The Maltese Dialogue: Giuseppe Cambiano, History, Institutions, and Politics of the Maltese Knights 1554–1556 2019012724, 9780367280932, 9780429299636

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The Maltese Dialogue

The Maltese Dialogue is the first comprehensive treatise of the history, institutions, and political projects of the Order of the Knights of Saint John of the Hospital, commonly known as the Maltese Order. It was written during the tenure of Grand Master Fra Claude de la Sengle (1553–1557), although the conversation between Commendator Fra Giuseppe Cambiano, one of the Order’s most prominent sixteenth-century functionaries, and three Venetian patricians, on which the Dialogue is based, may have taken place even earlier. The contents of the Dialogue fall in three categories: the opening section is the first detailed précis of the Hospitallers’ history; then comes the bulk of the treatise, presenting a concise summary of the Order’s constitution, institutional and legal organization, election procedures, recruitment of knights, rituals of instalment, and financial matters. The remaining section is a polemical exposé arguing for the benefit of the Order’s abandoning of Malta and the recapturing of Tripoli. The Dialogue offers a hitherto unexplored, first-rate source on the Maltese knights’ self-projection as a unique transnational institution of early modern Europe in the era of nation-states, on the power plays of the major political agents in the sixteenth-century Mediterranean, and on Western Christian strategies of engagement of Ottoman imperialism at the peak of its expansion in the region. Those interested in the history of Christian–Muslim interaction, the evolution of crusading practices in the era of early modern predatory warfare, and the construction of historical memory on the case study of the longestlasting, and still extant, knightly order will find it to be a highly intriguing and informative reading. Kiril Petkov is Professor of Mediterranean History at the University of Wisconsin–River Falls, USA. His primary area of research is medieval and early modern Mediterranean cultural and religious history, and he has published widely in this area.

The Maltese Dialogue Giuseppe Cambiano, History, Institutions, and Politics of the Maltese Knights 1554–1556

Translated by Kiril Petkov

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Kiril Petkov The right of Kiril Petkov to be identified as author of this translation has been asserted by him 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: Cambiano, Giuseppe, active 16th century, author. | Petkov, Kiril, 1964- translator. Title: The Maltese dialogue : Giuseppe Cambiano, history, institutions, and politics of the Maltese Knights 1554/1556 / translated by Kiril Petkov. Other titles: Informatione dell'Institutioni, privilegio, et obblighi della religione de Cavalieri de Rhodi hoggi di Malta English Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | In English, translated from the Italian. Identifiers: LCCN 2019012724| ISBN 9780367280932 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429299636 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Knights of Malta--History--16th century--Translations into English. | Cambiano, Giuseppe, active 16th century--Translations into English. | Knights of Malta--Organization. | Knights of Malta--Political activity. | Hospitalers--Italy--Venice. | Hospitalers--Libya--Tripoli. | Hospitalers--Greece--Rhodes (Island) | Cambiano, Giuseppe, active 16th century. Classification: LCC CR4723 .C3613 2020 | DDC 945.8/502--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019012724 ISBN: 978-0-367-28093-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-29963-6 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Taylor & Francis Books

Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction

vi 1

Indice delle cose Notabili della Religione di Malta

14

Informatione dell'Institutioni, etc. (transcription)

15

Index of the Notable Affairs of the Order of Malta

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Report on the institutions, etc. (translation)

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Bibliography Index

114 118

Acknowledgments

The work on this edition was sponsored in part by research and acquisition grants from the Department of History and the Faculty and Instructional Academic Staff Development Board at the University of Wisconsin–River Falls. I am deeply grateful to my colleagues for their continuing support. The librarians and archivists I consulted in London, Rome, Venice, and Florence have all been most helpful. KP

Introduction

The treatise The treatise Informatione dell’Institutioni, Privilegj, et Obblighj della Religione de Cavalieri de Rhodi hoggi di Malta, hereafter referred to as The Maltese Dialogue, is the first comprehensive and detailed exposé of the history, institutions, and political projects of the Order of the Knights of Saint John of the Hospital. Composed in the form of a dialogue between Commendator Giuseppe Cambiano, one of the Order’s most prominent sixteenth-century functionaries, and three Venetian patricians, it offers a succinct digest for the uninitiated public. The treatise is preserved in several manuscripts but has never been published. It can be dated to the mid-1550s, during the tenure of Grand Master Fra Claude de la Sengle (1553–1557), and is most likely bracketed between 1554, when Philip II of Spain became king of Naples and Sicily, and 1556, when another of the characters mentioned in the treatise, Fra Antoine Geoffroy, passed away. The conversation recorded in the Dialogue may actually have taken place even earlier, for its leading interlocutor is recorded as having been present in Venice in the autumn of 1552.1

The author and his interlocutors The author of the Dialogue, Giuseppe Cambiano, hailed from the middling Piedmontese nobility. His family, lords of the town of Ruffia, located about twenty-five miles south of Turin, had a long history of serving the local rulers and had a solid connection to the Order of Saint John for 1

Riccardo Predelli, I libri commemoriali della Reppublica di Venezia: Regesti, vol. 6 (1903, reprint; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 278, no. 17, reports a letter of Juan de Homedes, Grand Master of the Hospitallers, dated September 2, 1552, in which he thanks the Doge for receiving the knight Cambiano in Venice. On the other hand, Cambiano mentions in the Dialogue (see infra) that he had been a knight for twenty-seven or twenty-eight years, and that would place the composition of the treatise in 1555 or 1556.

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several generations.2 Cambiano is noted as having joined the Order on October 26, 1528, but as this happened before the proofs of nobility of Italian knights were kept, not much is known about his standing in the clan.3 A generation later, his relatives Ascanio and Girolamo rose in rank as members of the Order’s top officialdom, and then the younger Alessandro, Giovanni Battista, Carlo, and Giovanni Tommaso all followed suit.4 Cambiano himself was one of the principal emissaries of the Hospitallers from the 1550s to the 1570s, the crucial period witnessing the end of the Order’s engagement in North Africa and its definitive settling in Malta, the peak of the Muslim ascendance in the central Mediterranean, the great siege of Malta, and the Christian triumph at Lepanto. A Knight of the Grand Cross, he served as the Order’s Receiver and Procurator General in Rome, where he was the official ambassador to the papacy. He participated in several important diplomatic missions to North Africa, France, and the Imperial Court in Germany, and was appointed one of the Order’s ambassadors to the Council of Trent (1545–1563). As the Dialogue suggests, he must have been the Order’s point man in the negotiations with Venice in the 1550s, when on two occasions the Venetian government imposed sequesters on the Order’s properties. A cultivated person, well liked and trusted by Pope Pius V (1566–1572), he maintained a wide-ranging correspondence with European literati, minor rulers, and top nobility. His charge required good knowledge of the Order’s rights, and in 1568 he published the bull of Pope Pius IV on the Order’s privileges, dedicating the slim edition to Grand Master Fra Jean Parisot de La Valette.5 His service abroad kept him away continuously and led to accusations that he had 2

3

4

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Fra Giuseppe Cambiano should not be confused, as he is sometimes, with a close relative and namesake of the following generation, Giuseppe Cambiano, artillery master for Duke Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy (1580–1630) and author of a massive Historico Discorso al Serenissimo Filippo Emanuele di Savoia: Prencipe di Piedmonte dedicated to the duke’s young son, Filippo Emanuele (1586–1604); see Cesare Saluzzo, “Notizie di Cambiano,” in Monumenta Historiae Patriae, vol. 3 (Series Scriptorum, vol. 1) (Turin: Royal Typography, 1840), 535–546. The younger Cambiano was active in the last quarter of the sixteenth century and likely died in 1602. Information confirmed by Dr. Valeria Vanesio of La Sapienza University in Rome, and kindly relayed by Dr. Daniel Gullo, Joseph S. Micallef Curator of The Malta Study Center, Hill Museum and Manuscript Library at Saint John’s University, USA. Francesco Bonazzi, Elenco dei cavalieri del S.M. Ordine di S.Giovanni di Gerusalemme, ricevuti nella veneranda lingua d’Italia dalla fondazione dell’Ordine al nostri giorni, vol. 1 (Naples: Detken & Rocholl, 1897), 58; Bartolomeo del Pozzo, Ruolo generale de cavalieri Gerosomilitanio della veneranda lingua d’Italia (Turin: Francesco Mairesse, 1714), 76–7; Lodovico Araldi, L’Italia nobile nelle sue citta e ne’ cavalieri figli delle medeme i qualli d’anno in anno sono stati insigniti della Croce di San Giovanni e di San Stefano (Venice: Andrea Poleti, 1732), 36–37. Ferdinand de Hellwald, Bibliographie méthodique de l’Ordre souverain de Saint Jean de Jérusalem (Rome: Imprimerie Polyglotte, 1885), 226.

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forsaken his commendatory; still, in 1570 he was appointed Bailiff of Venosa in the southern Italian province of Basilicata. His being replaced in 1582 suggests the end of his career and possibly the end of his life as well.6 Cambiano’s principle interlocutor, Giustiniano Giustiniani q. Lorenzo q. Bernardo (? 1488–December 10, 1562), was a Venetian patrician of the Calle del Ridotto branch of the Giustiniani clan. A scion of the topmost Venetian nobility, he was inducted into the Great Council in 1508. In 1521, he joined the Knights of Saint John and received the commendatory of Rovigo. In 1540, the Venetian Senate advanced his candidature as the Order’s Prior for Venice with the papacy, but Pope Paul III turned the proposal down and appointed his nephew Ranuccio Farnese to the post instead. In 1551, Giustiniano was granted an honorary Grand Cross by the Order and the status of Lieutenant of the Grand Master in Venice.7 The Venetian Senate considered him the resident representative of the Hospitallers in Venice and the primary channel of communication with the Order. He acted as the Order’s agent in the city at the time of the first sequester in 1552–1553, and, as it can be inferred from the Dialogue, he might well have hosted Cambiano during his trip to the Serenissima in late 1552, and most likely did so in order to resolve the conflict over the sequester. Very little can be said about the other two Venetian patricians present at the supposed conversation rendered in the Dialogue. Girolamo Querini, who is the only one attributed an utterance in the Dialogue, must have been the son of Ismerio Querini and Maria Corner. He was born in 1505, which makes him established enough to deserve a place in the treatise. He was a close friend (as the Dialogue states as well) and correspondent of Cardinal Pietro Bembo and later executor of his literary estate in Venice, and he died in 1559. The flair of his intervention in the Dialogue suggests, perhaps, a religious 6

7

See references to Cambiano in Giacomo Bosio, Dell’istoria della Sacra Religione et illustrissima militia di San Giovanni Gierosomilitano, vol. 3 (Naples: Parrino, 1684), 454, 502, 796, 797, 811; and on Cambiano’s correspondence with Cosimo Medici, see Silvia Floria, Carteggio universale di Cosimo I de Medici/XII Archivio di Stato di Firenze Inventario XII (1562–1565) Mediceo del Principato: Filze 500–514 (Pisa: Pacini & Regione Toscana, 2014), #500, 88, 396; #508, 514, 934; #509, 86; #510, 172; #514, 40; and on his correspondence with Anibale Caro, see Giovanni Battista Caro, ed., De le lettere familiari del Commendatore Anibal Caro, vol. 1 (Venice: Aldo Manutio, 1574), 141. On the commendatory, see Hubert Houben, “La SS. Trinità di Venosa, baliaggio dell’Ordine Ospedaliero di S. Giovanni di Gerusalemme (1297–1803),” Studi Melitensi 2 (1994): 7–24. Bosio, Dell’istoria della Sacra Religione, vol. 3, 317; Bonazzi, Elenco dei cavalieri, vol. 1, 160; Luigi Robuschi, Il rapporto tra repubblica di Venezia e Ordine di Malta e le relazioni economiche tra sei e settecento (PhD Diss., University of Padua, Department of History, 2012), 150. For a bust and a portrait of his in the Ducal Palace (by Tintoretto) see, respectively, Emmanuele Cigogna, Delle inscrizioni Veneziane, raccolte e illustrate, vol. 5 (Venice: Giuseppe Molinari, 1842), 667; and Francesco Zanotto, Il Palazzo Ducale di Venezia, vol. 3 (Venice: Antonelli, 1860), 8. Giustiniani’s will, dated 1560, is in Archivio di Stato di Venezia (hereafter ASV), s. Notarile testamenti, b. 1209, n. 522.

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affiliation.8 The third Venetian, Bernardo Giustiniani, could have been any of the several young patricians of the larger Giustiniani clan.

Context Never truly cordial, the Hospitaller–Venetian relationship had grown tense since the establishment of the Order in Rhodes. Once they became masters of the small archipelago located in close proximity to the Anatolian Muslim-controlled shores and in the middle of the Constantinople–Levant– Egypt shipping lines, the knights quickly transformed themselves into formidable naval predators. Their armed vessels preyed indiscriminately upon Muslim and Greek Orthodox Christian shipping alike. In the course of the fifteenth century, they became a major nuisance for the Venetian and Ottoman trade in the Levant, especially since the Ottomans held Venice responsible for the safety of Muslim sailors in the waters where they plied their trade. The fall of Rhodes did not sadden the Venetians, but with the relocation to Malta Hospitaller corsair activity in the Levant took off again. For a variety of reasons, after 1530, traditional tactics like the show and use of force, such as the Venetian attack on Rhodes in 1464, were unpractical. The Venetian government needed a more efficient instrument to rein in the knights. It would eventually find such an instrument in the sequestro, the sequestering of all revenues from the Order’s possessions on Venetian territory. Whenever Hospitaller corsairs created a major incident by assaulting Venetian or Venice-protected shipping lanes, which by the middle of the century included those of a wide range of Ottoman subjects as well, both Christian and Muslim, the Venetian authorities retaliated with a sequester. The first sequester was enacted already in 1536. There followed a sixteen-year lull, mostly because the knights were causing only minor problems. The decade of the 1550s, however, saw two more sequesters. The first was caused by reports of repeated plunder by the Order’s corsairs of Venetiancontrolled Crete and Cyprus in late 1552. In December, the Republic’s executive committee, the Collegio, called Giustiniano Giustiniani to appear before it and asked him to write immediately to the Grand Master and request restitution for the damages inflicted. The intervention failed to produce immediate results, and in January 1553 the sequester was imposed. It was relatively short and lasted to August 1553, when the Order duly paid reparations to the Venetian government to the tune of 7,000 ducats and 2,000 8

Marco Barbaro, Arbori de’ patritii veneti, Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Misc. Codici, s. I, n. 17–23, vol. 6, Priuli-Querini, 334–335. See Claudia Berra, “Lettere di Giovanni Della Casa a Girolamo Querini,” in Claudia Berra and Michele Mari, eds., Studi dedicati a Gennaro Barbarisi (Milan: Cuem, 2007), 215–257, esp. 218; and Allison Sherman, “Murder and Martyrdom: Titian’s Gesuiti Saint Lawrence as a Family Peace Offering,” Artibus et Historiae 68 (2013): 39–54. Quirini’s will is in ASV, s. Notarile testamenti (Antonio Marsilio), b. 1210, n. 617.

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9

gold scudi. The second sequester, however, was a prolonged affair that was provoked by the seizure in August 1554 of the vessel of the patrician Giovanni Battista Dona, which was laden with expensive merchandise and carrying Ottoman subjects. The Venetian authorities voted to impose the sequester in October of that year and, not counting a partial lifting of the measure at the insistence of Pope Paul IV in September 1555, it stayed in force until July 1557.10 The sequesters and their respective resolutions after the Order admitted wrongdoing and paid restitutions comprise a pattern that highlights the uneasy relationship between the Hospitallers and the Venetian state. On the one hand, the Order’s raison d’être and its finances were heavily dependent on corsair activity in the eastern Mediterranean. For that, they needed ports to repair and resupply their vessels. Any port that would allow them in was Venetian-controlled. On the other hand, as much as the Venetian authorities disliked the knights, they were always mindful of their capabilities as allies in cases of Venetian–Ottoman confrontations.

Genre The Dialogue belongs to a specific history-based genre that was popular with the Order in the first half-century after their transfer to Malta. It departs from the narratives in the Hospitallers’ medieval records, the traditions and legends accruing around the Chronicles of the Deceased Masters, but is neither a properly humanist work nor an antiquarian endeavor in the vein of the massive works of Fra Antoni Foxa and Giacomo Bosio.11 Rather, it is a publicist and polemical history with a contingent agenda. It weaves institutional and political threads into a historical canvas in order to educate and persuade for a specific occasion. Several simpler works of this kind, both published and circulating in manuscript form, appeared in the mid-sixteenth century, typically consisting of publications of papal bulls and statutes and 9

Luigi Robuschi, La Croce e il Leone: Le relazioni tra Venezia e Ordine di Malta (secoli XIV–XVIII) (Milan: Mimesis, 2015), 42 and n. 33; the record is in ASV, Cinque Savvi alla Mercanzia, s. II, b. 86, “Sequestri sopra le rendite de Cavalieri e Religione di Malta.” 10 Ibid., 17–51; see also the more detailed discussion in his thesis, Il rapporto tra repubblica di Venezia e Ordine di Malta (see above, note 7); and especially Victor Mallia-Milanes, Venice and Hospitaller Malta, 1530–1798 (Malta: PEG Publications, 1992), 15–35. See also Kenneth Setton, The Papacy and the Levant: 1204–1571, vol. 4, (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1984), 608–609. 11 The principal Latin version of the Chronicles is published by William Dugdale, A History of the Abbeys and other Monasteries, Hospitals, Frieries, and Cathedral and Collegiate Churches with their Dependencies in England and Wales, vol. 6, part 2 (London: Printed for Joseph Harding, 1830), 796–798; for the English translation, see Edwin J. King, Knights Hospitallers in the Holy Land (London: Methuen & Co., 1931), Appendix B. For Hospitaller historical activities in the period, see Anthony Luttrell, “The Hospitallers’ Historical Activities: 1530–1630,” in Latin Greece, the Hospitallers, and the Crusades (London: Variorum, 1982), part 3, 57–69.

