate their glorious civilising past. And miserably so. Venice looked both deeply backward and forward in time. If revealed and given visual form, the consciously concealed secret of her radiant soul, its repressed desire, would instantly assume Dante’s poetic robes and sound as repulsive as his most abhorrent monsters. It would willingly crown the little Corsican man with an unbroken string of howling hungry vipers and assign him, as the Florentine poet would, a permanent place in ‘astounding darkness’, guarded by cursing demons with outstretched wings, deep inside a moat with steep burning walls on all sides lest he might contemplate escape from hell’s confinement, as he once did successfully from Elba. A poisonous stream of thick and heavy ‘boiling pitch’ ran through the moat to render it securer and any escape physically impossible. Men and women working in their thousands at l’arzanà de’ Viniziani would have enthused exuberantly over the dreadful sight, amid melodious celebratory madrigals. Unremittingly. A military genius though he was, Napoleon failed to subdue or reduce the splendour and mystic simplicity that is Venice, as he failed to put an end, a year later, to the celebrated Knights Hospitaller of Malta, a privileged Order of the Catholic Church, the cream of European chivalry, the epitome of the noblest ideals. Venice sacrificed her Most Serene Republic, the style and form of her imperial government, the Serenissima, and along with it went her cherished pride, her great subject cities on land, her colonies at sea, her privileged aristocracy, her formidable posture as intermediary between East and West, now no longer inspiring fear, her long-distance trade, her overbearing sense of superiority. And yet, she survived the tiny little soldier from Ajaccio. She retained the freshness of her eternal youth and the courage of a noble heart never to submit or yield. Her soul lives, a fortress of liberty. The Hospital experienced a string of historic sieges, some suffered in collaboration with other crusading orders, as at Jerusalem in 1187 and at Acre in 1291,5 some entirely on its own, like the two sieges of Rhodes of 1480 and 1522, with neither of its two great patrons, Habsburg Spain and Valois France, offering a modicum of assistance.6 They were all military sieges. They were conducted militarily to realise a political and geo-strategic end. The expulsion of the Hospital (along with the Templars and the Teutonic order) from Jerusalem was politically motivated – the Seljuk Turks under Saladin endeavoured to seize back what had been taken from them by force in 1099 and later consolidated by the Latin Christian crusaders. Acre fell to the Mamluks in 1291. The Ottomans’ determination

4 Ibid., pp. 45, 433. 5 For 1187, Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Knights Hospitaller in the Levant, pp. 41–45; for 1291, ibid., pp. 210–214. 6 Robert Douglas Smith, Kelly DeVries, Rhodes Besieged: A New History (Gloucestershire, 2011), pp. 95–122. Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571: vol. iii, The Sixteenth Century to the Reign of Julius III (Philadelphia, 1984), pp. 203–213.

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to seize Rhodes was perhaps somewhat differently motivated. The ideological and political ingredients were there no doubt – Islam vs Christianity. Both lay behind the first abortive Ottoman siege of Rhodes in 1480. But the major driving force behind the second attempt, that of 1522, appears to have been more strategically motivated. In 1516 the Ottomans had taken Syria; in 1517, they took hold of Egypt. A great double achievement with long-term consequences, as Braudel claims. Hospitaller Rhodes stood out clearly as a disruptive force that rendered difficult the Ottomans’ full exploitation of their remarkable feat. Three major conquests realised through three military sieges. The case of the Order’s forced eviction from its central Mediterranean island was totally different. It was unlike the other sieges in more than one sense: it was not a military operation; it was purely economic in nature; and its duration was much longer than any of the other three sieges, dragging on for a minimum of six whole years before the Hospital was compelled to surrender its island-fortress of Malta. Napoleon’s arrival in June 1798 on his way to the Egyptian pyramids marked the climax, the end of a long tortuous process, not the initial stage, of the siege. It was not Hospitaller Malta that was besieged; nor was it the island order-state that the Order had created on it, as it had done on Rhodes. It was the international institution that had been ruling over it, and which it had gradually transformed into its imposing and awe-inspiring fortress-convent from 1530. The siege was the logical outcome of the French Revolution of 1789 and of the enlightened political philosophy that had preceded and inspired it. From its inception, the Order of the Hospital was a privileged institution. It was supra-national and supra-diocesan. It was international and aristocratic in composition. It was feudal, a force of continuity in a declining Mediterranean.7 It nourished and sustained the idea of the crusade in both theory and practice. It depended for its survival, first, on the crowned heads of Europe, which recognised its privileged status and to which they extended their wide noble patronage, and, secondly, on the massive landed estates which it owned throughout Christian Europe. Both elements explain the power and excessive wealth the Hospital enjoyed and the political influence it exercised over the centuries. In return, the institution offered Christian Europe a wide sense of security against the threat of Islam. All these qualities constituting the essence and historical identity of the Hospital defied the social and political philosophy of the Enlightenment and the principles of 1789. One of the major objectives of the revolutionary leaders was to eradicate the principle of social privilege in all its many and varied manifestations. The siege consisted in cutting off the essential flow of responsiones through the confiscation of all Hospitaller lands, first in France and then elsewhere. The responsiones were the regular yearly income the Order received from these estates. 7 See Victor Mallia-Milanes, ‘A Living Force of Continuity in a Declining Mediterranean: The Hospitaller Order of St John in Early Modern Times’, in Mediterranean Identities: Environment, Society, Culture, ed. Borna Fuerst-Bjeliš (Croatia, 2017), ch. 2, pp. 27–45.

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The revolutionary government’s objective was not to coerce the Order into giving up Malta, but to render it incapable of clinging further to life. The surrender of Malta was of secondary significance to the besiegers, a by-product of the siege. The Hospitaller institution, not Hospitaller Malta, was under siege for six whole, uninterrupted years. The central Mediterranean island suffered the consequences of its ruling regime under siege. It never was the French revolutionary government’s objective to lay this siege to gain the island. Though eighteenth-century Malta had been a French colony in almost everything but name, in revolutionary France’s scale of political priorities, the idea of the island’s significance as a highly strategic stronghold worth controlling and the potential it offered to the naval capacity of France in the Mediterranean emerged later than the determination to annihilate the Order. But the actual surrender of Hospitaller Malta to the little soldier from Ajaccio was the logical outcome of this economic siege of the Hospital. The Knights suffered the loss of Malta, but they too, like Venice, survived the onslaught. Ironically, for both Venice and the Knights, Napoleon’s insatiable ambitions and his determination to realise them left, in a sense, a particularly salutary effect on them. Bridges have their own romance, like steeples and canals, like the shadowy warren of narrow lanes behind San Marco, like open campi or piazzas. They are transitions, we are told in The City of Falling Angels.8 For both Venice and the Hospital, their Napoleonic experience was one such. Both crossed the bridge, and in so doing they emerged profoundly altered, from one reality, to retain John Berendt’s metaphor, to another reality. It was in this sense that both Venice and the Hospital survived the little ‘great man’ with thrilling pleasure and delight; both witnessed his being contemptibly transformed into a faint shadow of his former self; both watched amusingly his grand and arrogant moments of triumph fade ingloriously away to embarrassing insignificance, a humiliating experience immortalised in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. His military feats, his pride, his injured dignity at the long degrading retreat, a military and human fiasco, of his decimated Grande Armée, all reduced – through fatigue, hunger, and typhus, through indiscipline and desertion, through the oppressive, torturous heat on their way to Moscow and the freezing temperatures on their way back9 in 1812 – ‘to a straggling band of rugged fugitives’10 whom he had shamelessly abandoned to flee to Paris, from his ludicrous fall and second solitary exile, this time on the island of St Helena, which marked the

8 John Berendt, The City of Falling Angels (London, 2005). 9 At one point, temperatures fell to –30 degrees, according to Charles Joseph Minard’s famous Tableau Graphique de la temperature . . . of 1869 – his Figurative Map of the successive losses in men of the French Army in the Russian campaign of 1812–1813. 10 As Saul David wrote on the occasion of the second centenary of the Russian campaign. See his ‘Napoleon’s Failure: For the Want of a Winter Horseshoe’, in BBC News Magazine (9 February 2012). Accessed 15 January 2016.

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end of carnage. It was here, on this remote and painfully isolated outpost in the South Atlantic, where he pathetically considered himself as a reincarnation of the mythical Prometheus, ‘nailed to a rock, to be gnawed by a vulture’,11 the demigod who had stolen ‘the fire of Heaven and made a gift of it’ to France and the rest of humanity.12 Oh, what a fall was there! A spectacular disaster of colossal dramatic proportions rendered infinitely unforgettable in Tchaikovsky’s Overture. In 1840 the little soldier was exhumed and his remains transferred to Paris. Twenty-one years later his restless bones were finally deposited at what is now known as the Tombeau de l’Empereur beneath the golden Dome at Les Invalides. The reputedly invincible predator was at last devastated. In the long term, he failed on an even wider scale. Destructive wars do not unite. They simply destroy, physically, emotionally, spiritually. His vision of ruling over a united Europe did not materialise. Rather, his policies unwittingly nourished an increasing aversion to ‘imperial aspirations’ and a growing firmer admiration of the idealised democracy of classical Greece. The Corsican dictator had failed. His policies and his approach to them, his idea of empire and dictatorship gave rise to a phenomenon diametrically opposed to what he had intended, creating in its stead the powerful identity of the individual nation.13 One of the greatest ironies in human history. Venice and the Hospital, reborn in their spiritual grandeur, remained inviolable, commanding dignity and love in every gesture. ‘Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy’.14 Theirs was a poetic vision. Venice and the Hospital assumed their new role in life, in a ‘delight’, to use Seamus Heaney’s words, that led to ‘self-consciousness’. It was the tension between their two worlds – the old and the new, the past and what was yet to come; the force that made them cross over the bridge, the ‘double reality’ (this is Heaney again), which conveyed their triumphant moment of transition, of stirring up self-awareness. A crude reawakening to a refashioned world of new redemptive possibilities. Venice’s present revived her living past, rediscovering in the process the Pax Tibi, indelibly chiselled in her psyche as it had always been on Mark’s Gospel clasped within the claws of the Winged Lion. She reconfirmed, as it were, Jacob Burkhardt’s claim that she had a ‘deep significance for the human race’.15 Pax Tibi. It is a warm, greeting hand gently extended to every visitor to Venice. It is fairly easy for the exponents of Venice’s decline to draw up an impressive sequence of ‘changes for the worse’ which the Republic experienced in its historical evolution. The fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, not to go further back, may be taken to have marked the initial stage in this process, from which there was no real return; and if, at remote intervals, there was some form of

11 See Susan P. Conner, The Age of Napoleon (London, 2004), p. 1. 12 Ibid. 13 See, for example, Peter Rietbergen, Europe: A Cultural History (London, 1998), pp. 315–16, 351–353. 14 Psalm 126: 5. 15 Burckhardt, p. 43.

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revival, it must have been either apparent or short-lived. At almost every juncture in the history of the Porte’s imperial expansion and of its ambitious drive westward, Venice suffered either territorial loss (in Greece and Dalmatia), or the loss of trading posts (on the Black Sea), or indeed military defeat (as in 1538 and 1573). The Porte was not, of course, the only culprit. European powers too envied Venice’s commercial supremacy and tried to dislodge her from that position. Portugal challenged her spice trade monopoly, as Antwerp did. In 1536 France concluded a treaty with the Ottomans that gained her trade concessions and other privileges at the Porte similar to those hitherto enjoyed solely by Venice. In 1550 Marseilles established solid trade links with Syria. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the Dutch too were recorded to have temporarily arrived at the Levant to trade and then returned on a more permanent basis after 1609. France and the other Great Powers, allied in the League of Cambrai, shattered Venice’s mainland empire in 1509 at the battle of Agnadello. The exit of the two super-armadas from the Mediterranean shortly after Lepanto, and the vacuum that their disappearance created, helped to promote and consolidate piratical activity by populations native to the Mediterranean and ushered in a massive inflow of Northern corsairs and pirates. The Uskoks and Slavs, on their part, were active in similar fashion up and down Venice’s ‘own’ deep gulf. The first half of the sixteenth century witnessed a downtrend in the Republic’s naval power, its ship-building industry, and in its industrial output. Another factor which the same exponents claim to have been a major flaw was Venice’s gradual process, to use Braudel’s term, of re-feudalisation, her withdrawal ‘from commercial enterprise’, her traditional mission, to investment in her otherwise rural hinterland. This ‘withdrawal’ was not a deliberate exercise. Steady demographic growth (notwithstanding the two major plague outbreaks of 1576 and 1630) and the increasing insecurity of her maritime trade (western piracy and insurance costs were on the rise, profits were decreasing) were the determinants of this structural change. The collective impact of these developments, which I am inclined to attribute more to the shaping powers of the processes of competition than to a downturn or diminution in Venice’s traditional spheres of expertise, was no doubt damaging to Venice’s widespread influence in both breadth and depth. One thing bothers me about this argument. Decline is not synonymous with change, but with structurally permanent change for the worse. Why should a change from one condition to another, an inherent quality in all living organisms, indeed a vivid sign of life, be termed decadence or decline? Why do trees and plants shed leaves in winter? Why do reptiles or insects allow skin or shell to come off? Is it not to be simply replaced by another one that has grown underneath? Causation is a delicately risky game to play in history. It is only with the historian’s great wisdom after the event that facts, defined as results, are attributed to earlier developments. Certain historians feel it their task, rightly or wrongly, to explain changes and account for their short- and long-term consequences. Alessandro Manzoni summed this up very succinctly by citing an old proverbial saying in chapter 24 of I Promessi Sposi: del senno di poi, in which he says, sono piene le fosse. I have always entertained the idea, again rightly or wrongly, that the 220

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historian’s profession is to reconstruct the past, or segments of it, and offer a reading from the evidence of whatever bricks had managed to survive. In the case of Venice, it would appear that the ‘decline’ argument, as distinct from contemporary political criticism of changes in her traditional policies and practices, emerged as a direct offshoot of Napoleon’s overthrow of the Republic in 1797. For the sake of argument, let’s enter briefly, for one solitary moment, into the world of fiction to consider solely a purely hypothetical question. Had there been no French Revolution in 1789, would the decadence of the Republic have equally led to its definite demise? Would the Republic’s allegedly long-drawn-out process of deterioration have led to a natural death? Would Venetian history have changed course or taken other directions, resulting in different outcomes? Was it not possible that changing realities would have modified existing structures or dictated new ones? In the long-term perspective of historical development, would the historian be justified in attributing the whole protracted story of late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Venice – political intrigue and humiliation, deep social and political divisions, growing national consciousness, success and failure of insurrection, reaction, fulfilled and frustrated aspirations, wars, resentment of foreign domination – to the steady process of decline? Did Venice join United Italy after the Prussian victory over Austria in 1866 because she was ‘old and tired and spoiled’, as Norwich claims?16 I suppose the same question can be as comfortably put to the advocates of the Hospitaller decline theory. But then there is no room either for speculation or for the conditional in history. Or is there? I pause for a silent reply. With its holy and humble mission restored to its fragrant origins, the Hospital had a different story. The so-called decline of the Hospital is a myth, a misconception; to attribute the fall of Malta in 1798 to this alleged decline is even greater fiction. In the 1960s, by way of illustration, two historians, without apparently evaluating their own evidence adequately, claimed rather crudely that by the eighteenth century the Knights’ ‘decadence’ was visible not only in their ‘material affairs’ but also in ‘the moral sphere’,17 and that they ‘had ceased to take’ their caring and medical profession ‘as seriously as they should have’.18 The evidence the two very respectable authors produced in support of their claims does not seem to determine convincingly the conclusion they had reached. Their common source was John Howard’s damning, extremely offensive, and unacceptably biased report on the Order’s Holy Infirmary, drawn up in the late 1780s when he visited Malta. Shortly after Howard, R.C. Hoare, in his ‘classical tour through Italy and Sicily’, and later, ironically, the French invaders themselves, had only words of praise for the way the Order’s hospital was managed and the high standards it had reached and maintained. The two cases identified here are not isolated ones. Similar instances can be cited indefinitely. Elizabeth Schermerhorn, for example,

16 John Julius Norwich, Venice (London, 1981), p. 350. 17 Paul Cassar, Medical History of Malta (London, 1965), p. 59. 18 Roderick Cavaliero, The Last of the Crusaders (London, 1960), p. 67.