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privileges, and other official documentation of the Order’s rights and prerogatives. The Dialogue draws on this documentary tradition but goes beyond it in presenting the first integrated précis of the Order’s purpose and interests, and in this case it was custom-tailored for a Venetian public. Designed for an external readership, in terms of historical memory the Dialogue is a unique window into the knights’ construction of their identity in the period that marked the Order’s transition from being the spearhead of Latin Christendom in the Levant to its positioning as the Christian West’s primary tool for engagement in the newly dominant form of Mediterranean predatory interaction between Muslims and Christians—that is, corsair warfare.

Purpose The contents of the Dialogue fall into three parts. The opening part, about one quarter of the whole, is the first detailed early modern historical précis of the Order’s past since its inception. Then comes the second part, comprising the bulk of the treatise, about half of the total, which presents a concise summary of the Order’s constitution, institutional and legal organization, election procedures, recruitment of knights, rituals of installment, and financial matters. The remaining part, about one quarter of the total, is a polemical segment arguing for the benefit of the Order’s abandoning of Malta and relocation to Tripoli. The historical component of the Dialogue aims to educate the Venetian noble class and authorities about the Order’s continuing mission as a bulwark of Christendom. How successful that would have been in Venice is a valid question, but the author puts in an honest effort to compile the most informative digest of Hospitaller history to date. It was not without shortcomings, but apparently that did not matter. Cambiano was a well-educated and welltraveled man, but he was no researcher and evidently had kept no detailed notes of his own experiences as the Order’s diplomatic representative. He often worked from recollection, and his memory failed him on several occasions. Hence, there are many small errors of fact in this component of the Dialogue. This does not detract, however, from the value of Cambiano’s compilation, as it was crafted to hammer down a single foundational point: we have always fought for the faith, and we continue to do so. The Order has always been one of the few instruments of Christian unity in the face of Islam’s advance, but the discords among Christian potentates had sapped its efficiency and potential. It had been our original mission to protect Christians in the Levant; with the rise of corsair warfare, our current raison d’être is to counter Muslim preying on Christian shores. The quite extensive constitutional, institutional, financial, and operational components were then grafted on this ideological constant to address the specific exigencies of the moment. As the Dialogue was composed in this context of the mid-1550s, there are many reasons to think that its constitutional and policy-oriented components were designed to provide Giustiniani

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with an aid that would help him educate his fellow-patricians about the Order’s purpose, drum up support for lifting the sequester, and gauge the Venetian position on the issue of the Order’s future. Simultaneously, the Dialogue provided him with a handbook to better fulfill his charge as the Order’s lieutenant. Its main goal was a double-pronged, designed to persuade the Venetians to go lightly on the Order, on the one hand, and to furnish them with knowledge of its financial and institutional arrangements, on the other— the latter objective also being designed to facilitate the sorting out of differences within established frameworks and the avoidance of costly misunderstandings. This is, perhaps, why the pointed questions that Giustiniano asks and Cambiano addresses in the institutional component of the Dialogue are organized around a few key points, centered as they are on the apparent similarity between the nature and purpose of the Order’s economy, politics, and institutions and the Venetians’ constitution and sixteenth-century predicament. Cambiano downplays the role and value of booty and captives in the economy of the Order, the primary cause of conflict between the Hospitallers and Venice. He emphasizes instead the importance of the commendatories’ revenues for the Order’s functioning, a matter greatly jeopardized by the sequester. The details on the commendatories’ properties, spoils, and legacies and the stress on the Order’s priority over other creditors clearly bear on the Venetian authorities’ and patricians’ interest in landed properties with the state’s expansion into the terraferma and the Venetian government’s use of sequesters to get a clear idea of the revenues that the Hospitallers were extracting from its domain.12 Cambiano highlights the complex mechanism of the Grand Master’s election, which was intended to eliminate personal agendas and minimize factional strife. His account is quite reminiscent of the election of the Venetian Doge. The stress on the knights’ nobility and a snippet on the upstart Venetian merchant-leaders during the medieval centuries sat quite well with the closed caste of Venetian nobility of the 1550s. The repeated refrain of the Order as the bulwark of Christianity and the simplistic explanation of the failure of Christian princes to confront the rising tide of Islam due to internal discord (both substantially true assertions) were nottoo-subtle reminders about the political effects of the sequester. With this treatise in hand, Giustiniani was as well-equipped to argue the case of the Order in Venice as he was in assisting in the supervision of the Order’s functioning in the Venetian state. The Dialogue was, therefore, primarily a public relations instrument. As a knight and commendator of the Hospitallers for more than thirty years, Giustiniani must have been at least somewhat familiar with the issues the conversation touched upon. He may have needed a handy reference tool, details for his personal education, yet much more so to argue the case of the Hospitallers before his peers and the government. On both counts, what he needed was an official guide, authored by one of the Order’s top functionaries, that was informative, positive, and 12 Robuschi, La Croce e il Leone, 43.

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cast the Order in the best of lights, and that was written specifically for the Venetian public. Giustiniani did not have the Dialogue published as he vowed he would if a good history of the Order fell into his hands, but its translation in the Venetian dialect, which is attested by an extant copy, points to its diffusion in Venice.

The matter of Tripoli Then there is the matter of Tripoli, which takes up the last quarter of the Dialogue. The city, one of the few naturally fortified and strategic locations on the North African coast, had been contested ground for centuries. Local tribal leaders and the Berber and Arab dynasties of Morocco and Tunisia (plus Norman and Italian raiders) had vied for its control ever since the Arab invasion in the seventh century. In 1510, Pedro de Navarra wrestled it from its rulers, the Mansurids, in the course of the Spanish expansion into North Africa.13 The Spanish strategy back then had been to establish strongly fortified positions (presidia) on key spots along the coast.14 The idea was to project Spanish power eastward through a minimal investment of resources. The forts, isolated from the countryside and manned by skeleton garrisons, would deny local Muslim powers and the increasingly aggressive Ottomans bases from which land troops could be recruited and galley-based naval forces could operate in the central and western Mediterranean. Like most of the other sites seized by the Spanish, which included Algiers, Bougie, Tunis, and Mahdia, Tripoli turned out to be easy to take but rather difficult and costly to maintain and protect. After twenty years of Spanish presence, Charles V decided to outsource its upkeep to the Hospitallers, attaching it to his grant of Malta. The knights thus took control of Tripoli simultaneously with their settlement in Malta. They stayed put for the next twenty years, investing in the city’s and the port’s rebuilding and fortification with funds from their German commedatories,15 establishing contacts with the local Arab tribal groups in the fragmented North African political landscape and fending off attacks by ambitious local warlords and Ottoman agents, whose forces were steadily coalescing into a menacing Muslim response to the Spanish presence in the area. Despite the seeming precariousness of the Order’s hold on Tripoli, it soon transpired that a sizable contingent of the knights were so unsatisfied with the conditions on Malta that relocating to the North African coast was not considered to be an unfeasible option. In 1548, the proponents of the relocation, 13 Ettore Rossi, Il dominio degli Spagnoli e dei Cavalieri di Malta a Tripoli (1530–1551). Con appendice di documenti dell’Archivio dell’ Ordine a Malta (Naples: Airoldi, 1942), 21–23. 14 Andrew Hess, The Forgotten Frontier: A History of the Sixteenth-Century IberoAfrican Frontier (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010). 15 H.J.A. Sire, The Knights of Malta (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 66.

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apparently mostly French knights, pushed through, at a Chapter General, a detailed plan for resettlement, which envisaged yearly, incremental transfers of knights to Tripoli and the gradual vacating of Malta until the entire Order had settled in North Africa. Whether the project was coordinated with Paris and meant to provide a counterbalance (or a diversion challenge) to the Spanish Habsburg hegemony in North Africa, or whether it was simply to clear the knights from Malta, which would have all but offered the island to the Ottomans, who were French allies and Spanish adversaries, is unclear. In any event, it is unlikely that such a move was isolated from the larger political considerations of the main players in the contested western Mediterranean in the 1550s. The project had barely started, when it came to an abrupt halt in 1551. In the beginning of the sailing season, a joint Ottoman-corsair fleet led by Sinan Pasha and co-led by the corsair Turgut Reis bypassed Malta, devastated Gozo, and on August 5 descended upon the poorly fortified Tripoli. A local warlord, Murad Aga, who had acted as an Ottoman agent for a decade already, provided land support. The operation began just as an ambassador of the King of France, the main adversary of the Spanish Habsburgs and a steadfast ally of the Ottomans, Lord D’Aramont, arrived in Tripoli, having been asked by the Grand Master in Malta to dissuade Sinan Pasha from the attack. The Ottoman commander had his orders though and d’Aramont had plans of his own, so after a week of bombardment, which demonstrated the pitiful inadequacy of Tripoli’s defenses, on August 14, 1551, he convinced the commanding officers, Frenchmen all of them, to surrender. The knights and a few of the mercenary infantry were allowed to depart on the French ambassador’s galley. The majority of the 500 or so Italian foot soldiers were left behind to be enslaved. Back in Malta, the officers were accused of dereliction of duty, were arrested, and faced trial. The intervention of the French king, Henry II, spared them the court-martial, but the commander, Gaspar de Villiers, spent several years in prison. The fall of Tripoli would remain as the most ignominious episode in the otherwise illustrious military history of the Order.16 For those of the knights who opposed the Tripoli project in 1548, its loss must have been a bittersweet relief, vindicating their argument that holding onto the North African coast was an unviable project. Modern scholars have argued that the Ottoman conquest of the city decisively resolved the knights’ Tripoli versus Malta debate in favor of the latter. It appears, however, that for at least a decade the idea that a North African location was, after all, better as the Order’s headquarters was still well and alive. Only the disastrous allied Christian expedition to retake the city, which ended with the catastrophe at Jerba in 1560, sealed the Order’s establishment in Malta. Cambiano’s Dialogue, composed in these interim years, distills the Tripoli advocates’ arguments and gives us a chance to assess their feasibility. Moreover, it offers insight into 16 Ibid, 66–67.

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the larger issue, the strategic dimensions of the inter-Christian and Christian– Muslim conflict in the central Mediterranean in the tumultuous middle decades of the sixteenth century. Cambiano’s arguments for abandoning Malta and relocating the Order to Tripoli fall into four broad categories. First, strategically, he claimed that Tripoli was unassailable and a much stronger site than Malta. There were no sites to resupply close by on the coast, which would make it difficult for enemy galleys to operate. The terrain was favorable, the plain offered clear lines of sight, the soil precluded exposure to siege mining, and the port was spacious enough even though larger merchantmen had to stay in open waters. Once the Order will have enacted a union with the remainder of the Teutonic knights and other Christians had flocked to Tripoli after the knights were there, the settlement would be sizable enough to guarantee its own defense. Conversely, if the site remained in Muslim hands, it would become a corsairs’ lair and threaten the entire Christian coastline. Second, on the logistics’ side, Tripoli could be provisioned just as well as Malta from the same sources. Even better, victuals from the Levant could be brought over more easily to Tripoli than to Malta, as cabotage sailing westward would be safer. The city’s fortifications were outdated, but they could be rebuilt speedily and at little cost. The countryside offered enough building material and the Maltese who would relocate with the knights were good construction workers. Third, Tripoli was advantageous economically, as its market offered goods for export, which Malta lacked, and which would both attract trade and lower the price of imported commodities, as the return journey would bring profit as well. The countryside was more fertile than that of Malta, and the locals’ animal husbandry could provide all kinds of meats for the knights, so with time they would have all they needed as victuals. Fourth, from a politico-religious standpoint, the local population would not present a threat to the knights, as they were divided between themselves, had been willing to serve the knights faithfully against the Ottomans who oppressed them, and there was a good chance that with time they would convert to Christianity. For the uninitiated observer, Cambiano’s arguments may appear convincing, but they do not withstand proper scrutiny. Strategically, Tripoli’s location was not that different from Malta’s. The economic argument is largely moot, as the port’s meager import–export trade during Spanish rule demonstrated. Even one of the major economic activities of the period, the human trafficking in captives, was carried out on a small scale in Tripoli. Economically, Tripoli made even less sense for Venice, as her business there was taxed heavier than other agents’, and the export commodities offered (primarily low-quality wool and oil, sheepskins, and hides) did not fit Venetian local industries or export markets very well.17 Most important defense-wise, 17 Joan Abela, Hospitaller Malta and the Mediterranean Economy in the Sixteenth Century (London: Boydell Press, 2018), Ch. “Trade with North Africa and the Levant,” esp. 151–176.

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logistically the area was at a disadvantage to Malta. The report of the reconnaissance mission carried out in 1524, before the knights took over from the Spanish garrison, was clear on that count.18 Tripoli’s defenses were in disastrous shape. In 1539, the Order petitioned Charles V to allow them to abandon Tripoli, but the Emperor refused.19 Cambiano skips completely the ease with which the city fell in 1551 and exaggerates it defenses. Furthermore, the fact that locals were admitted into the garrisoned castle to procure themselves with staple victuals belies Cambiano’s point of abundant meat production. Cambiano was correct in forecasting Tripoli’s rise as the third major nest (after Algiers and Tunis) of Muslim corsairs, but he does not reflect at all on the possibility of Malta becoming just that if the island were to be left without the protection of the knights. Cambiano’s advocacy for Tripoli thus clearly runs against the facts on the ground. The one point that did make some sense is the politico-religious argument. The apparently French-driven project of Tripoli for which Cambiano advocated combined classical references, long-term historical inertia, mid-range practical experiences, and short-term, factional considerations. In the longterm perspective, there were the experiences from centuries of Christian crusading against the Muslim powers in the Levant and Iberia. The mid-range aspect was the specific post-1500 Spanish policy of expansion in the Mediterranean and, building on the same tradition, the Spanish imperial buildup in the New World and the Habsburg–French confrontation. The lessons from both the long-term and mid-range historical perspectives taught that success in political endeavors was achieved either when operating in the midst of a fragmented political landscape, or fostering precisely such an environment to one’s advantage. The Order, too, had experienced that in the Levant, in preOttoman Anatolia, during their stay in Rhodes and after the takeover of Tripoli. The thought inertia created by these factors might have bolstered the relocation faction’s short-term political play of 1548–1551, the sudden change of heart in the matter of Tripoli (which they used as a pretext to argue against Charles V’s donation in the 1520s),20 even though their principal goal might have been to diminish the Order’s dependency on Spanish imperial policies. Not by coincidence, the leading thread in Cambiano’s argument is the Order’s self-sufficiency. In fact, the extremely fragmented political system of the area allowed the knights to frustrate the attempts of local and Ottoman warlord agents to dislodge them for as long as they did. In this aspect, Tripoli did, indeed, offer something Malta did not: full, immediate, and direct immersion in the surrounding Muslim world and the carrying of a “mosaic politics” of multiple local allies to keep it fragmented and gradually draw one or another of its constituent components closer to the Christian cause. Cambiano was 18 Bosio, Dell’istoria della Sacra Religione, 3, 29. 19 Anne Brogini, Malte, frontière de chrétienté (1530–1670) (Rome: École française de Rome, 2006), 149. 20 Sire, The Knights of Malta, 66.

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acutely aware of the viability of this policy, and made a forceful point for it in his historical excursus on the principle of “divide and rule.” His account of the Order’s ties with local chieftains, much unlike his other arguments, is correct. Local sheykhs had been loyal allies throughout the two decades that the knights spent in Tripoli. At least one of them went as far as making it to the headquarters in Malta to conclude a pact of mutual assistance with the Order.21 “Mosaic politics” clearly worked, but only for as long as no major power intervened directly and as long as North Africa was still a no-man’sland in terms of the projection of imperial power. Another contingent factor played a role as well. The policy of “engagement through entanglement” depended in part on getting the presidia up to date with the novel military technology of the day. Yet there was only so much Spain of Charles V and King Philip II, and the knights themselves could finance on that count. The failure of the Tripoli affair was not so much a strategic misstep but the result of a lack of commitment to fortify the port to withstand artillery fire. The Order’s Grand Masters must have soon after learned that much, as Malta withstood the attack in 1565 due to its new, superior defenses. Had Tripoli been strengthened in the novel defense fashion, it might have weathered the attack, at least for the time being. But once Tripoli was lost in 1551 and as the knights had already begun pouring precious resources into fortifying Malta, by 1560 it was already unfeasible to abandon such an investment and begin it from scratch at another location. Ultimately, however, the Tripoli affair demonstrated that, if the knights were to survive in the new era of the reorientation of Spanish global priorities and the aggressive move of Ottoman imperialism in the central Mediterranean, they had to forsake the outdated paradigm of entanglement. Arguing for the old policy, Cambiano demonstrated himself more of a traditionalist attempting to deploy Mediterranean historical experiences in the service of a temporary political goal, rather than a strategist of novel political realities, even though he was attuned to the dictates of military technology. The political future of the region lay in homogenizing political control over territorialreligious blocks, not in the fragmented, denominationally entangled “frontier” societies with multiple overlapping identities and allegiances. Be that as it may, Cambiano’s argument may have carried weight with the Venetians by association, as the situation he advocated for was not unlike the nature of the Venetian dominion in the Levant. There, their garrisons and settlements served as gravitational foci for the local Greek Orthodox population. And just like the knights, the Venetians were to learn the same lesson about the uselessness of the entanglement policy a few years later. In 1570, the Ottomans conquered one of the jewels of their imperial domain, the island of Cyprus, against the background of the same indifference of the locals as the one demonstrated in Tripoli in 1551.

21 Rossi, Il dominio, 51–66.

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Edition and translation The transcription and translation of the Dialogue were made from the bestpreserved copy of it, now in British Library, MS Add. 8277, ff.39/37r–140/138v, in comparison with the manuscripts in Rome, Archivio Vaticano, Misc. Arm. II 81, ff. 220–262 and the variant in the Venetian dialect, Rome, Vatican Library, Ms Urbin. 849, ff.1–62, as well as the text in Florence, Biblioteca Moreliana, MS Bigazzi 239, cc. 1r (fasc. 4)–70v (fasc. 4). I was not able to locate what is likely a fifth copy, now probably in the National Library, Paris, referenced in Antonio Marsand, I manuscritti italiani della Regia Biblioteca Parigina, vol. 1 (Paris: Crozet, 1835), 676–679, at 679, no. 604, a ten-volume collection, vol. III, fil. viii. Cambiano’s language is heavy and convoluted. I have tried to stay as close as possible to the tenor of the original, simplifying expressions, dividing sentences, and separating paragraphs for clarity’s sake. In the rare segments where Cambiano borrowed literally from texts that have been rendered in English, I preferred to retranslate in order to adhere to the style that I had adopted.

Indice delle cose Notabili della Religione di Malta

[39/34r] Il fondatore della Religione di Malta et da che hebbe origini et le cause. Il fratello del Gran Turco tributario della Religion de Rhodi di 45 mille scudi l’anno e sia prigione. Molte imprese fatte per la Religione, dove, in che tempo, et sotto chi gran Maestro, et come furno eleti Cavalieri. La Religione scacciata dagli infideli di Hierosalimo La Religione fortifica Rhodi. L’assedio che sostiene sei mesi continui Rhodi con il Turco. L’esito e soccesso dell’impresa La Religione a Messina. La Religione a tempo di Clemente VII in Viterbo. La Religione in Nizza di Provensa et Saragozsa de Sicilia. Carlo Quinto fantore della Religione. [39/34v] Il Gran Maestro domanda aiuto alli Potentati di Christianita. Modo della creatione del’Illustrissimo et Reventissimo Gran Maestro. Come si crea un Cavaliere. L’offitio loro, et gli oblighi tanto in Malta come fuori. Come s’ottenghi per il Cavaliere commenda o dignita. Il trattinimento che dalla Religione a Cavalieri vien dato. Il modo di porre impositioni, o gravezze per la Religione in occorrenze de bisogno. Quanta sia stimata l’antianita. Discorso sopra l’entrata del Gran Maestro. Entrate in generale de tutta la Religione. Discorso sopra l’elettione di Tripoli o Malta. Spese che ha la Religione per militia di terra e di mare. Cose notabile in generale fatti dall’Illustrissimi Signori Gran Maestri et dalli Signori Cavalieri d’essa Religione [40/r] [blank]

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[41/38r]

Informatione dell’Institutioni, Privilegj, et obblighj della Religione de Cavalieri de Rhodi hoggi di Malta, con alcune particularita di quell’Isola et di molte altre cose in forma di Dialogo Interlocutori Messer Giustiniano, il Commendator Cambiano, et Messer Girolamo Querini Giustiniano: Ho sempre havuto gran desiderio intendere che sia stato il fondatore di questa nostra Religione de San Giovanni, et quale sia stato il suo principio et mezzo col quale e pervenuta cosi grande et si honorata, che per esser [41/38v] io Cavaliere et membro d’essa parmi sia conveniente di saperlo, et pero si trovasse alcun libro o memoria che ne raggionasse pigliarei gran piacere et dilitto di vederlo. Cambiano: Signor mio, io non ho visto libro, ne memoria, che precisamente discorra o ragioni di questa materia, et se pure se ne trova sono fragmenti scrittj a mano et piu presto si possono chiamare moderni che antichj, comme sarrebbe le descrittioni degli assedij fatti dal soldano d’Egitto, dal Turco alla Città de Rhodi, massime nel tempo del Gran Maestro Fra Pietro di Busson nel quale la religion acquistò grandissima riputatione et credito, la fugga vi è ancora di Zizimo fratello del Gran Turco, che si salvò in Rhodj, per la retention del [42/39r] quale il Gran Turco pagava ogni anno quaranta cinque milia scudj alla Religione. Sono ancora diversi auttorj che scrivono delle guerre fatte da Christiani in Levante che honoratamente

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parlano della nostra Religione et di quelle di Templari, et Teutonici, et massime delle guerre che si fecero in Hierusalimo, et in quelle parti di Soria et però sino al presente habbiamo tenuto il nome de Cavalieri Hierolosomitani. Vi ancora alcuna notitia del primo fondatore del nostro esercito de Hospitalarij ad imitation del quale il Gran Maestro nostro si chiama Maestro del Hospitale di Hierusalem. Quali memorie si fossero posti in alcun volume credo sarrebbe opera dilettevole, et massime anzi cavalieri che siamo professi in essa Religione, che [42/39v] ci dilettavessimo di vedere le virtuose opera di nostri predecessori fatti in Hierusaleme et in altri luoghj di Terra Santa nelli tempi passati. Giustiniano: Me meraviglio che fra tanti honorati Cavalieri non sia stato alcuno, chi habbia tolto assunto di scrivere, o fare scrivere, li progressi, che s’erano fattj, et facevano. Perche le virtu che non vi stano in luce et in memoria in breve tempo si spengono, et non se no puo cavar frutto, et quelle che si discrivono et danno animo, et esempio, alli soccessori de seguirle et d’immitar li loro precessori. Cambiano: Voi dite il vero, ma li nostri predecessorj sono stati piu prontj a fare le buone opere ch’a descriverle. Pure al presente v’e un Cavaliere, Fra Antonio Giuffre detto [43/40r] La Benadiera, ch’usa gran diligenza di trovare l’antichita de nostri predecess[ori] et pensa di fare una Cronica, quale sara fruttuosa et dilittevole et per tal’effeto ha ricercato, et tittavia ricerca quanti Rigistrj et scritture antichj si truovano in questi archivij di Roma et nella libraria del Papa hà ritrovato molte cose, le quale sono al suo proposito, massime de molti, et diversi Privilegij, che ne concedeva la sede apostolica, et confirmationi di terre et Città, che si guadagnavano in quelle parti di Soria et di Armenia nel tempo, che Christiani erano signori di Terra Santa et la Religion nostra si truovava in tanta prosperità, che mettono in campagna cinque ó sei milia fanti, et piu de mille cavalli. [43/40v] Giustiniano: Mi saria molto grato di veder quest’opera finita, per ch’intendo, che questo Cavaliere, oltre le buone lettere e anco dotato di buon giuditio et di eccellentio indegno et esperienza, et da lui non puo venire senon cosa buona, et quando questa opera mi venisse alle mani, potrebbe essere ch’io la fecissi imprimere. Ma lasciando queste antichita hauro piacere che voi mi narrate alcuni particolarità ch’io desidero intendere degli ordini et modi, che s’osservano nella nostra Religione, et della divisione delle lingue et nationi, ch’in essa si ritruovano nell’elletion del Gran Maestro, delli carrichi ordinarij, et ch’offitij fanno quanti nostri Priori, quanti Baili, Commendatori, et Cavalierj, et quale sia il suo esercitio, et come vi ritrouvati in quell’isola [44/41r] di Malta, dove intendo essere gran sterelita et calore insopportabile annuisandovj, che s’io ritrovassi piu sano di quel ch’io sono, non mi contentarei di vostre informationj ma andarei sopra il luogo per essere ancora io partecipe delle buone opere di questa Religione alla quale sono stato sempre inclinatissimo, come s’e visto per esperienza che lasciando i carrichi, ch’io haurej ottenere da questa serenissima Replubica [sic] et li beneficij ch’io aurei potuto sperare da questa sede Apostolica. Quando gli havessi ricercatj, mi sono in tutto dedicato in servitio di questo nostro ordine a quanto m’e stato ordinato, et senon mi son conferito giamai in Malta, n’e stata cagione la mia indispostezza continua.

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[44/41v] Cambiano: Io spero di sodisfare a questo vostro desiderio, che per la residenza, ch’io fatto nella Religione in spatio di vinti sette o’ vinti otto anj io n’ ho assai buona intelligenza et non mi sarà grave dirvi tutto quello ch’ ho visto et inteso, ma questo sarà un ragionamento molto lungo et però sarei di parere che si deferisse ad altro piu commodo tempo. Giustiniano: Noi potremo domattina andare a’un luogo nostro lontano di qua cinque miglia, apresso a Malamoco, et desviaremo in una casa, ch’io ho fatta edificare in detto luogo et andando et venendo in gondola et mentre starremo qua et llà passaremo la giornata in questi raggionamenti, ovi voj potrete comodamente darmi contezza del tutto. Et verrà con noi m[esser] Girolamo Querinj, qual é [45/42r] gentil’huomo virtuoso et molto da bene affettionatissimo alla nostra Religione per haver sempre havuta prattica et conversatione con Cavalieri d’essa per essere stato molto familiare del Cardinale Bembo, ch’in minoribus era Priore in Ongheria et Commandatore di Bologna et al presente sta il piu delle volte, anzi quasi continuamente in compania mia. Cambiano: Questo mi sara gratissimo, et doppo che habbiamo ragionato di quello che desiderate d’intendere vi diro d’una oppinione che tengo, che la Religione non possa prosperare giamai in modo alcuno in Malta, et che saria bene procurare di rinovare et habitare la Città di Tripoli in Barbaria, dove credo certamente che sarrebbe l’esaltatione et augmento [45/42v] di nostra Religione, et gli diro tutte le cause che mi muovano a questo le quali giudicarete verissimili, et quando il mio parere fosse approvato dal giuditio et parer vostro ne moverrei la prattica con il Illustrissimo signor Gran Maestro nostro presente come gia feci con il suo predecessor, et forse che questo nostro desiderio si metterrebbe in essecutione. Giustiniano: Non mi dispiacera intendere questo vostro discorso et però domattina a boun hora ametteremo in camino, et spero ch’haveremo una buona giornata et mandero fin’ hoggi ad invitare il Querino, et appareteliare in Malamocco, et condurremo con noi mio nepote messer Bernardo, che per dover esser’ lui ancora Cavaliere sarà bene che participi di questo ragionamento. [46/43r] Cambiano: Signor mio, Messer Girolamo Querini e giunto, la gondola e in ordine, l’acque sono in favor nostro. Siche quando vi piacerà potremo mettersi in camino, et andarne via. Giustiniano: Andiamo in nome di Dio, et voi Cavaliere sedetemi vicino acciò vi possa meglio intendere, et caliamo il filzo, acció che ‘l vento non né doni fastidio et voi cominciate il vostro ragionamento sempre che vj piacerá. Cambiano: Inanzi, ch’io cominci mi protesto che mi habbiate per iscusato s’io non facessj questa narratione con gli ordini, et modi, che convierrebe farsi. Dicendomi, ch’io merito escusatione perche mai feci professione di oratore. Ho inteso piu volte, et letto che il fondatore [46/43r] primo di questo nostro titolo d’ Hospitalarij fu uno, che si chiamo Girardi, quale ritrovando si in Gerusalem nel tempo, che Re Gottifredo fece l’aequisto di Terra Santa, che fu del 1099. Vedendo, che molti Christiani erano infermj et non vi era chi le curasse, ne sovenisse delle cose necessarie pensó di essere opera pia di riconciare uno Hospitale anticho, et egli con diversi compagni dedicarsi al servitio

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suo. Il che fece restaurando lo Hospitale ch’altre volte era stato fondato da Machabej ad ministation’ dell’ esercitio de quelli, et per esser stato ditto Gherardo il promotore di questa sant’ opera, era chiamato Maestro dell’ Hospitale di Hierosalem. Dapoi socesse un Raimondo di Podio, quale considerando, quanto fusse meritorio, et grato a Dio [47/44r] questo essercititio della Hospitalità, procure in tempo di Papa Pasquale secondo, che coloro, che si dedicavano a questo servitio fussero Religiosi sotto titolo di San Giovan Battista, et obligati a portar la Croce bianca con otto punte dal lato manco a differenza degli altri secolari quali andavano alle guerre di Terra Santa con la croce Rossa. Et si crede ch’ in quelli principj si vivesse d’elemosine, che gli erano date da Christianj, ch’ habitavano in quelle parti, dove gli concorrevano ordinariamente molti Principi, signori et Gentil’huomini, plebei, et Pellegrini per visitare il santo sepolcro. Et vedendo questo santo essercitio, et buona opera de Hospitalità de Relegiosi, nel quale usarano tutte l’opere di mesericordia, mossj da [47/44v] zelo di divotione incominciorno a darle entrate et possessioni nelle parti di Christianitá largamente acció che gli Hospitalarij potessero perseverare in questo suo santo essercitio. Et á poco a poco crebbero queste sue contrate et fu colta di sorte che non solo s’attendeva al servitio degli infirmij, ma anco s’accompagnavano armata manu li Pellerigrinj in Hierusalem dalla Marina, accio che non gli fusse fatto dispiacere dagli nimici et infedelj, che sempre trascorrevano con diverse correrie per quelli contornj. Et di qua venne, che gli Hospitalarij si posero titolo di Cavalieri. La Sede Apostolica li tolse sotto la sua protettione concedendogli amplissimi privilegij, et gli Principi et signori Christiani dandoli amplissime facoltà [48/45r] quali il Gran Maestro et la Religione davano in amministratione et raccomendatione alli suoi piu antichi Religiosi che per l’eta grave erano inhabili all’essercitio militare. Et chiamano queste entrate Commende, come cosa commendata a questi commandatorj, li quali erano obbligati a dare particular conto di sua amministratione, non havendo altro essi da spendere, che per il vitio et vestito honoratamente. Dopo in successo del tempo acció che gli Ammistratori havessero magne cura nella conservatione et augmentatione de detti beni furono fatti usufruttuarij, reservandosi la Religione il poter l’aggravare et prenderne una portione á suo beneplacito et volonta senza contradittione di chi li possedesse, secondo li tempi et [48/45v] carrichi ch’occorreno, qual’ordine s’e conservato sino a tempi nostri et e in libertá della Religione pigliarne il quarto, il terzo, la mettà, et tutte l’entrate se gli piace et che non puo contradire in modo alcuno chj le possiede. Ampliandosi poi questa Religione per l’essercitio militare et per l’opere della hospitalita, et essendo gia li religiosi accrescuti in grande numero, furono divisi in otto lingue ovvero nationi, ciò é Provenza, Auvernia, Francia, Italia, Aragona, Inghilterra, Alemagna, Castiglia. Et d’ogni lingua fu proposto un Capo di sua natione, che noi chiamamo Polezziero, con alcuna preeminenza et honorato officio, acciò si potesse discerne dagli altri. [49/46r] Vi ordino ancora un Priore della Chiesa il qual’é suppremo Prelato nello spirito, et é ordinario con authorità di scommunicare et assolvere i

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Religiosi et famigliarj della Religione, conferme alli Privilegj concessi dalla sede Apostolica, et porta mitra et pastorale, et altre cerimonie come vescovo et procede a tutti li Baili et Priorj. Ma tornando alli Baili conventialj diro che la lingua di Provenza ha il Gran Commendatore quale ha superioritá di vedere tutti li conti di tutte l’entratte della Religione et é procuratore di Tesoro o verocrario in compagnià d’altri duci che per conseglio s’allegano. La lingua di Auvernia ha il Manichiardo et é sopraintendente della giustitia cio é delli differenze, et liti, che nascono tra li Religiosj [49/46v] per causa di debitj, et é Capitania delle imprese, che si fanno per terra et commette la bandiera della Religione ch’é la Croce bianca in campo rosso, a che gli piace con consentimento però del Gran Maestro et del Conseglio. La lingua di Francia ha l’Hospitaliero, quale ha l’auttorità sopra l’infermeria o sia Hospitale della Religione acciò che l’infirmj sieno ben servitj et curati et tiene suoi medicj, chirurgij, spetiali, et altri ufficialj per il bisogno di detta infermaria stipendiati dalla Religione opera accio pià et meritoria. La lingua d’Italia tiene l’Armiraglio il quale ha superiorità sopra tutti li marinari stipendiati dalla Religione et procura che siano sodisfatti i suoi stipendj et in Compagna [50/47r] del Gran Commendatore visita et dispone delle provisionj et officiali li quali son nell’Arsinale. La lingua d’Aragona, che comprende Catalogna et Novarra ha il gran Conservatore qual’é sopra intendente delle soldee che si danno a Cavalierj et altri Religiosj et che vadano vistitj si come conviene al grado suo. La lingua d’Inghilterra ha il Turcippellierj ch’e sopra intendente delle guardie che si fanno et per tal’effetto puo commandare a tutti li sudditj della Religione con consentimento però del Gran Maestro et non altrimente. La lingua d’Alemagna ha il Gran Bailivio al quale officio appartiene visitare le forteze della Religione et procurare che siano ben [50/47v] et munite de soldati, vettovaglie, munitioni et altre cose necessarie. La lingua di Castiglia ha il Gran Cancelliere, che sottoscrive le Bolle, promisioni, speditioni della Religione et sottoscrive le sentenze et li decreti del Consiglio. Queste otto Capi de lingue si domandano Baglivj conventuali et portano le gran Crocj habito differente et piu honorato di quello che gli altri Cavalierj portano et sono obligatj fare continua residenza in Convento et non si puo tenere Consiglio ch’essi o suoi luogotenenti non vi intervengano. Fanno le spese a tutti li Cavalierj di sua natione pigliando dall t’rario della Religione vettovaglie et denarj per supplire a queste imprese et alle spese che vi correro et le case dove convengono li Cavalierj si domandano [51/48r] Alberghj ma li Cavalierj hanno doppo altre case separati dove allogano, et se vi fossero alcuni Commendatorj o Cavalierj che non volessero mangiare nell albergho con licenza del Gran Maestro possono mangiare nelle case loro pigliando dall’ t’rario la sua portione di denari et vettovaglie. Giustiniano: Vorrei sapere che recompensa hanno questi otto capi de lingue in luogo delli fastidj ch’ hanno per sua continua residenza, et de intrattenere tanti Cavalieri a spese loro et alla lor tavola.