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is another.19 Historians are expected to reconstruct and explain developments. Somehow, therefore, a plausible reason for the eviction of the Order from Malta had to be found. It is admittedly possible that in the socio-political and intellectual climate of the eighteenth century, and in the new age which had dawned with the French Revolution, the institution of the religious-military Order of St John may have plainly appeared an anachronistic phenomenon. Within the broad context of the anti-religiosity and anticlericalism of enlightened thought, the long-standing bitterness and resentfulness in discourses against the principle of privilege, the remarkable dissemination of ideas and ideals of equality, and the pervasive ferment that the nascent sprit of nationalism created, an institution like the Hospital, an exempt order of the Catholic Church, composed of a multinational community of aristocratic warrior-monks still professing and practising the medieval crusading philosophy of warlike intolerance of Islam, may have indeed looked awkward and embarrassing in the eyes of atheists and regicides like the revolutionary political leadership in France. But this is again reading history backward, an exercise in unfairly exploiting the benefit of hindsight. Decline is a slow, steady, and weakening process, one of deterioration from within, an increasingly worsening state or condition that can be ‘as insidious as any cancer’.20 The formidable revolutionary eruption of 1789 in France was a force foreign to the Hospitaller institution. It challenged the order of Ancien Regime Europe with its long established monarchical and aristocratic structures based essentially on a distinct social hierarchy and the traditional principle of feudal, aristocratic, and religious privilege. The crisis this radical upheaval created for the Hospital, which formed part of these ancient structures, was one of unprecedented magnitude, much worse than the loss of the mighty Christian strongholds of Jerusalem, Acre, or Rhodes in consequence and dimension. Each of these grand sophisticated fortresses was lost after a bitter siege. There was no French military siege of Malta in 1798. The island was seized by Republican France after a long and protracted economic and political siege. At this juncture, I feel I should make one other necessary observation. It is significant that until the fall of the Bastille, the essential qualities of the Hospitaller institution, its overall performance, the way it functioned, and the level of its vitality remained unchanged and as effective as they had been before. It was the sequence of events following Bastille, all revolutionary ingredients of regeneration and deliverance, that suddenly constrained the Hospital into a new stage in its historical evolution. The change was not expected, it was not natural, it was not inevitable, it was not the result of a degenerating process. It was imposed by an external force, much larger and much more powerful than the Hospital. In the long term, however, the change proved necessary, remarkable, and reinvigorating. The widespread confiscation of its lands and the consequent loss of Malta helped the institution to cross over the bridge and step into the refreshingly novel social

19 Elizabeth W. Schermerhorn, Malta of the Knights (Surrey, 1929). 20 Quote from Martha Manning, Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface (London, 1995).

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reality of a new age. Denuded of its stale privileges and its cumbersome garbs, and deprived of its wilted role in all the princely courts, the palatial centres of power, authority, and lavish patronage of Christian Europe, the Hospital was gently pulled out of its almost total immersion in worldly power politics which had somehow given political observers and later historians the flawed and inaccurate impression of having deviated from its original course. Re-baptised with the true spirit of evangelical love, it could now affectionately focus entirely on extending, in a sense like Venice’s welcoming Pax Tibi, a tenderly helping hand to marginalised humanity, as it magnanimously did to the Latin pilgrims and to the poor, the sick, and the homeless in eleventh-century Jerusalem. For both Venice and the Hospital, the future is their glorious past, their present. From the regional park on the heights of the Euganean Hills, south of the city of Padua, the slopes which Petrarch had found ‘clothed in vines and olives’, one can view Venice ‘dark and distant’ and effortlessly hear the proud Lion of St Mark’s imposing roar, deep and profound, resonating through the Paduan-Venetian plain and far beyond. In the small village of Lourdes lying at the foothills of the HautePyrénées, as at so many other hospitals, clinics, humanitarian relief and healthcare centres throughout the world, from the Kòmanderia at Poznań to Burkina Faso, from Benin to Cameroon and Togo, from Madagascar to Guinea, the ‘sacred flame’ which had inspired the eight-pointed Cross over 900 years ago, still burns – loud, bright, and fragrant – to warm the sick, the wounded, the roofless, the disaster-stricken. Of the three phenomena – Venice, the Hospital, and the little soldier from Ajaccio – and here lies the irony, only the little corporal’s voice is still. Ei fu. He was. Indeed. How brutally eloquent and incisive are the opening two words of Manzoni’s Il cinque Maggio (The 5th of May), the day Napoleon passed away at 52, very likely of stomach cancer, rather than arsenic poisoning, as traditionally believed. The evil that men do lives after them. In Beethoven’s view, Napoleon was ‘nothing more than a common mortal’. With his irrepressible love of excessive power, his brutal lust for fame, and his ‘utterly self-centred mendacity’, he did not deserve the eternal honour of having the great German composer’s Eroica symphony dedicated to him, as it had been initially intended. The idea of Napoleon’s injured pride and dignity keeps recurring to my mind every time I sit, exhausted and expressionless, at the elitist and distinguished Café Florian on the incomparable Piazza San Marco after a full day’s sojourn in the past. I sit down, watch the pigeons from a safe place, sip a freshly brewed cappuccino or a cool, refreshing glass of beer, then close my weary eyes and listen to whatever music happens to be playing in the background. Any dulcet excerpt from any concerto would be infinitely rejuvenating, melting away the stress of my day. A part of Monteverdi’s holy Vespers perhaps, or a seasonal movement by Antonio Vivaldi – it is always soothing, almost bordering on seduction. After a full day scanning early modern manuscripts and leafing through old dusty tomes at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (round the corner on the Piazzetta) or the Correr (one floor above me), I find these few moments an unbeatable form of relaxation. My eyes, reopened, fall sadly on the uninspiring wing, the Ala Napoleonica, which 223

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the vile Corsican, the ‘inveterate liar’ as John Merrimen called him,21 built to have a royal ballroom added to his newly seized Venetian palace. To accommodate his mundane desires, he felt he had to tear down what Flaminio Corner in 1758 called la più ben ideata e nobil chiesa della Città (the most beautifully and most nobly conceived church in the city) – the holy, twelfth-century structure of San Geminiano, then situated on the short side of the Square, opposite the Basilica, restored by Giacomo Sansovino in 1557. The new wing, a lasting monument to Napoleon’s uncouth and crass insensitivity, spoiled the original beauty of St Mark’s Square. I don’t know why (the reason may very well be either psychological or psychiatric, as Pope Francis once jokingly observed, or perhaps both), but it reminds me of the piteously narrow perspective of traditional history, the shallowness with which historians of the old school view Man as the prime mover of life’s continuous process of change, structural or ephemeral. Fernand Braudel claims he had always been inclined to see the individual, however seemingly great and powerful, ‘imprisoned within a destiny in which he himself has little hand, fixed in a landscape in which the infinite perspectives of the long term stretch into the distance both behind him and before.’22 Hardly anything is ever a perfect replica of what it seems. Napoleon’s greatness and the way it ground to its bitter end recalls vivid parallels to my mind. Louis XIV is one such, the Sun King, another Frenchman whose insatiable ambition for gloire subdued most of Europe, turned the sumptuous Versailles into a magnificent expression of monarchy and a centre of civilisation, but forgot the dire needs of his other world, the rest of France, for whom ‘incessant toil, poverty, and starvation,’ observes the late Roger Lockyer,23 ‘were daily realities.’ It is the image of the pathetic funereal procession of le grand monarque, which Napoleon’s fall conjures up in my mind, when ‘people drank and sang and laughed,’ if we are to believe the enlightened Voltaire;24 pouring insults, says a modern historian,25 on seeing the royal hearse pass solemnly by. I have the same eerie sensation whenever I climb up or down the majestic wooden Accademia bridge towards the Art Gallery. There is one thing in common, though: the gallery and the unfortunate wing on Piazza San Marco were both products of the short-lived French occupation. There is one other issue which it would be wrong, I think, to bypass. I’m referring to the Church of San Giovanni Decollato (the Beheaded John the Baptist), one of the oldest churches in Venice. It is like a dark shadow in bright sunshine, protected from overexposure. It stands out, sharp, clear, distinct. A unique jewel of inestimable value. It is located in the busy, elegantly Venetian Santa Croce district

21 John Merriman, A History of Modern Europe since the Renaissance (2nd edn, Oxford, 2002). 22 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, trans. S. Reynolds (London, 1972–73), p. 1244. 23 See Victor Mallia-Milanes, Louis XIV and France [‘Documents and Debates’ series] (London, 1986), 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid.