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Cambiano: Essi sono preeminenti a tutti li Prioratj et Bailiati della sua natione, sopra li quali hanno sua anthichita et antianita o jusquisito et vacando li Priorati et altre Commende vengano ad essere incontunenti Priori o Bailivj. [50/48v] Giustiniano: Distinguendo queste otto lingue voi havete ripartito la Francia in tre, et la Spagna in due, il che mi pare non si convenga perche bastarebbe contare la Francia per una et la Spagna per un’altra. Cambiano: Voi dite il vero. Ma li nostri predecessori devisero la Francia in tre lingue per il numero grande de beneficij et commende che vi sono et per la quantita de Cavalieri et Religiosj, che vi concorrono amasandovj, ch’ ogn’una di queste lingue contiene diverse provincie. Perche quella di Provenza contiene la Guascogna, et lingua d’Oca, et parte del Delfinato, et altri parti vicinj, et vi sono dui Prioratj, cio e San Gilio capo di tutte le commende di Provenza, Delfiniato, et Tossa, capo di quelle di Guascogna et paesi circonstantj, et un Baliaggio di Monaco. [52/49r] La lingua d’Avernia contiene l’Avernia, la Savoia, parte della Borgogna, parte del Delfiniato, et ha un solo Priorato, che si domanda Prior d’Avernia, et ha un Baliaggio, che si chiama il Bagliaggio de Leone. La lingua di Francia contiene il paese circumvicino a Parigi con l’Acquitania, Campagna, Brittagna, Loreno, Fiandra, et altre provincie circonstantj, et ha tre Prioratj, di Francia, Champagna, et Aquitania, et il Bagliaggio della Moria congionto con detta lingua, et il Tesoriero che simelmente porta la gran Croce. La Spagna anticamente non era piu d’una lingua, ma doppo fu divisa in due, cio e Aragona, Catalogna, Navarra, Valentia, et Maiorica, et Castiglia, che contiene [52/49v] Castiglia e Portugallo, et la Granata, et altri regni di Castiglia, et pero tiene l’ultimo luogo nella Religione, per esser stata ultimamente divisa. Giustiniano: Li Cavalieri di queste lingue possono haver commende et beneficij in altrj Prioratj che in quelli dove sono natj? Cambiano: Questo, che mi addimandate é differente tra le lingue, secondo gli accordi et conventionj tra di loro fatte. Perche la lingua di Provenza ha li suoi Priorati et commende commune fra tutti gli altri Cavalieri et Religiosi, et un Guascone pur haveva commenda et Priorato in Provenza et Delfinato, et un Provenzale la puo havere in Gascogna. Il simile e in lingua d’Avernia et in quella d’Italia, Inghilterra, et Alemagna. Quelli di Francia [53/50r] et di Spagna sono il contrario. Perch’un Cavaliere del Priorato di Francia non puo havere commenda nel Priorato di Campagnia et Aquitania n’un Cavaliere di Campagna la puo havere nel Priorato di Francia, ma la dignita della Gran Croce, cio e delli Priorati et Bagliuati tra queste provincie sono communi. In Spagna hanno li Priorati et commende separate. Perch’un Aragonese non puo essere Priore ne Commendatore in Navarra, no vice versa può essere in Catalogna. Il Regno di Valenza é unito con Aragona et l’isola di Maiorica dove e anco un Bagliaggio e unita et congiunta con Catalogna. La Castiglia e simelmente [53/50v] separata dal Regno di Portugallo et un Castigliano non puo haver commenda del Priorato di Portugallo, ne un Portughese in Castiglia.

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Il Bagliaggio di Nigroponte è commune trà le due lingue di Spagna. In Italia noi habbiamo tutte le commende et Priorati indivisi et habbiamo sette Prioratj et quattro Bagliaggi, cio é il Priorato di Roma, quello di Lombardia, Pisa, Venetia, Messina, Capua, et Barletta, il Bagliaggio di Santa Eufimia, Santo Stefano, Venosa, et Napoli. Un Napolitano puo esser Priore di Lombardia o di qual se noglia altro Priorato et cosi al contrario. In Inghilterra vi sono due Prioratj cio e quello d’Inghilterra et quello d’Hibernia con il Bagliaggio dell’Acquilla et Albernia. [54/51r] In Alemagna vi son quattro Prioratj, Alemagna, Boemia, Ongaria, et Dacia, con il Bagliaggio di Brandemburgh. Quello d’Ongharia e stato usurpato da Turchi. Quello di Boemia et Datia et il Bagliaggio di Brandemburgh con sue commende descendentj furono fatti esenti dalla residenza di Rhodi, essendo Gran Maestro Fra Battista Orsino per la distanza del camino, ma pagano le sue responsione al Capitolo Generale et provinciale del Priorato d’Alemagna. Qual Priorato con sue commende stanno all’obedienza et dispositione del Gran Maestro, et li Cavalieri di quella provincia per la maggior parte di continuo fano la rezidenza loro in Malta presso la persona del Gran Maestro. [54/51v] Vi sono anche tre dignita de Gran Croci che sono commune a tutte le lingue, cio e il Priorato della Chiesa, il Commendatore di Corré, et il Baglivato di Lango. Giustiniano: Inanzi che voi procediate piu oltre, ditemj si sapete in che tempo la Religione sia stata scacciata da Hierusalem et come et in che tempo ella venne ad habitare et fare sua residenza nell’isola de Rhodi. Cambiano: Si vede et si legge per diverse croniche ch’havendo Christianj ricuperato per viva forza Hierosalim con la maggior parte delle terre della Soria et della Armenia, et essendovi concorsa una gran parte delli Principi di Christianita con potentissimi essercitj, et guerre grande [55/52r] con infedeli massime con il soldano d’Egitto, che sempre gli fu molestissimo nemico. Nell’anno 1187 il Re Guido de Hierusalim hebbe una grandissima rotta dal soldano Soladino, nella qualle esso Re con molti Principi Christiani et tra gli altri il Gran Maestro della nostra Religione furono fatti prigionj. Et venendo Solandino sopra Hierusalem doppo d’haverla combattuta degli giorni continuj, la prese a forza con grandissima stragge de Christiani. Et quelli che si salvorono dale mani loro entrorono nell’altre città tenute da Christianj finche venne il soccorso dal Re di Francia et da quello d’Inghilterra et da moltj Principi Christianj ch’á gara vi andarono con favore et auito de i quali si recuperó [55/52v] Hierusalem, quale poi dell anno 1219 di nuovo fu ripresa da infedeli, che del tutto la distrussero di modo che mai piu si potte rihavere come prima. Per il che Giovanni Re de Hierusalem con li Maestri delli Hospitalarij, ò Templarij furono constrettj venire al Papa et dagli altri Principi Christianj per havere aiuto et soccorso il che ottennero non senza gran difficoltá. Et fra gli altri Filippo Re di Francia gli doná trecentomilia libre Parisiense, cio e centomilia al Re, centomilia alli Hospitalarij et centomilia a Templarij. Et doppo il Re de Hierusalim dono sua figliuola per moglie a Federico secondo Imperatore et Re di Napoli, renunciandoli contra sua

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volontá al Regno Hierosolomitano [56/53r] et andando Federico per la recuperatione del Regno con potentissimo essercito [es]sendo per gli altri suoi demeriti scomunicato dal Papa, quale prohibi alli Gran Maestri della Religione degli Hospitalarij, Templarij, et Teutonicj, che non gli donassero auito, ne favore alcuno, come scomunicato et ribelle della Chiesa. Il quale Imperatore indi a poco mentre gia s’era anuciato a quella impresa fu constretto tornar’ al Regno di Napoli per tenderlo dal Papa, che giá ne havea occupata una gran parte, inanzi che l’Imperatore partisse da Soria ou’era penetrato con il suo esercito fece accordo co’l soldano di Babilonia, quale gli restituì la Città de Hierusalem desolata con alcuni altri castelli. [56/53v] Doppo pigliando il Re di Navarra con molti Principi Christianj, quali per la distruttione e rovina de Hierusalem habitavano in Tolomaida, et diverse altre città possedute da Christianj et de continuo haveano guerra con infedeli, con stragge et mortalità dell’ una et d’altra parte nelle scaramuccie et correrie che continuamente si facevano. Supragiunte Lodovico Re di Francia con potentissimo essercito et con dui suoi fratelli et la piu parte de Baroni et signori di Francia, quale procedendo contra il soldano con il suo potente essercito, oppresso da i caldi et altri dissagi contaminato, da infirmitá et pestilenza, fu alla fine rotto et a fatto destrutto da infeddeli et il Re con suoi [57/54r] fratelli resto miseramente preggione del soldano dal quale leberandosj con honeste condittionj, perseverò in quelle parti per spacio de cinque anni continuamente, et doppo se ne ritornò in Francia. Vi venne ancora il Re Odoardo de Inghilterra per alcuni anni, atrociss[im]o nemico di infedeli et a persuasione et con aiuto del Papa tutti li principi Christiani si forzavano di difendere quelle città et castelle che v’erano rimaste nella Soria possedute da Christiani dall’invasione et crudelità degli nemicj. Nel qual tempo la Religione nostra era molto florida, et non si faceva in quelle parte cosa veruna senza intervento, participatione, saputa, et contento delli Gran Maestri et delli [57/54v] Cavallierj di nostro ordine, qualli erano signori, et possedevano liberamente il contado di Arsuffa e di Santo Lorenzo di Rettania del monte Thabor et de molti castelli et vassalli vicini Hierusalimo et cosi perseverorno contrastando et molistando gli nemicj per mare et per terra per molto spatio di tempo et quasi sino l’anno 1291, che venendo il Seriffo soldano di Babilonia con un essercito di sessantamilia cavalli et cento sessantamilia fanti, espugnò Tolomaide atrocissamente et scacciò li poveri Christiani da tutti li castelli et città della Soria, facendone crodelissime occisionj. Che si salvarono si condussero in Cipri, dimandando aiuto dal Papa et dalli principj [58/55r] Christiani ch’erano molti afflittj et malinconosi per la nuova di tanta perdita, et facevano grandissimo apparecchio per la recoperatione di Terra Santa, ma sopravenendo inespettatamente la morte del Pontefice, et suscitandosi in Italia et altrove le guerre tra li principi Christiani, questo apparato si risolse in fumo, et le tre Religionj military, cio e Hospitalarij, Templarj, et Teutonicj, furono astrette a provedersi d’altra habitatione. Li Templarij se ne passorono in Francia, dove hebbero mala fine, perche in tempo di Papa Clemente Quinto furono condemnati come hereticj, et li suoi beni dati ad altre

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Relegionj, tra le quali la nostra n’hebbe una gran parte. Li Teutonici se ne passorno [58/55v] in Alemagna, et per non starno ociosi andorono contra Tartarj ch’in quelle tempi scorrevano et molestavano quasi tutta la Germania, dove col favore dell’Imperadore et altri principi alemani levorno et occuporono à Tartari et dal dominio loro il parte della Prusiá et Livoniá, quale provincie sino al presente hanno possedute a tempi nostri essendo Gran Maestro di quella Relegione un Marchese di Brandemburgh havendo preso moglie se n’è fatto signore et principe privando il suo ordine di quel dominio. Et li commandatori et cavalierj hanno fatto un’altro Gran Maestro, che destribuisce et administra le commende et li beneficij che sono per la Germania con assai convenientj redditj, et é principe [59/56r] d’Impero. La nostra Religione scacciata da Tolomaida si ritirò ad un castello detto Macrj et essendo di nuovo perseguitata da infedeli verso Macrj, si ritirò in un castello detto Acrj, dove non potendo resistere all’impito de nemici, et non aspettando soccorso da Christianj per le guerre grandissime ch’erano tra essi, fu forzata ritornasi in Cipri. Il Gran Maestro Fra Iocleto de Villert francese hebbe ricorso dall’Imperadore de Constantinopoli Alessio Secondo, quale gli concesse l’isola de Rhodi occupata de ribellj del suo imperio. Il quale luogo Fra Iocleto de Villert con valore et ingegno ricuperò nell’anno di nostra salute 1308 et dicono, ch’per ingannire [59/56v] le guardie della città de Rhodi havendo fatta i cavalierj una imboscata grandissima vicina alla città alcuni d’essi si coprirno de pelle di castratj et conducendo delle pecore con essi si avvicinorno alla porta de Rhodi, et assalirno la guardia con tal’impeto che scacciorno gli inimici et sopraguingendo l’imboscata occuparono la città. Il tiranno della qualle si precipito d’una fenestra et essi restorno signori d’essa sino alla fine del’anno 1522 che Solimano Gran Turco per il lungo et crudele assedio de sei mesi con suo et nostro grandissimo danno, né privo di quel luogo. Il valore et animo che dimostrò il Gran Maestro et la Religione, con il popolo di Rhodi per la defensione di quella città fece [60/57r] stupire ogn’uno. Perche settecento cavalieri con circa tremilia altri fanti fecero resistenza ad un essercito di ducento milia Turchi et non solo difendevano tre muraglie dagli assalte et invasion de nemici, ch’erano spississimj, ma spesse molestavano fuora in campagna a combattere, et scaramucciare con essj, sempre riportandone vittoria, et guadagno alcuna cosa. Teneva il Turco gran quantità d’artigliaria d’inestimabile grossezza con le quale rovinava et abbateva muraglie, bastioni, et baloadi, ma li cavalieri facevano altri riparti et trenciere con le quali valorosamente si defendevano, sempre sperando ancora, che sopragiungendo lo inverno, il Turco retirarebbe il suo essercito, [60/57v] non essendo verisimile che si gran populo havesse da stare in una isola à descrettion de i ventj con pericolo de morir tutti di fame. Ma Solimano Imperadore de Turchi, vedendo che il suo esercito haveà consumato già tre mesi di tempo senza fare effeto alcuno ch’Ebraim Bassià generale dell’essercito faceva quella espugnatione defficile sdignato nell’animo suo, ch’ una semplice città con si poco numero de nemici potesse resistere al

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suo grandissimo essercito et potenza che aveva occupati tanti et si infiniti regni et provincie, escludendo ogni difficultà, et per parere del suo conseglio si determinò personalmente vener’egli sopra Rhodi et non partirsj finche non ne reportasse vittoria. [61/58r] Fu cosa incredibile l’allegria che dimostro il suo essercito per la sua guinta. Et subbito fu determinato et concluso tra di loro da battere la città in piu luoghi et dargli diversi assaltj, il che fecero con tanto impeto et con tanta multitudine di genti ch’in pui parti occupavano la muraglia et li bastioni della città. Ma Iddio non volea del tutto abandonare i suoi fedeli ai quali dono tal forza et rigore che li Turchi furono ributtatj et precipitatj nelli fossi et l’artegliaria ne fece tanta stragge che quell giorno vi morirno circa nove milia Turchj. Del che contristandosi Solimano, et veggendo de non fare effetto veruno dellibero di fare un monte, sopra del quale si discoperisse tutta la città intieramente, il che fece [61/58v] con tanta diligenza et prestezza, che parve a chi lo vede cosa incredibile et impossibile perche mai ne i tempi antichj ne nelli tempi moderni se senti o vedde tal cosa. Ma il Gran Maestro Fra Filippo de Villert pure francese con parere et consiglio di persone esperte in tale officio, massime di Gabrielle Martinengo facendo contraminar’ proveddero di tal sorte che l’desegno de nemici non hebbe effeto. Havea mandato il Gran Maestro li suoi oratorj al Papa, all’Imperadore, al Re di Francia, et agli altri principi Christiani domandando aiuto et soccorso in tanta calamità che si trovava quella isola asseduta et oppressa d’un cosi potentiss[imo] inimico essercito. Ma Papa Hadriano Sesto novamente assunto al Papato [62/59r] essausto de denarj et nuovamente venuto in Roma di Spagna, non ne poté soccorrere, et li principi Christianj travagliati da grandissime guerre intestine ch’haveano tra di loro non si curorno di nostra perdita. Li Priori et Cavallieri che si trovavano per la Christianità fecero ogni potere per soccorrere alla sua Religione et una parte d’essi armorono una gran nave in Genova et partirno dal porto sperando di poter navigare alla volta di Levante. Il Prior di Castiglia, Don Diego di Toledo, armo anch’egli un altra nave, et di Spagna navigo sino in Sicilia. Et per essere li tempi hiernniali, ne l’una ne l’altra nave poti seguire il suo viaggio. Il simile fecero i Cavallieri francesi, i quali con molta spesa mesero insieme piu di mille huominj [62/59v] armatj con navily nel porto de Marsilia per partirsi in aiuto della sua Relegione, ma per li medesimi impedimenti incovenientj no’ pottero soccorrere l’afflitta città. Il Priore di Barletta ancora, di casa Pignatella, Napolitano, armò una nave et si parti per fare il suo debito, havendo fatto una scelta di seicento Cavallieri del Regno, con infinite munitioni et vettovaglie, con spese inestimabili, ma fu contraria la fortuna, et il tempo et la staggione del’verno, che lo prohibi a non possere navigare la onde non possette quel valoroso et magnanimo Cavaliero soccorrere la sua Religione con le forze del corpo et del consiglio delle quali grandemente prevaleva, et cosi egli, come l’altri tutti furono impediti da questi inconvenienti et non seguirò piu avantj [63/60r] gli effeti del valoroso lor pensiero et grandezza d’animo merce dell adversa et inimica sorte.

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Vedendosi dunq[ue] il Gran Maestro abbandonato dal Papa et degli altri principi Christianj, et che da niuna parte s’aspettava soccorso, et vedendo anco et conoscendo la pertinacia del nemico, ch’havea continuato l’assedio da San Giovanni di Giugno fin all’ultimo di Decembre, et che tuttavia continuava ostinatamente ogni di, renfrescando il suo essercito, essendo havvisato che non si sperava soccorso veruno da Christianj, per la discordia de principi, et per l’altra parte essendo le muraglie et bastion de Rhodi tutti conquassati et rovinatj di modo che gli inimici occupavano de gia mezza la città, essendosi il [63/60v] popolo ritirato, et fortificato con buoni reparj, et havendo hormai spesa et consumata tutta la provisione et la munitione, et la piu parte delle sue artigliarie rasentite et li poveri Cavalieri parte morti et parte stroppiati da tante vigile et travagli, furono constretti venire à parlamente di rendirsi, il che gli fu concesso con honorata condittione da Solimano, come piu ampiamente ne fa fede il Pontano, il Giovio, et altri scrittorj, che di questo fando memoria, lasciando il Gran Maestro et li suoi Cavalieri con la loro robbe liberi et con’ il populo, che li volesse seguire. Quali, con tre galere et la carracca et altri navilj, si salvarno in Candia, rimanendo l’afflitta città in mano de Turchi, per colpa de principi Christiani, li quali occupati nelle [64/61r] guerre particolari, non si curorno di difenderla. Di Candia la Religione venne in Messina, dove si fermò alcuni giorni, et doppo ando verso Roma, et giunse a tempo, che mori Papa Adriano VI. Dove, essendo morto Papa Clemente VII, ch’era stato Cavaliere di nostra Religione, et doppo protettore, ne concesse per nostra habitatione la città di Viterbo. Fu piu concluso nel Capitolo Generale havuto nel detto luogo, che il Gran Maestro andasse all’Imperadore, et agli altri principi Christianj per informargli della necessità grandissima in che si trovava la nostra Religione, et pregarli, che fossero favorevoli per la confirmation delli beneficij nostrj, ch’erano nelli lor dominij, et pregare similmente l’Imperadore [64/61v] Carlo Quinto che ne concedesse l’isola di Malta per nostra habitatione il ch’era gia per auante stato pratticato per ordine del Gran Maestro fra Filippo de Villiet da Don Diego di Toledo, Prior de Castiglia, et da Fra Gabriele Martinengo, che fu fatto Priore di Barletta. Et mentre che il Gran Maestro ando in questo viaggio, la Religione si ritirò nella città di Nizza di Provenza et Papa Clemente ne concesse et rinovó tutti li privilegij gia a noi concessi dalli summi Pontefici suoi precessorj et si mostró molto amorevole et propitio nei nostril bisognj. Il Gran Maestro visitó l’Imperadore et Francesco Re di Francia, ch’in quel tempo si ritrovava pregione in Spagna, poi passo al Re Henrico d’Inghilterra, et ritornando [65/62r] a Nizza passó per la Savoia, ove visitó il Duca Carlo et fu suo Compare tenendo a battesimo Filiberto Emanuelle Duca presente, et fu da tutti le principj et Re ben visto et raccolto, havendo tutti loro pietà del suo travaglio et perdita, promettendogli ogni favore et aiuto, et cosi stabili la nostra andata a Malta. Da Nizza la nostra Religione ando a Siracusa di Sicilia, dove si fermó circa un’anno mentre si preparavano et accomodavano gli allogiamentj in Malta per il Gran Maestro et suoi Cavalieri. Et alle quattro d’Augusto ottobre 1530 il sudetto Gran Maestro con tutta la Religione si transferi in quella isola.

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Giustiniano: Si come m’havete discorso parte de progressi, che fece la Religione ne i parti di [65/62v] Terra Santa, cosi hauro molto a piacer che mi narrate puntalmente alcune signalate opere nel tempo nel tempo [sic!] che la Religione habito et fu padrona dell isola de Rhodj. Cambiano: Io ne dirró quel tanto ch’ho inteso, ma prima sarei di parere che desinassimo, poi che’l tutto é gia in ordine et parmi che sia tempo. Giustiniano: Voi havete ragione, ma io era tanto sodisfatto di questo ragionamento, che non mi ricordano del pronto, et voi potrete bere una volta di vantaggio per il lungo discorso ch’havete fatto et per il rimante ch’havete á fare. Cambiano: Anzi bisognerà bere una volta di meno per non turbarmi la memoria di quanto mi resta a dire. [66/63r] Querini: Hó preso grandissimo diletto d’intendere la cura infinitissima, che haveva il Papa, et l’Imperadore con il Re et gli altri principi Christiani per la conservatione del Regno Hierosolomitano dove nostro Signor Jesu Christo pati morte et passione per la redentione della generatione humana et dove concorrevano tanti peregrinj per visitare il Santo Sepolcro et gli altri sacri luoghi. Et ben pare, ch’ al presente siamo impediti anzi aggiacciatj nella fede poiche siamo cosi negligentj in questa santissima opera, et li principi Christianj comportano che quei santi luoghi siano occupati et profanati da Turchi, et peró non e da maravigliarsi se Dio ne manda delle guerre et delle tribulationj. [66/63v] Cambiano: Senza dubbio, Messer Girolamo mio, voi havete ragione, et parmi che’l principale officio che questi santissimi Ponteficj dovrebbono attendere dovesse esser’ essortare et astringere li principi Christiani a fare quella impresa. Perch’ oltre il beneficio, che ne risultarrebbe alla Christianità di conturbare gli nemicj et gli suoi paesi et adoperarsi in questo sanctifico essercitio per la recuperatione di Terra Santa, sarriano ancora causa d’estinguere le guerre che si fanno et le heresie che si rimoveno si troncarriano. Per che essendo li principi potenti non havendo guerra veruna contra infedeli sono inclinatj a guerreggiare tra loro; et questo si vide per esperienza ch’in quel tempo che s’attendeva alla conservatione del Regno Hierosolomitano [67/64r] la Christianita stava in pace et se pur vi nasceva qualche discordia subbito con l’auttorita del Papa s’acquetava et pacificava. Giustiniano: Il tutto procede dalla voluntà di nostro Signore Iddio, et voi Cavaliere seguite il vostro ragionamento, incominciando donde lasciate. Cambiano: Dapoi che ‘l Gran Maestro, et la Religione si furono impadroniti della città et isola de Rhodi, non tardó molto che vi venne l’armata del soldano per opprimerla et ritrovandosi in quelle parti con buona compagnia de soldati il Duca di Savoia, che in quell tempo si chiamava conte, dentro della città di Rhodi per defenderla, di modo ch’egli con i suoi soldatj si valorosamente combatterno, che l’armata [67/64v] fu forzata partirsi da quella obsidione con suo grandissimo danno. In memoria di che il Duca di Savoia, lasciando le sue antiche insegne, ch’erano della Casa di Savoia, cio é donde egli descendeva dall’ Imperatore Ottone III, piglio quelle della Religione, che sono la croce bianca in campo rosso, con il titolo et impresa di queste quattro l[ette]re F E R T, che significano fortitudo eius Rhodum tenuit,

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le quale insignie et titolo i Duchi di Savoia sin’adesso portano. Et e da credere ch’un si honorato principe non haurebbe lasciato le sue antiche et pigliate quelle della Religione, s’ella non fosse stata favorite, et di grande authorità frà li principi Christianj. Venendo poi li Turchi in maggiore grandezza [68/65r] Rhodi fu piu et piu volte d’essi travagliata, specialmente nel tempo del Gran Maestro Fra Giovani Stich nell’anno 1440, et nel tempo del Gran Maestro Fra Giacomo de Melline, nelli quali tempi li Cavalieri honoratamente si defesero et ne riportorno vittorie con grande lode loro et riputatione et credito appresso li principi Christianj, onde la Sede Apostolica orno la Religione d’amplissimj privilegij. Questa città medesimamente pati grand’ assedio l’anno 1478, essendo Gran Maestro Fra Pietro di Busson da Mahometh secondo di questo nome et ottavo Imperatore de Turchi, nel quale tempo la povera città fu combattata tre mesi continuj ma tanta fu la constanza del Gran Maestro et Cavalieri, che ne reportorno [68/65v] la vittoria combattendo spesso su le muraglie et su bastion ch’erano gia statj occupatj dagli infedeli, onde nostro Signore Iddio mostrò poi quell miracolo della Croce, ch’apparue in aria col nostro protettore San Giovan Battista di modo che spaventatoli l’essercito Turchesco senza esser perseguitato da Christiani si pose in fugga, st abbandonò l’impresa come de cio piu amplamente ne fa fede il Pontano scrittore autentico de quj tempi di che il Gran Turcho ne prese tanto despiacere et cordoglio ch’in breve egli crepo di rabbia di dolore et di malenconia. Di costui restorno dui figlioli, Baiezet il primo, et di lui nato prima che fusse Imperatore de Turchi, l’altro Zezimo, [69/66r] nato dopo. Tra questi nacque discordia per che ciascuno d’essi voleva soccedere all’imperio. Il primo havea il favore de Giannizzeri, il secondo haveva il favore d’alcuno Bascia dal soldano d’Egitto et dal Re di Cilicia. Onde piu volte vennero a mortale conflitto di battaglia, ma Zizimo non potendo resistere alla forza del fratello fece resolutione di salvarsi in Rhodj, mandando per questo effetto gli suoi ambasciatori al Gran Maestro Fra Pietro di Busson, il quale chiamato il Consiglio propose se si doveva accettare il partito o no. Intorno a quello furono diversi e varj li pareri. Perche multi dubitavano che Baiazet fosse per venir con ogni sua possanza sopra Rhodi, le qui muraglie [69/66v] erano ancora fracassate per cagione d’un teremoto, il quale insieme con l’assedio passato rendeva la città con li balloardi et bastioni ad ogni poco assalto debolissima di maniera ch’era poco prudente consiglio l’accettarlo, che sarrebbe stato maggiormente et di nuovo ad provocarsi la rabbia et il furore adosso d’un si potente signore com’era il fratello. Ma dall’altra parte, considerandosi come era Zizimi al cui valore s’erano sollevati et rubellati tanti popoli, si poteva ragionevolmente sperare con il mezzo suo di conturbare tutta la Turchia, et con si bell’occasione unirsi i principi Christianj all’acquisto de Constantinopoli, et de vicini paesi di Terra Santa. [70/67r] Fu all’ultimo concluso di pigliare in salvo Zizimo. Per che subbito mandate le galere et la caraccha, giunsero al Mare di Frisia lontano da Rhodi diecidotto or vinti miglia, ove Zizimi aspettava la risposta, et vedendo egli de lungi li

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nostre scoperse et publicò il suo intendimento di salvarsi in Rhodi, il che haveva sino all’hora tenuto occolto et secreto per paura che l’essercito non lo havesse per forza retinto. Onde subbito entrato in una barca, s’allargò da terra et in quel mentre scrisse una lettera col sangue proprio a Baiazeth, et posta la sopra una frezza con l’arco la tirò al lito, nella qual’esso l’accusava acerbamente di crudeltà, dicendo d’esser forzato a cercar rifugio dagli inimicj della sua fede, de cio domandando giusta [70/67v] vendetta á Mohameth, et al suo Dio contra di lui, che fu detto che costo che Baiazeth l’hebbe letta suspirò et per tre giorni non diede audienza alcuna, ne fu visto da veruno. Congiuntati dunq[ue] la barca de Zizimj con le galere de Rhodi, esso fu honoratamente ricevuto nella carraccha et poste le tavole fu servito da principi s[igno]ri et Cavalieri Christianj, di come u’gran principe. Et fatta gli la credenza de cibi com’e solito farsi fare da principi Christianj di che maravigliarsi molto questo signore domandò la cagione, perche questo facevano. A cui fu risposto, che questo era modo de servire il principi et signori Christianj, per assicurarli dal veleno. Ma Zizimi rispondo, che volea esser tra loro come private, et che confidando la sua persona [71/68r] in Cavalierj non temeva cosa alcuna et non volse, che piu segli facesse la credenza. Fu adunq[ue] condotto in Rhodi sopra un solenne ponte, fatto di nuovo per riceverlo magnificamente et incontrato et accompagnato dal Gran Maestro et da tutti li Cavaglieri et popolo d’essa città, che tutta concorse a vedere questa gran novità, et fu allogiato nel palazzo di Francia per esser acomodissima stanza. Poi comparse in Consiglio, narrando la causa ch’haveva condotta il suo Signore a pigliar questo partito, ed essi da parte sua gli addimandava conseglio et aiuto in questa sua adversità. Concorso in Rhodi una infinita de Turchj seguendo il suo segnore alli quale si diede allogiamento fuori la città. Et in tanto si facevano continue guardie come si dentro et fuori vi fussero stati gli nemicj [71/68v] per assaltarla. Baiazeth, intesa ch’hebbe la nuova del fratello si ritirò in Constantinopoli con tutto l’essercito et doppo molte et molte prattiche promese al Gran Maestro quarantacinque milia ducatti l’anno per l’intrattammento di Zizimi. Et cosi accettato il partito questi danari servivano per la restauratione delle muraglie et hedificij de Rhodi rovinatj oltra il conducente trattimmento che si faceva a Zizimi, quale il Gran Maestro mandò a Papa Innocentio VIII, accompagnato da xxx Cavalieri et molti Turchj. Poi passo in Francia per adimandare aiuto alli principi Christianj, especialmente a Massimiliano Imperatore, et da Carlo VIII Re di Francia per fare guerra a fratello et essortarli, che non perdessero l’occas[io]ne di ricuperare Constantinopoli, la quale [72/69r] città offeriva in ricompensa dell’aiuto, ch’essi gli prestissero. Ma li principi, occupati tra loro nelle guerre continue non si curorno di far questa honorata impresa. Succede poi al Papato Alissandro Sexto, il quale volse haver Zizimi nelle sue manj per privare la Religione de quell tribute et ingerirlo a se stesso. In questo mentre venne Carlo Ottavo, Re di Francia, per ricuperare il Regno di Napoli, et passando per Roma, tolse Zizimi appresso di se, dicendo, che fatto l’acquisto del Regno di Napoli voleva passare alla Vellona et far guerra a Turchi, ma partendo da Roma, et

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giunto a Bolletro, hora detta Velletro, mori di veleno Zizimi per quello che si crede fatto gli dare per invidia da Alessandro VI acio che il Re non usufrutaresse il tributo [72/69v] dalli quarantacinque milia ducati dategli dal Turcho suo fratello ver vitto et trattimmento. Et la Religion nostra per cagione del Papa si perse il tribute, et li principi Christianj una si bella occasione de tanta importanza di guerreggiare i suoi nemici nei proprij paesi. Lascio Zizimi un suo figliolo a Rhodi, quale il presente Gran Turco volse havere nelle mani quando prese Rhodi al quale fece immediatamente tagliare la testa per estirpar in tutto li competitorj del suo imperio. Teneva altre sei o sette isole la nostra Religione intorno Rhodi, che l’erano sottoposte, nelle quale si facevano similmente opere digne di memoria. Vi era il castello San Pietro in terraferma con una espugnabile fortezza, dove la Religione teneva la guardia bonissima et dupplicata de Cavalieri et soldatj, luogo [73/70r] che veramente era refuggio de tutti i poveri Christiany, che fuggivano la pregionia et le correrie de Turchi. In questo sopranominato castello vi era una razza de canj maravigliosa, che all’odore conosceva li Christiani dalli Turchj, et ogni giorno scorrevano per dette campagne intorno al castello, ove ritrovando per sorte alcuno Christiano l’accarrezzavano et accompagnavano alla fortezza, ma ritrovando alcun Turco, lo laceravano miseramente. Dicesi ch’una volta fuggiva un Christiano da Turchi per salvarsi al castello, et essendo egli perseguitato non molto discosto dal castello della Religione, per tema de non esser’ sopragiunto et ritrovato da i Turchi, fu forzato mettersi ad un fosso per nascondersi, onde non poteva uscire in modo alcuno da per se [73/70v] senz’aiuto d’altri. Et venendo a caso quivi uno de quei can lo conobbe all’orma per Christiano, et il pane che gli’era dato per se lo portava in mantinente a coluj, et accorsi il commandatore della magrezza del’ cane, et che il pane che gli era dato lo portava via, fu seguito il cane et trovato colui ne fosso fu cavato fuore, ove fece fede che quell cane l’haveva a questo modo sovvenuto et campato piu di otto giornj, ch’ivi dentro era stato rinchiuso. Giustiniano: Pur chi non credesse questo, et non gli prestasse fede, stimo, che non sarebbe heretico ne infedele. Cambiano: Non vi voglio forzare a credere questo ma veddiamo tuttavia bene tanti altri cani fare tanti meravigliosi atti che non saria gia gran cosa, che quelli del castello di [74/71r] San Pietro havessero havuto quelli odorato cosi particolare di conoscere, et discerner il Turcho dal Christiano. Mentre che la nostra Religione stava in Rhodi, de continuo teneva armate benissimo tre galere con le quali scorreva per l’Archipelago, travagliando et molestando gli navilij degli infedeli che da qualle parte havessero navigato, sacchiggiando et depredando li villagij degli inimicj vicini al mare. Nel tempo del Gran Maestro Fra Ferrando del Heredia fu presa la città di Patraz et altri luoghi et paesi de Turchi dalle nostre galere et altri navilij alli quali Turchi la Religione faceva sola piu guerra che tutto il rimanente della Christianità, li Cavalieri armarano le galiotte et fuste [74/71v] con le quale turbarono et guerregiavano tutto il Levante.