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or sestier, on a small campo that bears its name and boasts a number of conventional cafes, between the fascinating San Giacomo dell’Orio and the Fontego dei Turchi, the Veneto-Byzantine style structure which today houses the Museo di Storia Naturale. The earliest written document we know of dates the church firmly back to the eleventh century. Dedicated to the beheading of St John the Baptist, patron saint of the Order of the Hospital, it is a beautiful little church, solitary, tucked away in a calm and peaceful maze, to hide and secure its modesty, as it were, from the invasive swarms of profane and illiterate tourists who visit the city all the year round. Solitude at times is best society, says John Milton in Paradise Lost. San Zan Degolà, as this church is known in the Venetian dialect, is a real gem and a charming relief from the tiring spectacle and drama of the Baroque. Like so many other pitiable sites along these ‘watery streets’, it too recalls the Napoleonic onslaught. The wounds of deadly hate had pierced so deep that no gentle acqua alta could wash them away. In 1807 the place was looted, like so many other sacred structures, and closed down, to be used first as barracks to house French soldiers and then as a warehouse. As if to spite Napoleon and his horde of insensitive men, the church has retained, as did Venice her youth, its original ByzantineRomanesque form and style; only its plain brick façade and bell tower had been rebuilt sometime in the eighteenth century. Like the San Giacomo dell’Orio, its Gothic ceiling is in the shape of a wooden ship’s keel overturned – an expressive symptom of the innate spirit of the maritime power of the Serenissima. The interior boasts four eleventh-century Greek marble columns with Byzantine capitals supporting ogival arches. After the Second World War, it was restored and in 1994 reopened. Recently discovered frescoes depict the heads of four saints – John, Peter, Thomas, and Mark. Others portray the Empress St Helen with the Cross and St Michael the Archangel. I am not an art historian, nor do I claim any expertise in art restoration and conservation, but this, I suppose, is not the ideal ambience, however relaxed, for some of the earliest frescoes in the city. The whole place is too damp; the air is too salt-laden. Apart from the titular saint, I do not think there has been any connection between this church and the Hospital. There is no sign that there ever has been. At least I have never witnessed, so far, a solitary shred of evidence, archaeological, architectural, or documentary. Hospitaller estates, houses, farms, windmills, bakeries, stables, palaces, and especially churches or chapels – have all had the eight-pointed cross, the glowing symbol of Hospitaller ownership, gracefully and stylishly chiselled to decorate the façade. San Degolà has none. It is not possible that no such traces, original or restored, would have survived. Some residue of twelfth-century structures, which the Hospital owned when they first settled in the city, or perhaps of later years, would, I suppose. **** But let’s offer the Corsican soldier a few peaceful moments of undeserving respite, to give the devil his due for the little positive achievement that he did, like perhaps the reorganisation of his country of adoption and his promulgation 225

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of law codes. In Venice, when unaccompanied by my better half, as I often am these days, I stay at a comfortable hotel, a fairly modest one I should add, close to the railway station, Santa Lucia, not because I love trains, but because that area, the busy Lista di Spagna, as it is known, is a 15-minute walking distance from the State Archives. I rarely use trains when I travel. I am not very familiar with them, probably because tiny modern Malta has none. The old, long, blue, bendy Arriva buses were the nearest we could get to trains on the island. I do use the Metro when I am in London, Rome, or Paris, and I did use trains, the fastest ones, to go around the Veneto – from Santa Lucia to Padua, Vicenza, Treviso, Verona, Belluno, anywhere – no, I can’t really say I have a strong feeling of affection for them or their stations, which are centres of continuous activity. But then, once I’m on them, I enjoy the trip, the company, the snack, and the landscape. The hotel is a 15-minute walk to the Archives, over the Scalzi Bridge, which takes its name from the church and convent of the Scalzi friars opposite one of its ends, along narrow lanes, or calli, up and down some five other smaller bridges over smaller canals that bisect the city at nearly every point. Archives, whichever and wherever they are, offer a life-long education if taken seriously and if one is adequately equipped to exploit them professionally. I feel in a state of heavenly bliss and calm every time I climb the steps of the small bridge opposite the severe façade of the majestic basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady. The door to the Archives lies on its side. The reading room, the old Gothic refectory with a view to the Renaissance cloister, is spacious, comfortable, quiet, and adequately well lit. The officers in charge in the reading room cannot be more gentle and more helpful. Once on the Archives’ still and silent site, the outside world, with its stress and tension, disappears. I find it fascinating to be able to observe the strange, diverse components of the social reality of the past unfolding gradually in all their minutest of living detail, as I rigorously scan one document after another. These ingredients, the tiny seemingly isolated building blocks, often broken, of the imagined structure can be extremely interesting, at times they are useful or neutral, at others they do not seem to make sense or to fit anywhere in my mental design, and yet at others they can be simply gruesome. The enthralling silence of the written word, recalling sweet and sour memories hitherto undreamt of, is stunningly vociferous, with a deafening crescendo. Every moment at the Archives is full with the excitement and intensity of the new – concealed novelties are constantly being revealed. I work ferociously here. Every moment is a potent, magic moment. And quite expensive, too, I should add. Here the vast unknown starts becoming gradually familiar. This is only one way in which Archives foster the reconstruction of the past and inspire genuine academic fulfilment. The other is the manifold opportunity they offer of meeting other scholars and researchers working in similar or related fields. It is precisely at the Archivio dei Frari that I had the honour to have come to know at first hand two leading American historians of world renown, now both in heaven, God rest their humble souls. One was Kenneth M. Setton, of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, with his enormously rich sense of 226

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humour and a far richer familiarity with the Latin language. He knew the Secret Archives of the Vatican and the Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana thoroughly, in all their inestimable and intricately rich resources. This is evident on every page he wrote. His accurate account, to cite one tiny isolated example, of the Ottoman siege of Rhodes of 1522 and that of Malta of 1565, in his four-volumed The Papacy and the Levant, a lasting monument in itself, is the fairest I have ever read on the subject. The footnotes in that work constitute an encyclopaedia in their own right. The other scholar with whom I made a pleasant acquaintance at the Frari was Frederick C. Lane (d. 1984), of Johns Hopkins University, the great maritime historian of Venice. Together we had several intellectually stimulating conversations on various aspects of Venetian history over cups of coffee and glasses of beer or wine. Kenneth generously accepted to write a Foreword for my first book on Venice, Venice and Hospitaller Malta, of 1992. Others whom I have come to know during the first full academic year 1975–1976 I spent in Venice include two medieval historians, again of outstanding and impeccable reputation: Professor Stanley Chojnacki of the University of North Carolina and the Israeli Professor Benjamin Arbel. The former I don’t remember to have met again, except for a short while, a few years later, at the Marciana;26 Benny and I were the main speakers at an Athens conference, and we still email each other on remote occasions. The year I first met them I was staying at the Istituto degli Artigianelli on the Zattere, opposite the island of La Giudecca, on the southern side of central Venice. It was a convenient place, clean, quiet, and hospitable, fairly close to the Accademia Bridge, not far from the Archives. Today the Istituto is a Conference Centre and a religious guest house. In those days part of the structure functioned as an orphanage; the rest hosted students studying in Venice. That year a terrible earthquake jolted the Friuli Plain beneath the Southern Alps, striking at a magnitude of 6.4 on the Richter scale. It was 9 p.m. of 6 May 1976. It lasted 57 seconds. That was infinitely long. A powerful tremor was simultaneously felt in Venice: the lights where I was staying went out, and instantly I heard screams of young children coming from below. My room lay on the first floor. I had my wife with me and my youngest son, a six-year-old. There was panic. The epicentre was localized near the hill town of Gemona, renowned for its medieval cathedral with its massive bell-tower, dating back to the fourteenth century. It is situated some 34 km from Udine, in the region of Friuli-Venezia Gulia. The whole urban area within that radius, the middle valley of the Tagliamento river, was flattened, killing hundreds of people and leaving tens of thousands homeless. In at least one significant way, this was unlike all previous earthquakes – not in its intensity, nor in the extent of its destruction, but rather in the powerful psychological impact it immediately had on public opinion. It was the first time that disturbing images of the catastrophe were brought directly into private homes in Italy and outside the peninsula by live TV reports. There were several aftershocks,