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Nel tempo del Gran Maestro Fra Federico de Ambrosia l’armata della Religione prese et sommerse l’armata del soldano nonostante che ella fosse maggiore di numero della nostra. Si vede ancora, et si legge nelli nostri annali et scritture anco de Venetia, che piu volte la Religione nostra s’e confederata, et unita con questa Serennissima Signoria in danno de Turchi adoperando tutte le forze nostre in servitio et utile vostro, et per defensione dell’isole et sudditi ch’havete in quelle parti. Al tempo del Gran Maestro Fra Pietro di Busson la carracca della Religione combatté et prese la carracca de Turchj [75/72r] et Mori con mercantia de incredibile et inestimabile ricchezza. Et chi volesse particolarmente dire tutte le buone opere fatte dalla Religione mentre ch’habito Rhodi saria historia troppo lunga et vi vorrebbe altro tempo á racontrarle. Giustiniano: Ditemi di gratia le ceremonie che s’usano nella creatione del Gran Maestro poi che so che lo sapere. Cambiano: Questo si potrebbe vedere nelli statuti nostri, ma poiche vi piace sentirlo da me stesso, vi diro quello che ne ho visto nell’elettioni di due o tre fatti nel mio tempo onde io mi son trovato. Molto et sepolito il Gran Maestro, subbito si tiene il Consiglio compito et si elegge un luogotenente di Magisterio, il cui offitio dura insino al giorno dell’elettione et tra- [75/72v]tanto si fanno l’esequie, et si dá ordine alla dispoglia del Gran Maestro defunto. Doppo si pubblica il giorno dell’elettione nel quale tutti li baili, priori, commendatorj, Cavalieri, et altri relegiosi nostri convengono nel castello di Malta. Benche in Rhodi, credo si facesse nella Chiesa. Et nell’alba si dice la messa del Spirito Santo, et doppo con licenza del luogotenente del magisterio, l’otto lingue separatamente si congregano, ma prima all presenza del luogotenente del magisterio fanno giuramento sopra la Croce del suo habito. Et eleggono per ogni lingua un religioso idoneo et sufficiente et de vita esemplare per eleggere il commandatore del’elettione et li tre elettori del Gran Maestro, cio é un Cavaliere, un Cappelano, et un sergente, [76/73r] perche nella nostra Relegione vi sono questi tre gradi de relegiosi. Fatta l’elettione, questi otto elettori si appresentano all’luogotenente, et poste in genocchio all presenza di tutta la congregatione che tra noi si addimanda semblea, giurano sopra li sacri evangeli che elegerrano un Cavaliere discrete di tutta la semblea ó di loro otto per come dita della Relegione. Fatto il giuramento quasi tuttj entrano in una camera, et tra loro eliggono il commendatore dell’ elettione, qual eletto, fanno intendere al luogotenente o simblea questa elettione. Et questo commendatore si presenta avanti il luogotenente, et giura nel modo sopradetto che giustamente fara l’officio [76/73v] dell’elettione, et subbito il luogotenente del magisterio e privo del suo officio nel luogo del quale il commendatore dell’elettione succede inanzi. Al quale gli otto elettori gia detti di nuovo fanno giuramento sopra li evangelij, ch’eleggerranno un Cavaliere, un cappellano, et un sergente idonej, et sufficienti per eleggere gli altri compagnj dell’elettione del Gran Maestro, nel modo che intenderete. Fatto il giuramento gli detti otto elettori entrano in conclave, et eleggono un Cavaliere, un cappellano, et un sergente, quali, eletti gli otto elettorj,

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restano privi del suo offitio, et gli tre elettorj nuovi sono presentati al commendatore della elettione et alla simblea, et giurano [77/74r] nel modo supradetto ch’eleggerano in compagnia loro altri elettori per l’elettione del Gran Maestro. Et fatto il giuramento entrano in conclave et eleggono il quarto elettore, quale subbito si presenta et fa il giuramento in publico, nel modo ch’hanno fatto li tre elettorj primj, et lo serrano in conclave con gli altri tre. Questi ouattro eleggono il quinto, quale fa il medesimo giuramento, et entra in conclave, et s’aggrega con li quattro. Questi cinque eleggono il sesto, et sei il settimo, et cosi d’uno in uno sin’ al numero di sideci, cio e due per lingua con il giuramento sopradetto havisandovj che questi sidici non sono della gran Croce ne possono eleggersi uno de loro elettorj in Gran Maestro [77/74v]. Fatto il compimento delli XVI, per mandato del commendatore della simblea, cio é dell’elettione si confessano dal cappellano gia eletto et senteno messa et riceveno il santissimo sacramento et pregono Iddio che gli illuminj et doni gratia di eleggere un Gran Maestro degno et sufficiente per reggere et gubernare questa nostra Religione. Il che fatto, questi XVI si presentano in simblea inanzi al commandatore dell’elettione, et con gran riverenza genuflexi mettono la mano sopra il santo legno della Croce, et sopra li santi evangelij, et l’un doppo l’altro giurano per quel sacratissimo legno della Croce et per li santi evangelij de Dio, per le sacre [78/75r] parole del prefatio della messa, che posto da parte ogni odio, ogni rancore et timore, amore, speranza di premio ó altro inordinato effeto, ma solo havendo gli occhi et intentione loro a Dio, et a nostro Signor Gesu Christo, ad honore et gloria del quale eleggerranno il Gran Maestro dell’ Hospitale de San Giovanni Battista del Hierusalem tra tutti gli Cavalieri di nostro ord[in]e presenti et essenti, un Cavaliere nato de legitimo matrimonio, idoneo, probo, virtuoso, sufficiente, et utile, per il Magisterio, che sia in honore et utilita della relegion Christiana, secondo il descarico della sua coscienza. Fatto il giuramento si serrerranno in conclave, dove non se gli puó parlare [78/75v] et procedono all’elettione del Gran Maestro, essaminando et discorrendo tra loro tutte le virtù et defetti de tutti gli baglivj et priori de nostro ordine, et e licito ad ogn’uno de dire quello che sa et intende delli meriti et demeriti de tutti signori baglivj et priori. Perche non ostante che gli Statuti dicono che s’habbia d’eleggere un Cavaliero di tutta la Relegione, per sempre si fá elettione d’alcun baglivo, óver priore, come persone antiche piu habili et sufficientj a simile carrico. Et dopo un lungo discorso, questi XVI elettorj si risolveno in quattro, o sei, o piu, o manco baglivi et priorj, quali si ballottano, et chi ha piu votj, et ballotte, s’intende quello essere in Gran Maestro. [79/76r] Giustiniano: Vorrei sapere si tardano assai a fare elettione. Cambiano: Alcune volte si spediscono presto, et alcuna volta tardano, ma non possono tardare piu d’un di, ó d’una note, perche non se gli da piu di una volta da mangiare et bisogna che spediscono se non vogliono ivi dentro morir da fame. Fatta l’elettione, il Cavaliero dell’elettione con li suoi compagni si presenta inanzi al commandator dell’elettione et a tutta la simblea alli quali adimandano

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s’haverranno per grato et superiore il Gran Maestro che da loro e stato eletto, et rispondendo de si l’affermano per tre volte con giuramento. Et doppo il Cavaliere dell’elettione nomina et pubblica [79/76v] il nome del Gran Maestro eletto, il quale ritrovandosi presente e condotto all’altare magiore della Chiesa, dove giura sopra li Statuti nostri, et fa obligatione alla conservation della Regola, et lodevole consuetudine della Religione, et che governera et disporra li negocij d’essa con conseglio et intervento delli principali d’essa. Et ritrovandoso eletto Gran Maestro absente, si da ordine per la sua venuta et fra tanto il Conseglio compito elegge un luogotenente, che provegga et disponga delli negocij occorrenti della Religione in compagnia peró et con consenso et assento del conseglio predetto, finche giunga il Gran Maestro eletto. [80/77r] Giustiniano: Il modo di questa elettione nella forma narratami é lodevole, ma mi pare che’l numero delli XVI sia poco per il che saria facil esta pratticarlo et inclinarlo a favorire alcuno indegno di q[ues]to magistrato. Cambiano: Questo sarrebbe molto difficile et quasi impossibile. Perche elettori non sanno di dovere esser’elettj, et subito che sono eletti sono serrati in una camera, che non li si puo parlare ne fare prattica alcuna, oltra che si procura di dare sempre questo carrico a persone conosciute per queste et sufficientj col mezzo della confessione et santissimo sacramento et per il solenno giuramento che fanno e da credere ch’habbiano da procedere con ogni sinceritá et che [80/77v] piu amino la sua coscienza et il bene di sua Relegione, che quello d’un particolare, et sin’al presente non si vede ch’habbiano fatto ne esseguito circa questo altrimentj. Giustiniano: Poi ch’havete detto il modo, che si tiene nella elettione del Gran Maestro, non sara se non bene, che voi mi diciate il modo con che si fanno le pruove della nobilitá de gentil’ huominj, che desiderano essere Cavalieri. Perche qua n’habbiamo fatte alcune che non sono state accettate a Malta contro ognj nostra credenza. Cambiano: Questo mi sara facile, perche piu volte m’e’stato dato il carrico di farlo, et di vedere anco et referire le gia fatte d’altri. [81/78r] Et prima e necessario havere la commissione dal reverendissimo Gran Maestro et Consiglio di Malta, o dal Capitolo provinciale, o dalla semblea della provincia o suo priorato, dove e nato il gentil’huomo che desidera essere Cavaliere per la quale si commetta a due Cavalierj di nostra Religione che facciano le pruove de nobilità et in esse si nominano piu Cavalieri delli quali se n’eleggono due. Li due Cavalieri elettj hanno da fare giuramento in mano d’altrj Cavalierj di fare et esseguire sua commissione secondo il tenore d’essa et conforme alli stabilimentj et stile della Relegione. Et non vi essendo altro Cavaliere, farranno il giuramento, uno in mano dell’altro Cavaliere di bene, et fideliter, exequendo del che il not[ar]o ne fá memoria negli suoi atti. [81/78v] Li supradetti commissarij, con stipulation del notaro hanno da essaminare due o tre testimonij nobili et degne di fede seperatamente l’un dall’altro alli quali si dá il giuramento, si conoscono il gentil’huomo che desidera essere Cavaliere et hanno da deponere et testificare ancora della sua etá habituata et dispositione et che sia di piu nato de legitimo matrimonio

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negli limiti di quella provincia o priorato et s’e tenuto per nobile et riputato per gentil’huomo di nome et d’armj. Item, s’hanno da informare del padre et del suo cognomen, s’e tentuto per gentil’huomo havendo grado, officio, o preheminenza, et s’e d’ogn’uno tenuto et riputato per nobile. Si fanno anco le medesime interrogationj dell’avo et ava paterna et materno, et e necessario [82/79r] che li testimonij dicano li lor nomi et cognomj. Et facciano plena et indubitata fede della loro nobilta, come s’e detto del padre et s’e á caso non gli havessero conosciutj tutti per lungo tempo, bisogna che li testimonij s’informiano delle dette particularitá inanzi che vengano ad esser totalmente essaminati accio che passano pienamente testificarlo et renderno testimonianza. Perche mancando qualsivoglia delle sopradette informatione, le pruove che si facessero sarriano nulle et non sarriano accettate a Malta. Essaminati li sopradetti testimonij, nel modo narrato di sopra, e necessario che li commissarij col notaro essaminano ex officio altri due o tre testimonij sopra l’antedette particolaritá per vedere se [82/79v] li testimonij produttj dal gentil’huomo hanno detto la veritá nelle loro examine et attestationi. Fatte et descritte l’antedette interrogationj il notaro l’autentica insieme con le depositionj ponendogli la sua sottoscrittione et legalitá et doppo li commissarij si sottoscrivono et le segnano con il suo sigillo et le serrano, et sugillate et chiuse le danno al gentil’huomo, che desidera esser Cavaliere. Accio egli stesso le porti a Malta per ch’in altra parte non si puó dare la Croce de Cavaliere. Bisogna ancora al Cavaliere che paghi al ricevetore della Religione quando sarà giunto in Malta, cento cinquanta scudi d’oro, et se per caso non fusse il Cavaliere accettato per difetto delle pruove, o per altra [83/80r] causa non gli fusse data la Croce, li denari predetti se gli restituiscono. Il gentil’huomo gionto in Malta s’appresenta alla lingua dove e nato, et in concurente addimanda esser’ accettato per Cavaliere conforme alli stabilimenti et stili della Relegione, et appresenta le pruove di sua nobilta quale sono viste et conosciute molto delligentemente et trovandosi che siano state fatte conforme alli stabilimentj et stili della Relegione, s’ammettono et approbbano. Et dopo se ne fa relatione al reverendissimo signor Gran Maestro, quale da licenza a coloro alli quali conviene che se gli doni l’habito. Et trovandosi il contrario, et che le pruove non suesti sussistano si rifuitano et i gentil’huomini conosserlo. [83/80v] Giustiniano: Io dubito del certo che questi ordini di pigliar queste prove nel modo che mi havete narrato non siano del tutto observatj ne ch’interamente s’osservino per che si veggono molti, che portano la Croce, che non sono ne furno mai nobili et habilo per far simil prove. Cambiano: Io confesso esser vero quello che dite, ma questi non sarranno Cavalieri ma Cappellanj et sergenti quali non ponno havere commende ne dignita de gran Croce n’officio ch’appartengano a Cavalierj. Li Cappellani sono dedicati per servitio delle nostre chiese et li sergentj fanno alcuni officij convenienti al grado loro et haveno beneficij separatj et di minor valore de quelli de Cavalieri dall quali non si fanno queste pruove di nobilita.

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[84/81r] Giustiniano: Oltra di questo io veggo alcuni, che tengono commende de Cavalieri et altri importanti beneficij et pare che non siano nobili et veramente al mio giudicio indegni di quella dignita. Cambiano: Questi sono fatti Cavalieri o commendatori dalla Santitá del Papa no’ obstante che no conceda amplissime privilegij, et confirmationi delle Statuti nostri. Il quale alcune volte vinto dalla importunita de Cavalieri et d’altri concede le commende a chi gli piace et ammette le renuncie degli beneficij nostri in gran pregiudicio delli poveri Cavalieri chi da continuo servano la Relegione spargendo il suo sangue il suo patrimonio la sua giuventù et la propria vita in servitio della fede de Christo et doppò si veddono preposti a molti ignobilj [84/81v] et inimeritj di questo nostro ordine et private della sua remuneratione contra la forma delli privilegij concessi. Et sua Santitá ancora quando gli piace fa anche di questi Cavalieri che voi dite senza prove alcune da nobilità et senza altra ceremonia. Ma questo accade solo nella povera lingua d’Italia abbandonata da tuttj che tra questi vi sono li Cavalieri che voi dite che non potrebbono fare le sue pruove ma quelli che sono accettati in Malta et ch’entrano come si dice per la porta fanno intieramente le sue pruove come vi ho ditto di sopra, et se pure si fa gratia ad alcuno, si fa con grandissima difficolta et son rarissime. Giustiniano: Che cosa hanno questi Cavalieri della Relegione e ch’essercitio e il suo, et [85/82r] che ceremonie usano in darli la Croce? Et chi e quello che gli la dona? Cambiano: In prima rispondero alla penultima domanda che mi fate, et doppo rispondero al resto. Il gentil’huomo che vuol’esser’ Cavaliere ha primieramente da confessarsi et pregare Dio che l’illumini a far cose che siano in suo santo servitio. Doppo della confessione et oratione in compagnia del baglivio et priore o commandatore ch’ haura la licenza dal Gran Maestro di dargli l’habito va a sentir messa, et detto l’evangelio si presenta in genocchionj inanzi al sopradetto commissario, il quale gli dimanda che cosa ricerca, et egli subito risponde, che dimanda esser fatto Cavaliere di San Giovanni. Se gli dice che dimanda cosa [85/82v] di grande importanza per ch’anticamente non si concedeva questo grado di Cavaliere ad alcuno senon l’havesse guadagnato per suoi meriti et singular virtù ma considerato che li suoi antecessori hanno tenuto il titolo di nobilita per alcuni suoi meritj et virtu sperando ch’egli non habbia da degenerare dagli suoi antichj, segli concedera quanto esso dimanda. Pur ch’egli prometta di osservar’ quello che son obbligati di fare li very Cavalierj, cio e di combattere contra l’infedeli per la defensione della santa fede Cattholica et defender l’honor suo contra qualsenoglia che lo volesse opprimere, d’esser protettor’ della Relegione delle donne vedove de figlioli orfanj. Et rispondendo il gentil’huomo d’esser pronto ad osservare [86/83r] le sopradette cose si prendono li speronj di oro et se gli mettono alle callengne dicendo che per esser l’oro il piu precioso metallo che si truovi se gli pone alla piu infirma parte del corpo con significare che si sprezza l’oro per servicio della fede de Christo et per conservation dell’ honor suo et in forma di sperone accio gli sia stimolo per osservatione et memoria delle sopradette promesse.

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Fatto questo il gentil’huomo incominente proda la spada con il manico dorato et con essa alza tre volte la mano et in signification della prontezza dell’animo che tiene d’esser honorato Cavaliere et poi l’appresenta al Cavaliere che gli da l’ordine quale l’essorta a volere esser puro et netto d’animo secondo si conviene [86/83v] ad un Cavaliere di San Giovannj et per memoria gli dona tre volte della spade di piato su la spalla sinistra, ciò e dalla parte del cuore et gli torna la spada accio la rimetta nel fudro. Il che fatto vi torna a sentire il resto della messa con una rubba longa vestito con una torcia candida ardente in mano, detta la messa si communnica et di nuovo ritorna inanzi il Cavaliere et si mette in genocchione et dimanda di esser accettato nella compagnia degli fratri della Relegione dell’ Hospitale di San Giovani di Hierusalim et il Cavaliere gli ha da dare l’habito con discrete et devote parole laudando infinitamente il suo proposito, dimostrando essere cosa salutare et meritoria servire alli poveri de Christo [87/84r] et seguire l’opere di misericordia et serviersi al servitio et difesa della santa fede, quale cosa molte hanno desiderata che non l’hanno potuta ottenere. Doppo gli ricorda l’obedienza et severita della Relegione per la quale bisognera lasciare li proprij appetitj per obedire agli suoi puperiori, et gli dimanda s’e pronto ad ubedire et compire interamente le sopradette cose, al che risponde de si. Dippo gli interroga s’ha fatto voto in altra Relegione s’ha consumato matrimonio si se ritrova obligato per grande lito, s’e servo di alcuno. Perche se si ritrovasse legato con uno delli sopradettj casi non obstante l’accettatione saria di nuovo reiecto et con ignomia come transgressore della fede data. Si risponde esser’ [87/84v] libero, il Cavaliero, che l’ha dato l’habito apre il Missale et il Cavaliere novello mette tutte due le mane sopra le sacre lettera et dice Io tale N. faccio voto et prometto a Dio omnipotente et alla Beata Vergine Maria, Madre de Dio, et a San Giovan Battista, con aiuto dell’istesto Dio in perpetuo d’osservare vera obedienza al superior che da Dio et dalla Relegion mia mi sara dato et de piu viver senza pro[pri]o et servare la castità, et levando il Missale delle sacre lettere, il Cavalier’ gli dice Noi vi riconosciamo per servatore delli poveri, infermj, edificato alla difesa della fede Cattholica, et il Cavaliere novo risponde, et io per tale mi reconosco et sopra di questo bacia il Missale et lo porta all’altare. [88/85r] Et riporta il Missale in segno d’obedienza. Fatto questo il Cavaliere prende il palio negro qual’e un’ habito ch’anticamente li nostri predecessori usavano, credo in significatione delle pelle di camele che portava San Giovan Battista per che non ha ne màniche n’altra manifattura a se non certe punte che s’inveluppano intorno alle spalle et per la maggior parte sono da lana cio e d’ostada con certi cordoni con lo ligame al collo dove son certi fiocchi et colonne di seta nera et bianca in significatione delle colone et flagelli et altri misterij della Passione di nostro signore Gesu Christo. Et sopra questo habito vi e la Croce bianca con otto punte quale Croce si mostra al Cavaliere nouvo, et se gli dice si crede che quella [88/85v] sia il verissimo segno della Croce nella qualle Christo benedetto morì per la redentione de noi peccatori. Il Cavaliere nouvo risponde de si, che lo crede. Allhora il Cavaliere che gli da l’habito dice, Questo e il segno

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che vi commendiamo che sempre habbiate a portar. Et cosi il Cavaliere nuovo bacia la Croce. Fatto questo se gli pone il pallio con la Croce sopra le spalle la quale sta alla parte sinistra et basciando il Cavaliere nuovo gli dice, prendete questo segno et in nome della santa Trinita et della Beata Vergine Maria et di San Giovan Battista ad augmentatione et exaltatione della fede et defensione del nome Christiano et servitio degli poveri et de tutti gli infermj, noi fratello vi mettiamo la Croce in questa [89/86r] parte accio che con tutto il cuore voi amiate et con la destra mano virilmente et strennamente combattendo, defendiate et defesa conserviate, et s’a forte combattendo contra gli nemici della fede di Christo voi abandonaste la bandiera della santa Croce et fugesti la battaglia cosi justa, conforme all’ordine degli nostri Statutj et costumi, sarresti privato dell’habito della Croce et come violatore del voto vostro discacciato vituperosamente et con ignomia della nostra compagnia come membro fetido et guasto. Doppo gli lega il cordone del palio, dicendo prendete il giogo del Signore qual’é leve et soave et in questo trovarete riposo all’anima vostra. Noi non vi promettiamo delitie ma solo pane et acqua et humile vestim [en]to [89/86v] et faciamo participar l’anima vostra et delli parenti et consaguinei vostri delle buone opere del nostro Ordine et delli nostri fratrj, che si farranno per tutto l’universo mondo, et il Cavaliere nuovo ristponde, Amen. Il che fatto, il Cavagliere che gli ha dato l’habito l’abbraccia et bascia in segno di fraterna dilettione. Il simile fanno tutti gli circonstantj et il sacerdote ch’ha detto la messa dice oration che si contengano nelli statuti nostri et commenda al Cavagliere che dica ogni giorno cento cinquanta Pater Noster et dicendo l‘offitio della Nostra Donna, et quello degli morti é libero degli pater noster. Giustiniano: Poi ch’havete detto il resto dite anco le orationi che si dicono quando s’ordinano questi Cavaglieri. [90/86r] Cambiano: Io non le saprei dire se non guardo negli stabilimenti nostri, et parmi é ben mi ricordo che dicono cosi. Suscipimus Deus misericordiam tuam in medio templj tuj. Psalmas. Magnus Dominus et laudabilis nimis in civitate Dei nostri in monte sancto eius Gloria amen, et caterae; Suscipimus Deus Alleluia Chirie leyson Christe eleyson. Salvum fac servum tuum. Domine Deus meus sperantem in te. Mitte ei Domine auxilium de santo et de Syon tuere eum. Nihil proficiat in ea et filius iniquitatis non apponat nocebit ei. Esto ei Domine turris fortitudinis a facie inimici et persequentiums eium. Domine exandi orationem meam et clamor mens at te veniat. Dominus vobiscum et cum spiritu tuo. Oremus. [90/86v] Deus qui iusti ficas impium et non vis mortem peccatorum, Maiestatem tuam suppliciter deprecamur ut hunc famulum tuum N. de tua misericrdia confidentem coelesti protegas benignus auxilio et assidua protection conserves. Ut tibi iugiter famuletur et nullis a te tentationibus seperetur. Per Dominum nostrum serum Christum filium tuum qui tecum vivit et regnat in secula seculorum. Amen. Omnipotens sempiterne Deus qui facis magna mirabilia solus, praetende super famulum tuum ne spiritum gratia salutaris ut veritate tibi complaceat perpetua ei rorem benedictionis tua infunde per Christum Duminum nostrum. Amen.

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Suscipiat de Dominus in numero fideliam et licit nos indegni N. Suscepimus in orationibus. [91/88r] Orationibus nostris concedat tibi Dominus locum bene agendi et voluntatem perseverandi et gratiam ad aeterna vita beatitudinem haereditatem faelicitatem perveniende et sicut nos charitas fraternitatis convinxit in terris ita divina pietas quae delictionis auxiliatrix est cum suis fidelibus convingere dignetur in coelis praestante Domino nostro Jesu Christo et vi cum Patre et Spiritu Santo vincit, et regnat in secula seculorum. Amen. Havete da sapere, che li fratti cappellanj et sergenti non se gli da l’ordine de Cavaglieri, ne sono obligati far sue pruove de nobiltà et non di pruovare la provincia in che sono nati et che siano figlioli di huomini da bene et di buona fama, et natj de legitimo matrimonio. L’habito di San [91/88v] Giovanni se gli da con le medessime ceremonie sopradette. L’intertinemento che gli da la Relegione tanto a cavalieri quanto a cappellani et sergentj sono le spese per loro et per un solo servitore. Et agli Cavalieri gli da ogn’uno quaranta fiorinj della moneta di Rhodi per stipendio quale noj chiamamo soldea. Alli cappellanj et sergenti se gli danno vinti fiorinj et depui occorrendogli alcuna infirmita hanno i suoi medicj et chirurgic et medicine pagate dall Relegione. Et sono pochi Cavalierj che non habbiano alcuno intratinimento o pension da casa loro con la qual’ honoratamente si trattengono, massime havendo le spese et soldee nella Relegione et vivendo et [92/89r] facendo suo debito col tempo non gli puó mancare alcuna commenda. Giustiniano: Questo vorrei sapere, come si distribuiscono le commende et gli altri beneficij tra quelli Cavaglierj. Cambiano: Le commende si danno di cambiamento, meglioramento, et di gratia. Quelle de cambiamento sono quando un Cavagliere le prende per suo ritorno, cio e che dapoi che tutti li Cavaglieri hanno preso l’habito inanzi a lui sono fatti commendatori et questi si possono megliorare havendole prima possedute cinque anni et mostrando continuamente de haverle migliorare tanto nell’entrate come negli edificij, le quelle che prendeno in luogo di queste che lasciano si domandano commende de meglioram[en]to. [92/89v] Le commende di gratia sono quelle che il Gran Maestro da per sua preemenentia cio e de cinque in cinque anni a chiunque le pare meritevole, una per ogni priorato. Le lingue ancora possono dare commende di gratia a qualch’un ma questo si fa di raro. L’essercitio che fanno Cavaglieri in Malta e perche vanno in galera et si mandano venticinque o trenta Cavaglieri per ogni galera. Et questi s’eliggono dalle lor proprie lingue et si mutano di quattro in quattro mesi a cio ch’ogn’uno habbia la parte sua di quello discomodo il che da noi domandasi andare in caravan, vocabulo anticamente estratto dall’Arabica. [93/90r] Li ripartano ancora nelle fortezze della Religione. Et volendo alcuni d’essi tenere cavalli la Relegione gli aiuta con l’orzo pur che siano cavalli habili all’essercitio militare il che sta nella cognitione del manicchiardo, capo della lingua d’Auvernia et havendo nuova di galeotte et fuste de nemici s’accostano in terra li Cavaglieri ch’hanno cavalli accompagnano il

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manicchiardo o altro eletto da lui o pur dal consiglio che sia pero capitanio et vanno per vietare la smontata agli corsari et difendendo l’isola. Giustiniano: Ditemi alcuna cosa dell’authorita del Gran Maestro et del entrata ch’egli tiene per intrattiniersi nel suo grado comodamente. [93/90v] Cambiano: La sua authorita e grandissima, per esser capo et superiore d’una si grande et honorata Relegione dove vi sono figlioli et fratelli delli primi principi di Christianita, et dove li re non si sdegnano di mettere li suoi fratelli et figlioli. Perch’io vi ho visto un fratello del re di Portugallo, un fratello del duca de Guisa, un fratello del duca d’Alba, un figliolo di Don Ferrante di Gonzaga, et tantj altri signori che saria soverchio a dirli, quali tutti danno obedienza et riconoscono il Gran Maestro per suo sig[no]re et capo. E servito et honorato da principi per rispetto di sua authorita et per causa delle gratie et remuneration che fa et puo fare et le commende di gratia di cinque in cinque annj per ogni priorato una [94/91r] che gia ho detto delle quali se gli paga l’annata. E capo del conseglio della Relegione dove intervengano otto baili conventuali, cio é capi de lingue et suoi luogotenentj, tutti li priori, et baili capitolari che si ritruovano in convento et hanno authorita di stampare moneta d’oro et d’argento. E signore dell’isola di Malta et Gozzo et si puo dire, che sia signore et padrone per che tutti gli officiali et ministri d’essa dipendono da lui, quale peró governa et dispone il tutto con participatione et parere delli signori del conseglio et tutte le bolle et promisioni si fanno a suo nome et del convento. Le sue entrate sono assai grandj, perche ha una pensione di tesoro o sia erario [94/91v] della Relegione di dudicimilia scudi ben che il moderno Gran Maestro Fra Claudio della Seglie per sua liberalita se dice contentato et ne habbia voluto solamente otto milie. Há per ogni priorato una camera magistrale qual’esso da in arrendamento per una competente pensione et dandala se ne pagano due annate integre secondo il vero valore di detta commenda, ch’egli da di gratia. Há l’entrate delle doghane et datij dell’isola di Malta et del Gozzo, ch’importano molto. Há per le commendation et proventj una buona quantita di terreno di detta isola che ne dispone a suo modo et degli fruttj che ne si fanno. [95/92r] Prende poi le tavole di tutti li Cavaglieri che lo servano di trenta scudi per Cavagliere di modo, che spesse volte lui soccorre la Relegione con suoi proprij denari che da queste entrate gli pervengono. Tiene di continuo sei cappellanj per servicio della sua cappella ogni giorno andando alla messa. Serve xij poveri in memoria di nostro signore Gesu Christo et delli xij Apostoli et li priori et baili portano li piattj. Ordina gli officiali sopra la giusticia de vassalli dell’isola, tanto in criminale quanto civile con mero et mixto imperio et puo perdonare et permutare la pena all condemnatj. Et finalmente e signore absolute sopra li vassalli di d[e]tta [95/ 92v] isola Perche l’Imperatore concesse alla Relegione il dominio et autoritá di quella isola che lui teneva per lo tribute d’un falcone.

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La nominatione del vescovo di Malta, uno degli tre che la Relegione eligge et che l’Armilaglio debba fare suo officio come piu amplamente si vede nelle lettere della donatione, che sua Maesta ne fece di tutta isola et del castello et cittá di Tripoli. Giustiniano: Piacemi oltramodo havere inteso l’autorita et entrata del Gran Maestro che voi mi havete detto. Hora ditemi che entrata puo havere da per se sola la n[ost]ra Relegione? Cambiano: Voi mi domandate una cosa che sara molto difficile a dirla. Perch’essendoli [96/93r] benefitij nostri divisi et repartiti per tutta la Christianitá, mal si puo sapere il valore d’essa. Ma ben vi sapió a dire il valore delle responsioni et impositioni che la Relegione ne riceve al presente, quali si puó accrescere et diminuir[e] secondo l’occorrenze delli tempi et la necessità della Relegione come doppo intenderete. Quello ch’al presente se ne cava e da sessanta in settantamilia scudi oltra le spoglie de commendatori et Cavaglierj che si trovano alla morte et il vacante mortuor[um] delle commende. Giustiniano: Destinguete mi di gratia puntalmente come s’intende questo vacante mortuorum. Cambiano: Per il mortuorum s’intende tutte l’entrate [96/93v] che si truovano del di che muorano i commendatori sin’al di de San Giovanni il mese del Guigno. Per il vacante s’intendono tutti li fruttj et entrate che nella commenda si raccogliono dal di de San Giovani fin’al di dell’altro San Giovannj pure di Guigno cio e una annata intiera avvisandovi che tutti li fruttj et intrate di questo vacante mortuorum sono del Gran Maestro. Giustiniano: Et li creditori che forse si trouarrano nella morte del commendatore chi li pagha i suoi crediti? Cambiano: Li pagano delle spoglie che lasciano i commandatorj cio é delli frutte et entrate che potrebbono havere avanzate negli altri anj computato oro argento cavallj [97/94r] veste et altre robbe salvando li mobili ordinarij di casa ch’appartengono all commendatori et soccessori delle commende. Et se non vi fossero spoglie o tante ch’abbastassero a pagare li crediti si potrebbe pagare sopra li benj nuovamente acquistatj dalli commendatori. Et quando no vi fussero ne beni ne spoglie bisognarebbe che li creditori havessero a lor dispetto pacienza. Giustiniano: Et che ragione vi e che li creditori non si possono pagare delli frutti raccoltj vivendo il commendatore et prima, ch’egli morisse. Cambiano: Vi é questa che la Relegione é signora et padrona de tutti li beneficij nostri et dall’hora che muore il commendatore quale non se puo chiamare se non usuario o [97/94v] pure usufruttuario, tutti li frutti et entrate ch’ancora si ritruovano in essere sono della Relegione qual é proposta a tutti gli altri creditori. Et di questo ch’io dico n’appare nei Privilegij nostri per diverse sentenze date in favore della Relegione contra li creditorj, che pretendevano che il mortuorum non si mettesse a conto di spoglie. Perche sopra questi frutti la Relegione non ha d’havere le sue responsionj et impositioni