26 The Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, on Piazzetta San Marco.

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hundreds of them, felt even farther south of Rome. Some were quite violent, like the one of 10 September at 10:20 a.m., reported to have killed twelve people. In the long term the impact of the general devastation this violent earthquake, a natural phenomenon, caused in the Veneto would grow gradually paler and paler with the passage of time when compared to the physical, material, and psychological ravages the human hand, the little soldier from Ajaccio, had seismically wrought in 1797 and 1798. In essence, he viciously denied the Serenissima her ‘brutal encounter with modernity’.27 She instantly reacted by locking herself up in the past, in mysterious eternity, threw the key in the deep murky waters of the Grand Canal, and discreetly transformed herself into a city so intrinsically distinct from any other and commanding ‘universal and irresistible attraction’.28 To my mind, there is nothing anywhere in the world that looks even remotely as beautiful as Venice. The year after, the Hospital’s response to the little man’s equally barbaric attempt was unlike Venice’s in nature, form, and quality. It fixed its sight with clear and precise courage to the future, the distant unknown, to a revived Jerusalem, not to tear down walls or demolish institutions, as the Corsican had done, but permanently to give up arms and holy wars, to build new lives afresh for the sick, the poor, and the homeless as it had uninterruptedly done ever since its early days in the Holy Land.

27 Braudel, Venezia, p. 107. 28 Ibid., p. 108.

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Black Sea 161, 220 Bonaparte, Napoleon see Napoleon Bosio, Giacomo 9, 11, 11n19, 11n25, 13, 17, 18n65, 19, 23–8, 29n40, 46, 55, 61, 140n41, 202 Bourbon dynasty 4 Braudel, Fernand 3–4, 3n12, 6, 30–2, 41, 44–5, 66, 129, 132, 195, 211–12, 217, 220, 224 Brindisi 7–8, 22, 198n14 Britain see Great Britain British, the 51, 67, 85, 87, 166–7 Brodsky, Joseph 214 Burckhardt, Jacob 214 Buzzaccarini Gonzaga, Massimiliano Emanuele 85, 99–102, 127–32, 145, 149–50, 149n26, 152, 153n55, 154–5, 156n70, 157–64, 193, 206, 212

absolutism 125; royal 44 Acre 52, 106n11, 199; fall of 3, 193, 197, 201, 216, 222 Adriatic Republic (Adriatic city) 4–5, 107, 138, 144, 157–8, 165–6, 171, 176, 179, 185, 192; see also Venice, Republic of Adriatic Sea 4, 58, 62, 83, 96, 140, 167, 198n14, 212, 214–15 Aegean Sea 136, 162, 206–7 Agnadello, battle of 9, 220 Ajaccio, soldier from 2, 213–28; see also Napoleon (Bonaparte, Napoleon) Albania 11, 162 Algiers 67, 93, 95, 191, 202–3, 209 American traders 62 Anatolia 136 Ancien Régime 52, 177, 193, 196, 222 Arabs 60 armateurs 64, 126, 132, 147, 167 Armenia 62, 62n40, 88 Atlantic Ocean 2, 96, 211, 219 Austerlitz, battle of 190 Austria 85, 97, 139, 160, 178, 183, 190, 221 autocracy 44 Barbarossa, Khaireddin 201 Barbary coast 169 Barbary corsairs 25, 93, 156, 191, 203 Barbary Regencies 44, 156, 173, 203 Baroque 15, 66, 211, 225; culture 40–50 Beethoven 223; Eroica 223 Belgium 62, 87 Belgrade 10 Benedict XIV, Pope 207 Benvenuti, Ottavio 175–7, 186–90 Bernini, Gian Lorenzo 41; bel composto 41 Birgu 22–39, 22n1, 29n40, 53, 55, 192, 199

Calabria 11, 11–12n25, 159, 173, 193, 209 Campoformio, treaty of 190 Carafa, Grand Master Gregorio 113, 199 carnival 47 Catherine II, Empress 164, 181, 185–6 Catholic Church 40–1, 222 Catholic Europe 42, 57, 192 Catholicism 48 Cerigo 11, 126, 140, 145 chapter general 182–3 Charles III 17 Charles V, Emperor 7–10, 15–16, 22, 198, 198n14, 202 Charles VII of Naples 58 China 3 Christendom 17, 158, 194, 212 Christian Europe 5, 8, 17, 21, 33, 52, 100, 142–3, 192–3, 198, 200, 207–8, 217, 223

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Christians 64, 94, 197; tolerance toward non- 143 Christian West 208, 210, 215 Church, the 10, 52, 58, 137, 183–4; see also Catholic Church Cinque Savi alla Mercanzia (Venice’s Magistracy of Trade) 59, 71, 74, 78–80, 79n49, 82–3, 85, 89–90, 92, 94, 97–102, 127–8, 130, 138, 144, 145n7, 146–7, 149–52, 153n55, 154–6, 155n60, 161–2, 171, 176, 178n20, 206 Clement V, Pope 104, 137, 182 Clement VII, Pope 10, 15, 17–18, 21 Clement XIII, Pope 157 Clement XIV, Pope 182 cohabitation of opposites 40–1 colonialism 2 Columbus, Christopher 211, 215 commanderies 14, 19, 45, 58, 106, 112, 133–5, 138, 142, 148, 151, 188, 196, 201 Common Treasury 12, 15, 19, 27, 30, 45, 52, 66, 72, 91, 112, 138, 144, 151, 176–7, 181, 185, 191–2, 203; Lords of 192 communal care 57 Constantinople 5, 25, 30–1, 83, 85, 129, 139, 144, 157, 161–2, 204–5, 219 consuls 62, 69, 71–76,79, 81–83, 86, 87, 89, 91, 92, 95, 146, 147, 162, 206, 207 Contarini, Doge Luigi 113 Convent 8, 11–12n25, 12–17, 12n28, 24–5, 28, 34, 52, 66, 106, 148, 150, 185, 187, 191, 200, 208 Corfù 11, 67, 73, 74n26, 75–6, 75n33, 93, 126, 131–2, 145–6, 156, 202 corsairs: anti-Muslim 203; Barbary 25, 93, 156, 191, 203; Christian 51, 145, 147, 150, 153; Muslim 8, 16, 23–4, 27; North African 31; see also corso Corsica 4, 15, 62, 66–7, 88, 98–9, 101, 132, 144, 215–16, 219, 224–5, 228 corso (sea-brigandage) 64–6, 85, 93–4, 132, 136, 141, 146, 155, 165, 178n20, 179, 203; and Christian safe conduct 65, 98; see also letters-patent Counter-Reformation 40 Cretan war 146 Crete 5, 7, 9, 9n13, 11, 11n19, 14, 16, 66–7, 139–40, 198, 198n14, 203, 207, 209 Cross, the 198, 225; theology of 156 Crusade: First 5 culture: aristocratic 42; baroque 40–50; cotton 60; indigenous 2; Mediterranean

212; of piracy 204; regional 133; religious 48 customs duty 63 Cyprus 4, 9, 32, 52, 66–7, 98, 139–40, 166, 193, 199, 201, 203, 208; Limassol 52, 106n11; siege of 203 D’Amboise, Grand Master Fra Emericus 165n1, 170 da Gama, Vasco 215 Dalmatia 62, 88, 93, 155, 202, 220 Danube, battle for 162 D’Aubusson, Cardinal Grand Master Pierre 83–4 d’Omedes, Grand Master Juan 141 de Lascaris, Grand Master Giovanni 90 del Monte, Grand Master Pietro 46 de Paule, Grand Master Antoine 62n40 de Rohan, Grand Master Emanuel 76, 175, 178–86, 179n21 despotism 33, 45, 159 de Verdalle, Grand Master Hughes Loubenx 135 de Vilhena, Grand Master Antonio Manoel 48, 71, 76, 78, 95, 97 dictatorship 45, 213, 219 Discovery, Age of 2 Dodsworth, John 84–5, 88 Doge 71, 79, 84, 89, 91, 107n18, 110–12, 136, 138, 144, 176, 178n20; see also individuals by name Dominicans 47 Dragut 27, 29 Dragut Point 178n14 earthquakes 193, 227–8 Egypt 4, 10, 30, 41, 62, 62n40, 83, 88, 139, 205, 217; Alexandria 30, 83, 166–7, 171, 205; Cairo 82, 166–7 eight-pointed Cross 76, 91, 125, 141–2, 145, 204, 223 England 16, 41, 62, 81, 87–8, 95 entrepôt trade 47 epidemics 13, 165–6, 168–9, 174, 199n16; see also plague excommunication 20, 137 exequatur 72–3, 75, 78–80, 111 Exploration, Age of 2 famine 10–11, 13–14, 18, 57, 162 favours 39, 54–5, 58, 103 Favray, Antoine 42, 44 Ferdinand the Catholic, King 69

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feudalism 53–5, 106, 196, 203, 217, 220, 222 Fiume 160 Flanders 95 Florence 41, 80 Fort St Angelo 26, 28–30, 35–36, 38 Fort St Elmo 56 Fort St Michael 29, 56 France 3–4, 3n12, 13, 15, 19, 32, 44, 58, 62, 62n40, 87, 90, 93, 95, 97, 100, 157–8, 163, 166, 176–8, 180–1, 183, 185, 188, 192–3, 200, 206, 212, 217–20, 222, 224; as republic 178, 181; end of Order of the Hospital in 178; loi spoliateur 178; National Convention 178; Paris 107, 125, 128, 130, 218–19, 226; republican 222; revolutionary 183, 193, 218; see also French, the; French monarchy; French Revolution; Valois France Francis I, King 10, 13, 15 Francis, Pope 224 Francopulo, Dimitrio 127–8 French, the 37, 67, 95, 160, 167, 175, 179, 186, 188, 190, 215, 221 French monarchy 3–4, 178 French Revolution 3, 21, 52, 67, 177, 191, 194, 196–7, 217–18, 221–2; fall of the Bastille 191, 193, 222 Genoa 13, 15, 19, 60, 62, 62n40, 92, 98, 101–2, 132, 150 George III, King 164 Gerard, Blessed 44 Gozo 8, 18–19, 29, 39, 53, 59–61, 95, 209 grand masters 24, 46, 60, 62; see also individual grand masters by name Great Britain 91, 180–1, 186; see also England Great Discoveries 210 Greece 60, 168, 219–20 Gregory XIII, Pope 141 Habsburg 44, 58, 201–3; -Valois struggle 14, 211, 216 Habsburg empire 20 Habsburg Sicily 8, 23, 140 Habsburg Spain 211, 216 Heaney, Seamus 219 Henry VIII, King 16 Holland 62, 93, 97 Holy Infirmary 26, 37, 46–7, 66, 173, 221 Holy Inquisition 48, 183; Tribunal of 34; see also Roman Inquisition

Holy Land 3, 105, 193–4, 196–7, 201, 228 Holy League 15, 201, 203, 207, 209 Holy Places 5, 52 ‘holy poor’ 47, 134 Holy See 97, 184, 190–1n81, 197 holy war 8, 16, 21, 23, 64, 142, 201, 228 Hospitaller history: baroque culture 40–50; Birgu phase of 22–39; see also Hospitaller Malta; Hospitaller Order Hospitaller Knights 10–11, 11–12n25, 13, 15, 17–21, 23, 26, 28, 29n40, 33, 43, 47, 52–4, 57–8, 62–8, 93, 99, 102, 134, 138, 140–1, 144, 146–8, 150, 159, 179, 198–9, 201, 207, 216, 218, 221 Hospitaller Malta 5, 31–2, 39, 54, 59, 60n21, 61, 63, 65, 67, 69, 73, 75, 78, 83, 85–9, 92, 95–6, 95n146, 99–100, 103, 127, 129–30, 136, 138, 140, 143, 150, 154, 159, 163, 179, 183–4, 186, 192, 205n55; attractive market facilities 62–4; charity 52–4; consulate in Venice 69–81, 138; cotton cultivation 60–2; consular relations with Republic of Venice 69–103; Deputazione della Sanità 168; de-Sicilianization of Malta 57–9; employment 56–7; fall of 3; free medical and health care 57; Marsamxetto Harbour 170, 199, 212; and Napoleon 213–28; pensions 54–6; and plague 165–74, 199n16; privateering 64–6, 138, 141, 145–6, 204; prize-courts on 125; production of ashes 59; public health policies and practices 168; rapprochement of 1760s with Republic of Venice 176; sense of security 57; siege of 30–1, 203, 207–10, 222; society and economy on 51–68; receiver in Venice 74, 78–9, 89, 104–24, 138, 145n7, 161, 176n7; Venetian consulate on 81–103; Venetians in 125–32, 152; see also corso; Hospitaller Order; Maltese consuls Hospitaller Order 195, 212; activity in Mediterranean 197–8; coexistence and symbiosis 204–7; Complete Council 11–12n25, 13; crusading warfare 201–4; in early modern times 195–212; Grand Priory of Venice 104, 106, 134, 138, 142; health and hospitality 198–200; as living force of continuity in declining Mediterranean 195–212; as religious-military institution 197–8; response to plague 198–9;

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Venice’s attitude toward 133–42; see also Common Treasury; Convent; Hospitaller history; Hospitaller Malta; Hospitaller Rhodes Hospitaller Order of St John see Hospitaller Order Hospitaller Rhodes 84, 193, 207, 217 Hungary 15, 32, 62, 101, 139, 169n20 Huntington, Samuel P. 207 Imperial States 98–9 influenza 171 Inquisition see Holy Inquisition ‘Interdict controversy’ 137 Ionian islands 93, 146n15, 147 Islam 8, 17, 33, 43, 47, 51, 67, 134, 136, 140, 143, 193, 201, 204–5, 208, 210–11, 217, 222 Island Order State of Rhodes 83, 138; see also Hospitaller Rhodes Island Order State on Malta see Hospitaller Malta Italy 4, 10, 13, 46, 98, 151, 159, 166, 172, 189–90, 198n14, 201, 209, 211, 213, 221, 227 Jerusalem 5, 52, 83, 106n11, 142, 193, 195, 197, 199–201, 216, 222–3, 228 Jesuits see Society of Jesus Jews 88; expulsion from Iberian peninsula 211; taken as slaves 140; in Venice 137 John the Baptist, St 23–4, 157, 224–5 Julius II, Pope 137 Knights see Hospitaller Knights Kutchuk-Kainardji, Treaty of 161 La Cassière, Grand Master Jean de 46, 65, 141 La Goletta 202, 209 landed estates/property/resources 21, 52, 57, 67, 72, 133, 186, 197, 217 landownership 8, 196–7 Langue of England 41 langues (‘nations’) 14, 19–20, 26, 28–9n39, 41, 47, 55, 66, 126, 150, 163, 180–2, 185–6 Lascaris, Grand Master Giovanni de 63, 90 La Valette, Jean de 28–9, 29n40, 32, 49 lazaretto 63, 132, 163–4, 166, 169–70, 173, 199, 205n55 League of Cambrai 137, 139, 220

Lepanto, battle of 4, 32, 67, 202–3, 202n36, 207–10, 220 letters-patent 65, 71–6, 78–80, 82, 87, 89, 130, 144, 146–7 Levant, the 19, 24, 59, 64, 81, 83, 90, 93–4, 96, 127, 129, 132, 134–5, 138–41, 140n41, 144–7, 149–50, 153, 161–3, 161n98, 167, 169, 178–9, 203, 209, 215, 220 L’Isle Adam, Grand Master Philippe Villiers de 7–9, 14–18, 20, 22–6, 28, 30, 42, 198–9, 198n14 Louis II, Jagiellon king of Hungary 15 Louis XIV, King (Sun King) 224 Louis XV, King 158 Lutheranism 10, 211 Lutheran revolt 10 Madonna of Phileremos 12, 23 Maghreb 8, 209 Malta: early modern 36, 40–50, 53, 63, 148; English in 81; island of 7, 22, 83, 210; see also Hospitaller Malta; Maltese society Maltese consuls 71–2, 75, 91, 146 Maltese society 43–5, 47, 52, 63 Mamluks 52, 193, 197, 201, 204–5, 216 Manin, Ludovico (Doge) 189 Mann, Thomas 215 Mannerism 15 Marseilles 15, 19, 60, 62n40, 63, 83, 169, 220 Mdina 25, 27, 29n40, 31, 42, 49, 52–3 Mediterranean (Sea) 1–2, 4–6, 10, 13, 30–1, 33, 40–1, 44, 51–2, 58, 62, 64–7, 69, 81, 83–4, 93, 95, 129, 135–6, 140, 143–4, 150, 154, 157, 159, 161, 164, 167, 172, 174, 177–8, 186–7, 191–2, 195–8, 200–1, 203–4, 205n55, 207–8, 210–12, 215, 217–18, 220; central 7, 9, 23, 27, 29, 49, 51–2, 54, 66–8, 69, 83, 85, 87, 93, 95–7, 138, 158–9, 167, 175, 180, 193, 196, 201, 204, 205n55, 206, 208, 217–18; culture 212; early modern 49, 64, 195, 204, 207; eastern 5, 66, 88, 140, 144, 163, 167, 178, 201, 205, 209–10; history 161; lifestyle 212; piracy 93, 135–6; port city 16n55, 77, 87, 96; society 212; trade routes 33, 96; western 29, 202 Mehmet the Conqueror 138 Miari, Antonio 175–87, 178n20, 179n21, 181n38

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Middle Ages 32, 49, 53 military orders 3, 193 Milton, John 225; Paradise Lost 225 Minorca 29, 167 Modon 24–5 Mohács, battle of 10, 15 Monaco, principality of 86, 98–9, 125–6, 128–9, 131, 144–5, 147–8, 152, 206 Monteverdi 223 Morea, the 5, 11, 24, 67, 93, 139, 146, 172, 203, 209 Morocco 30, 32, 203, 206, 209 Muslim ports 205 Muslims 64, 144, 203 Muslim trade 5, 30 Mussolini, Benito 213 Mytelene 157; sack of 162 Naples 12, 13n35, 14, 16, 44, 58–9, 61–2, 64, 76, 89, 91, 95, 160, 169, 171–3, 181, 183, 209; gulf of 12; see also Naples, Kingdom of Naples, Kingdom of 8, 183–4, 206 Napoleon 3–4, 67, 102, 176, 188–90, 197, 215–18, 221, 223–5 Napoleonic Wars 52, 225 nationalism 67, 192, 197, 222 naturalism 162 Negroponte 138–9, 162 neutrality 7, 9, 23, 63, 97, 185; principle of 21, 163, 181 Nice 15, 16n55, 17–20, 52, 198 non-Christians: tolerance towards 143 Normans 43 North Africa 5, 21, 25, 30–1, 44, 62, 67, 90, 165, 178, 206, 209 Operti, Knight Hospitaller Fra Costanzo 106–9, 109n30, 111–14 Order, the 17, 17n57, 36, 48, 54–5, 86, 89, 102, 106n11, 125, 136–7, 149, 175, 177–8, 181, 185, 189, 194, 197, 200, 202, 208, 218; raison d’être 21, 47, 52, 201 Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem see Hospitaller Order; Knights Hospitaller (Hospitallers); Order, the; Order of the Hospital; Order of the Hospital of St John Order of St John 5, 22, 22n1, 32–3, 40–50, 55n10, 58, 69, 83, 89, 100, 102, 106, 109, 125, 166, 175, 190, 193, 195–212, 222

Order of the Hospital 5, 9, 21, 51–2, 68, 75, 104, 133–42, 149, 174, 175–94, 195, 197, 225; end in France 178; see also Hospitaller Order Order of the Hospital of St John 133 Order State of Malta 3, 69, 99, 138, 175; see also Hospitaller Malta Order State of Rhodes 83, 138; see also Hospitaller Rhodes Ottoman Empire 4–5, 10, 27, 44, 52, 62, 131, 140, 142, 143, 167–8, 194, 203, 206–7, 210; war with Russia 161–3; see also Ottomans Ottoman Porte 44, 135, 144, 157–8 Ottomans 3, 5, 30, 32, 67, 96, 204–5, 208–9, 216–17, 220 papacy 7, 16–17, 26, 125, 137, 182–3, 200, 203, 206–7; see also names of individual popes; Holy See; Papal States; Vatican Papal States 98–9, 151 Passarowitz, peace treaty of 146–7, 209 paternalism 43, 53 patronage 17, 21, 52, 64, 67, 184, 197, 217, 223 Paul III, Pope 15, 201 Perast 153–5 Perellos, Grand Master Ramon 48, 65, 72, 88 Peter the Great, Czar 164 Phileremos: Madonna of 23; Our Lady of 23 Philip II, King 208 Pillars of Hercules 1 Pinto de Fonseca, Grand Master Emanuel 44, 56, 58–9, 63, 73–5, 75n33, 77, 80, 83–4, 86, 88, 99, 101–2, 132, 141, 157, 164, 168, 183, 186, 206–7 piracy 64, 93, 95, 129, 131, 133–42, 144, 146, 198, 203–4, 205n55, 211, 215, 220; see also corso; privateering Pius V, Pope 201, 207 Pius VI, Pope 182 Pius VII, Pope 185 plague 5, 10–14, 11–12n25, 17–18, 28, 34, 51, 58, 134, 139, 132, 193, 198–9, 199n16, 211, 220; fear of 165–74; fumigation of letters 165–6, 199; hospitals 169; and vinegar 12; see also quarantine Poland 185; Second Partition of 185 Polo, Marco 3 Portugal 16, 183, 220 post-Reformation Europe 44 Pressburg, peace of 190

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Russian traders 62 Russo-Turkish war 161–3, 186, 206

privateering 58, 64–6, 93–5, 125–6, 129, 131, 134, 136, 140–1, 144–7, 153–5, 164, 174, 178–9, 203–4, 215; see also corso privilege 8, 16–17, 52, 71–3, 78–9, 82n73, 87, 107, 133, 137, 151, 155, 184, 188, 192, 196–7, 201, 216–17, 220, 222–3; principle of 193, 222 privilegio nazionale 63 prize-courts 125; Consolato del Mare 70, 98, 100, 125, 154; Tribunale degli Armamenti 65, 125 property 133–42; see also landed estates/ property/resources Protestants 88, 211; in Venice 137 Prussia 85, 221 public health 59, 165–6, 168–70, 174, 200 public hygiene 46 pugnacity 133–42 quarantine 12, 46, 58, 63, 99, 103, 155, 156n70, 163, 165–6, 169–70, 173–4, 199, 205n55 Ragusa 62, 88, 95–6, 98–9, 101–3, 154 Receiver, Hospitaller, in Venice 74, 78–9, 89, 104–24, 138, 145n7, 161, 176n7 Reformation 10, 17, 41; post- 44; see also Counter-Reformation Renaissance 41, 48, 56, 205, 211, 226; art 41; humanism 15; Italy 211 Republic of Venice see Venice, Republic of Rhodes 3, 7–11, 14–18, 20–1, 22–3, 26, 30–1, 41–2n7, 47, 52, 54, 64, 66–7, 83–4, 105, 106n11, 133, 136, 138–40, 140n41, 147, 162, 165–6, 170, 196, 198–9, 201, 204–7, 205n55, 212, 217, 222; Ottoman 66; siege of (1522) 20–1, 31, 44, 216–17, 227; loss of 7, 9, 15, 20–1, 26, 197–8; see also Hospitaller Rhodes; Order State of Rhodes Roche, St 199 Roman Inquisition 49, 125 Rome 12, 15–16, 26, 44, 86–7, 94, 107, 125–6, 137, 157, 160, 172, 182–5, 226, 228; sack of 14, 41, 41–2n7 Russia 62, 97, 125, 152, 164, 181, 185, 214; invasion by Napoleon 218n9, 218n10; war with Ottoman Empire 161–3, 186, 206

Saladin 193, 197, 216 San Marco, Most Serene Republic of 93 Saracens 194 Sardinia 61–62, 66–7, 88, 92, 94, 98–9, 101, 125, 131, 144, 147–8, 206 Schermerhorn, Elizabeth 19, 65, 137, 191, 196, 221 seasonal determinism 10–11, 14 Second World War 34, 213, 225 security 24–5, 30, 38, 42, 48, 54–7, 127–8, 135, 139–41, 154, 176–7, 182, 187, 217; economic 57; financial 57; in- 55, 140, 188, 203, 220; military 57; parochial 34; psychological 28, 57; state 137; see also social security Selim III 193 Seljuk Turks 52, 216 Senglea 34–6, 38–9, 192 sequestro 135, 139–41, 140n41, 144–5 Serbia 139 Serenissima, La 9, 106–7, 141, 143, 147, 169, 177, 214, 216, 225, 228 Seven Years War 167 Sicily 8, 11, 20, 22, 25, 31, 51, 56, 58–9, 61–2, 67, 69, 72–3, 87–8, 90, 95–6, 100, 144, 163, 169, 172–4, 193, 198, 201, 206, 209, 221; see also Habsburg Sicily; Sicily, Kingdom of; Two Sicilies, Kingdom of the Sicily, Kingdom of 26, 72 slave and ransom market 5, 47 slavery 2, 136, 165, 199, 203, 211 slaves 11, 25, 28, 53–4, 64, 66, 127, 132, 140, 144, 156, 164 Smyrna 161, 166 social benefits 52, 54 social security 57 social services 39, 52 social welfare 39, 57 Society of Jesus 47–9, 160, 182 Soranzo, Doge Giovanni 105 Spain 4, 15–16, 32, 44, 58, 60, 62, 72, 83, 100, 125, 166, 183, 201, 203, 206–7, 212; Madrid 15, 107, 125; Reconquista 203; see also Habsburg Spain standard of living 46, 57, 191 St Elmo, Mount 24, 29, 29n40, 31–2 St Mark, Republic of 79; see also Venice sub-patriciate class 81–2

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Suleyman 9–10, 30, 33, 49, 207; the Magnificent 197 Syracuse 8, 77–8, 173 Syria 4, 10, 30, 41, 60, 62, 62n40, 88, 205, 217, 220 Tchaikovsky 219; Overture 219 Templars 104–5, 182, 201, 216 Teutonic Knights 201 Tolstoy 218; War and Peace 218 Tommasi, Grand Master Giovanni Battista 185 Tridentine church 43, 48, 66 Trieste 80, 93, 100, 160 Tripoli 8–9, 18, 21, 21n85, 29, 29n40, 95, 155, 165–6, 203 Tunis 32, 59, 67, 83, 95, 139, 160, 162, 201–3, 206, 208–9 Turin 83, 125 Turkey 4, 136, 148, 186; see also Ottoman Empire Turks 31–2, 46, 137, 161, 172, 208–9, 219; Ottoman 15, 96; Seljuk 52, 216; taken as slaves 140; in Venice 137 Tuscany 13, 62, 62n40, 98–9, 101, 125, 185, 206 Two Sicilies, Kingdom of the 58, 89 United States of America 181, 186 Uomo della Repubblica (Man of the Republic) 99–100, 126, 130, 152 Uomo del Re (Man of the King) 148 Urban VIII, Pope 45 Valletta 33–5, 46–9, 56, 61, 62n40, 65–6, 87, 92, 99, 112, 129–30, 132, 144, 150–2, 164, 168, 170, 175, 177–8, 178n14, 185–6, 190–2, 198–9 Valois France 211, 215 Vatican 206; Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana 227; Secret Archives of the Vatican 227 Venerable Council 29, 113, 141, 168, 176, 178, 184 Venetian consulates 129, 148, 150, 207; inferior or minor 83; on Malta 81–103; major 82–3 Venetian Hospitaller 143–64 Venetian Republic see Venice, Republic of Venice (modern-day) 213–28 Venice, city of 137, 189, 213

Venice, Republic of 2–4, 9, 39, 70, 73, 96, 138, 142, 143, 149–51, 154, 157, 166, 171, 176, 178, 203, 213–28; ambassadors 83, 143; Baili at Constantinople 83; Capitani Generali da Mar 83; College (Pien Collegio) 73–4, 83, 107–11, 107n18, 138; consular relations with Hospitaller Malta 69–103; consulate on Hospitaller Malta 81–103; declared war with Hospitaller Malta 141; early modern 106; eighteenth-century 92; Grand Priors 138; Grand Priory 106, 106, 134–5, 138, 140–2, 176, 185, 188, 190; Hospitaller consulate in 69–81, 138; Hospitaller receiver in 74, 78–9, 89, 104–24, 138, 145n7, 161, 176n7; invasion by Napoleon 186–7; Jews in 137; Maggior Consiglio (Great Council) 82–3, 137, 187–8, 215; as Most Serene Republic 100, 135, 216; overthrow of Republic 3, 176, 221; popular insurrection 187; Protestants in 137; Provveditori alla Sanità 168–9; Provveditori da Mar (Provveditor General da Mar) 83, 145–6, 179n21; rapprochement of 1760s with Hospitaller Malta 176; Secreta 134; Senate (Consiglio dei Pregadi) 5, 71–5, 75n33, 77–8, 79n49, 80, 80n60, 81–4, 89, 92–4, 99, 99n173, 102–3, 107, 107n15, 109n30, 110–13, 135–6, 138, 144–7, 145n7, 149–52, 153n55, 161, 204, 206; Signory 83; stato da mar 5, 9, 74, 135, 138–41, 167; Stato da Terra 74, 186, 215; Turks in 137; Venetians in Hospitaller Malta 125–32, 152; war of Ferrara 105; see also Adriatic Republic (Adriatic city); Cinque Savi alla Mercanzia (Magistracy of Trade); Serenissima, La Verdalle, Grand Master Hughes de Louben 44, 65n49, 135 Vienna 175; siege of 10 Villefranche 11, 15, 17, 19–20, 198 Viterbo 12–16, 19, 52, 198 Vivaldi, Antonio 223 Voltaire 209, 224 war 5, 9, 14, 18, 20, 32, 40, 43, 47, 64, 105, 146, 154–6, 161–4, 167, 173, 178, 180–1, 186, 197–8, 203, 205–6, 211; anti-Muslim 203; declared

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between Hospitaller Malta and Republic of Venice 141; see also Cretan war; holy war; Napoleonic wars; RussoTurkish war; Second World War; Seven Years War Waugh, Evelyn 214 Western Europe 2, 9, 68, 201 Wordsworth, William 3

Xidia, Giorgio 128–30 Ximenes de Texada, Grand Master Bali Francesco (Francisco) 102–103, 151, 160, 183 Zacco, Alviero 131, 161n96, 193 Zante 11, 67, 73, 74n26, 91, 98, 126, 129, 132, 140, 145–6

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