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ordinarii oltra che li puo gravare al suo beneplacito, il che non si puo fare delli frutti dell’altro anno che si contano in dispoglie. Perche gia il commandatore n’havea potuto disponere come usuario havendone gia pagate le sue impositioni et responsionj quelle ch’ancora non ha fatto delli fruttj [98/95r] di quell’anno. Giustiniano: Et se questi fruttj et entrate gia fossero state distribuite dal commendatore come si farrebbe? Cambiano: Bisognarebbe in questo caso che la Relegione havesse pacienza per che mortuorum s’intende di quello, che si ritruova in essere et non di quello che gia e distribuito. Et però siano cauti li creditori come vivono li commendatori et relegiosi nostrj per che questo voto di poverta che facciamo e molto favorevole per la Relegione. Giustiniano: Io non resto ancora molto ben sodisfatto ne chiaro di questo dubbio talche di gratia espianatelo meglio et fate ch’io vi capischi. Cambiano: Io ve ne chiariro meglio con un essempio a questo proposito ancora che paia differente. [98/95v] Se voi avete un servitore é un amico al quale per suoi meriti ó per altro voi doniate una possessione a godere in vita sua mediante una pensione o conto annuale s’occorresse che questo vostro amico o servitore venesse a morte senza haverai pagata la vostra pensione o censo, et che lasciasse I frittj di detta possession in esser’ non pigliaresti voi quelli frutti non obstante che vi fussero altri creditorj? Giustiniano: Si per che farei conto che li fruttj raccolti sopra il mio sono miei doppo la morte di coluj che non mi ha pagato il debito censo o pensione. Cambiano: Il simile accade alla Relegione per che e padrona et noi siamo i servitori, che riconosciamo questi benj da lei, quali beni sono molto differentj dagli altri beneficij [99/96r] ecclesiasticj le commende dell quali i Cavaglieri sono usufruttuarj et amministratorj et il titolo di Commandatore altro non significa se non che tengono questi beni per raccomandati durante la vita loro. Giustiniano: Io ne resto sodisfatto. Hor ditemi se’l sapete pero se la nostra Religione have altr’entrate. Cambiano: Vi sono li guadagni ch’alle volte fano le nostre galere di navilj robbe schiavi infedele quali navilj quando si combatteno la robba che si truova sopra coperta va a battino et di questa di bassa coperta resta alla Religione. Et quando li navilj si rendono senza combattere tutta la robba e della Religione. Et questa non si puo mettere per entrata ord[inari]a [99/96v] per esser cosa incerta et ch’accade di raro et allo sepsso. Li carrichi et spese della Religione sono grandi. Perche sempre si trattengono et fanno le spese a cinque o sei cento Cava[glie]ri et tra spese et soldee vi corre molto. Benche li commandatori o altri che tengono entrate della Religione non prendono soldea et le medicine che si danno agli infirmi con dette spese costono poco manco che a ragione di cento cinquantamilia scudj all anno oltre la pensione del Gran Maestro gia detta. Si trattengono di continuo quattro galere armate et bonissini in ordine che costano da sette a otto milia scudi l’una. Perch’ogn’una d’esse porta piu di

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cento huominj da combattar oltre gli Cavag[lie]ri [100/97r] et suoi servidori et la piu parte degli galiotti di buona voglia alli quali a luogo et tempo se gli danno armi da combattere che fanno il suo debito et si portano valorosamente. S’intertiene la Chiesa della Religione al servitio della quale vi sono molte religiosi nostri cappellani de tutte le lingue cio é provista de ricchi et suntuosi paramenti d’oro et d’argento et da seta con tante ceremonie et apparato che si puo equiparare et aguagliare a qualsivoglia vescovado di Christianita. Il capo et presidente d’essa si domanda il prior della Chiesa eletto tra il numero de tutti li Cappellani il quale porta la Gran Croce et precede a tutti baili et priori. [100/97v] Intrattiene la infermeria o’vero Hospitale con grandissima et inestimabile spesa. Perch’ in essa si accettano tutti gli infirmi tanto religiosi come secolari et sono serviti et curatj con ogni deligenza et amorevolezza [da]l l’Hospitaliere Mag [gio]re il capo della lingua di Francia il quale quasi ogni mattina la visita et gli da il pane con sua propria mano. Si eleggono dui Cavaglieri, che si domandano Bredonij dell’ infirmaria, quali hanno cura che gli infermi siano ben trattati et curati et che li medici et chirurgi et altri offitiali facciono il suo debito visitandoli al spesso et almeno due volte il giorno. Et quello ch’e megliore s’ha grande avvertenza che le medicine et sciroppi et altre cose di spitiaria siano in tutta perfettione. [101/98r] Al governo dell’infermaria vi é un frate sergente, chi si dimanda Infermiere, quale ha la cura che le guardie cio e huomini deputatj per la guardia et custodia degli infirmi siano condecenti et pratticci et che la cucina si faccia secondo gli ordini de medicj, et alla amministratione delli nobili fornementi di litti et altre cose di detta infermaria qual é luogo privilegiato de franchigia in refugio de delinguenti pur che non sia d’enorme et vituperoso delitto. Si fa anco gran spesa nelle fabriche delle fortezze massime da poi che siano venuti in Malta ch’e bisognato fortificare il Castello fare la muraglia della terra tutta intieramente di nuovo et la fortezza de Santo Ermo, principiata in tempo del [101/98v] prior di Capua Strozzi per defension della entrata del Castello cio é della porta d’esso et del porto di Marza Musetto dove entro l’armata turchesca l’anno 1552 et la fortezza dell’isola Claudiana fatta nuovamente per l’habitatione delli nostril sudditj et molte altre fabriche nelle quali vi correno grossissime spese all Religione. Si fanno, et si destribuiscono continuamente larghissime et grande elemosine alli Greci ch’hanno abbandonata la Città et l’isola de Rhodi per seguire la nostra Religione oltre altre elemosine che si fanno allj poveri ch’erano in Malta et sono al presente di gran numero. Si spende assai nella compra et condotta delli granj vinj et legne che si conducono da [102/99r] Sicilia per il vitto et intertinemento della Religione et isola di Malta quale da se é tanto sterile che non si raccoglie in essa grano che possi piu bastare che per quattro mesi dell’anno poco piu o meno secondo li raccoltj. Vi sono doppo li stipendij et salarij di gran numero d’offitiali et ministri che intratiene la Relegione continuamente tanto in Malta quanto nelle provintie de Christiani per recuperatione delli suoi dirittj.

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Altre spese si fanno per la fabrica delli navilij le galere et altri accidenti che saria cosa prolissa a narragli tutti particularmente. Giustiniano: Mi maraviglio che tra tanto numero di Cavaglieri de diverse nationi non interveng[o]no [102/99v] continuamente delle discordie risse questioni et rumori massime quando sono discordie et guerre tra questi principi et per lo naturale odio che pure vi sia tra le nationi come s’e visto altrove apertamente. Cambiano: Dio sino al presente ci ha liberati per sua infinita bontà da queste discordie et cose spero ci liberarà da qui avanti oltra che per la conservation’ dell’ unione haveono bonissimo ordine. Perche prima tra’ le nationi non s’ha’ da divider cosa d’interesse qual’e la radice et il proprio et vero fundamento delle discordie gia che come vi ho detto ogni natione ha le sui entrate separate. Perch’un Italiano non può havere entrate in Francia ne in Spagna, ne un spagniolo le può [103/100r] havere in Italia o in Francia ma ogni lingua et natione ha la sua remuneratione et il suo assignamento nel suo paese come piu difusamente vi ho ragionato di sopra. Et se la nella Religione vi sono alcuni offitj communi quelli si repartino per il Gran Maestro et Conseglio di tale modo che non vi puo nascere ne invidia ne discordia alcuna. Poi nel sedere nel pratticare et nella conversatione ogn’uno sa il grado suo conforme alla antianità cio é del tempto ch’hanno presa la Croce quale antianità é milto riputata et estimata tra di noi et per ordinario le nationi hanno le sue prattiche et conversationi tra di loro et se pure alla volta ci nascesse alcuna discordia subbito il Gran Maestro et Cons[igli]o [103/100v] vi provede de guistitia castigando gli insolenti et tronca di fatto con l’autthorità sua ogni inconveniente oltre ch’ogni honorato cavagliere dall’hora che prende l’habito et si fa religioso deve lasciare ogni partialità et privato da canto et accettare tutti gli altri religiosi della congregatione per fratelli. Perche tutti siamo uno istesso et Christianj et tutti combattiamo per la fede de Christo nostro Redentore. Ho visto alla presa di Coron di Patrasso et d’altri luoghi di Levante che vi son presi che le galere nostre erano in conserva dell’armata del’imperatore che li cavalieri Francesi facevano cosi bene il suo debito come si fussero stati Spagnuoli a pure al servitio del suo Re di Francia [104/101r] il simile anco s’e visto nella presa della Goletta, di Tunisi, et d’Africa et nell’altre imprese che si sono fatte in Barbaria parendomi poi ch’havevano tutti uno habito esser parimente giusto ch’habbiano tutti una medesima voluntà per la conservatione et augmentatione della nostra Religione et per defensione anco della fede Christiana conforme al giuramento che si fa quando s’entra alla Religione. Che fandono altrimenti si riputarrebbono per spergiuri et indegni di quel habito et del nome de Cava[lie]re. Guistiniano: Ditemi, se vi piace et se sapete, chi ha authorità di poner le gravezze sopra li nostri beneficij er di che modo si mettono? [104/101v] Cambiano: Nella nostra Religione vi sono tre principali tribunali, cio é il Capitolo Generale, il Conseglio compito, et il Conseglio ordinario. Ve ne sono poi altri due stravaganti cio é lo Sguardio et l’Audienza, delli quali parlaro dichiarato ch’habbia gl’altri primj.

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Il Capitolo Generale si deve tenere ogni tre ó quattro annj una volta et in quello sono obligati et quasi astretti ritrovarsi tutti li Baili, Priori, Commendatori, Cav[alie]ri, Religiosi di nostro ordine, personalmente o pure quando siano occupati da questo impedimento per idonei procuratori. Ogni lingua elegge un procuratore li Commandatori d’ogni priorato similmente eleggono et fanno per loro un’altro procuratore. [105/102r] Li Baili et Priori si sono assenti et non presenti hanno d’eliggere un procuratore per uno di modo che per esserno quarantanove gran Grocj dovrebbono essere quarantanove Capitolantj oltre li procuratori de Prioratj o lingue che sono circa trentadue. Bench’alcuni sono che non vengono ne mandano ma non obstante sua assenza et che per loro non vi compara nessuno sono obligati tener’per dato et grato quello che nel Capitolo Generale s’ordina et conclude. Il Gran Maestro accompagnato da tuttj li Cavalieri della Religione il di prefisso et statuito a questo va alla chiesa nell’aurora dove per il Prior della Chiesa con sollemnità si celebra la messa del Spirito Santo il quale devotamente pregano [105/102v] et invocano che gli conceda gratia et illuminj accio che si possa consultare et ordinare con buona mente li negocij publici. Finita la messa, il Gran Maestro con tutta la compagnia degli Capitolanti et delli Religiosi salendo dalla chiesa va al luogo deputato per il Capitolo accompagnato con solenne processione dove é il Priore della Chiesa con l’habito ponteficale con li Cappellani Diaconi et clericj vanno cantando l’himno dello Spirito Santo pervenuto al luogo del Capitolo si canta Salvos fac servos tuos et si dice l’oratione dello Spirito Santo dopo un sacerdote canta l’evangelo Cum veneris filius hominis etc. Il che fatto il Gran Maestro con li Baili Priori et altri Capitolantj secondo il grado di loro degnita [106/103r] et preheminenza si pongono a sedere et si legge la Regola. Et doppó si fa un sermone per persona dotta et safficiente nel quale si raccorda quello che concerne l’utilità publica et la salute de loro anime. Finito questo li Cappellani et quelli che non hanno da intervenire in Capitolo si partono et doppo il Gran Maestro ricorda quello che gli pare che sia al proposito per loro stato della Religione et per li negocij pulicj. Il secondo di convengono li Capitolanti nel luogo del Capitolo et col Gran Maestro eleggono commissarij de quelli che sogliono essere del Conseglio Ordinario accio che veggano et reconoscono come prattici le procure et madatj dell Baili Priori et [106/103v] altri che sono obligatj venire a detto Capitolo con intervento pero del uno Cancell[ie]re et se le procure si truovano idonee et sufficienti s’accettano et ammettono et l’altre si rifiutano. Il che fatto li Baili Priori Cappellani d’emposte et altri Capitolanti et Procuratori hanno una borsa per uno col suo nome scritto et dentro cinq[ue] granettj d’argento moneta che si constuma in Rhodi in segno de disponim[en]to alla quale e ligato un rotolo o scrittura che contiene lo stato del suo offitio con la memoria di quello gli pare esser necessario per il ben publico et con essa il sigillo del suo officio et la presenta al Gran Maestro et con reverenza le bascia la mano andando ogn’uno secondo il suo ordine [107/104r] et preheminenza et il Marescalco presenta la bandiera o sia stendardo della Religione.

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Presentate le borse li rotoli et la bandiera si deservie il nome delli Capitolanti doppó si leggono li rotole dal vice Cancelliere con alta et intelligibe voce secondo il grado et preheminenza de quelli che gli hanno presentati. Lettj li rotoli si procede all’elettione delli xvi. Capitolanti. Et in questo modo li frati incorporatj nel Capitolo separatamente ogni lingua per se si congrega et ogni lingua elegge due della sua natione de quelli che sono del Capi et idonei et sufficienti et si presentano al Gran M[aestr]o. Questi sidici cosi eletti con ogni reverenza alla presenza del Gran Maestro et Cap[itol]o [107/104v] giurano che per posposto et lasciato da canto ogni privato affetto consultarranno un’ordinario et discornerranno quello che sará honore, et utile della Relegione et delli fratj. Dall’altra parte il Gran Maestro con gli altri Capitulanti con giuramento promettono d’haver grato tutto quello che per li xvi. sopradettj sará concluso deliberato et ordinato. Doppo li xvi. si ritirano in una sala da parte et con essi il procuratore del Gran Maestro, quale ha voto consultativo et non decisivo et il vice cancelliere per scrivere le sue delliberationj. Et tutti giunti, trattano concludono et delliberano li negotij et tutto il necessario et appartinente alla Religione nella forma sequente. [108/105r] Prima nell’impositioni delle responsionj per sussenire alli carrichi della Religione et quella aiutare doppo il governo et raggimento del Tesoro o sia esario et poi visitano li rotoli gia elitti per le reformation delli Constumj et per institutioni delle leggi et finalmente dell’altre ordinationi et negotij occurentj et concernenti allo stato publico. Fra tanto il Gran Maestro con gli altri Capitulantj attendono ad altre particolarita come sarrebbe all’appelationi delle liti a dare licenza di testare et permutare et molti altri casi che non si ponno fare no eseguire o pur concedere senza licenza del Capitolo Generale. Et in questo si attende quindici di continuj et perche non si ponno spedire tutti li negotj occurrentj in quindici di per authorità [108/105v] del Conseglio Generale si concede che’l Conseglio finito possa compire il restante delli negotij prefigendoli il termine de tanti giorni che gli pareranno necessarij per tale espeditioni et questi si dimandano Consegli de Retentione. L’ultimo di del Capitolo a suono di campana convengono tutti li Cavalierj et Religiosi al luogo del Capitolo con la sua solenne processione delli Cappellani. Et il vice cancelliere alla presenza de tutti publica et legge le conclusioni et Statuti et ordinationi fatte per li xvi. sig[no]ri Capitulanti. Et doppo il Gran Maestro restituisce ad ogn’uno le sue borse et sigillo et al Manicchiardo la banderia. Il che fatto lo Cappellani rendono gratie a Dio dicendo l’orationi che nelli stabilimenti [109/106r] et ordinationi nostre particolarmente si contengono. Giustiniano: Voi havete molto summariamente detto il modo et ordine ch’osservano quelli xvi. Capitolanti nel tassare I beneficij, ch’e quello ch’io piu desideravo sapere et de che vi ho dimandato di modo che non vi ho bene inteso et sara bene piacendovj che lo diciate piu chiaro. Cambiano: Io vi ho detto precisamente quello che si descrive negli stabilimenti nostri sopra la celebration del Capitolo Generale ma poiche desiderate sapere il modo et la maniera con che procedono non mi sara punto grave

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dirvelo sapendolo bene et per che ne sono pienamente informato et intervenuto anco a miei tempi a questi Capitoli Generali. [109/106v] Ritrati che si sono questi xvi. signorj nella sua sala fanno chiamare lo scrivano dell’erario et vedono particolamente tutta la spesa et carrichi che tiene la Relegione per intrattinimento delli Cavalierj delle galere delle fabriche delle pensioni delle vettovaglie munitioni et altra cosa necessaria. Et sommano la quantita delli denari che bisognano per lo intrattinemento et sostentamento d’essa sanno doppó il valore delli priorati bagliaggi commende beneficij della Religione quali tassano al terzo al quarto o’ piu o’ manco per cavare et estrahere qualche somma o quantita che e calculata et extratta per il bisogno della Relegione secondo che pareva loro esser espediente et che chi li possiede nò sia agravato. [110/107r] Giustiniano: Parmi, che queste impositioni non si facciano et non siano del tutto guiste et uguali. Perch’alcuna commenda paga poco et vale assai et altre valeno assaj poco et paga assai et piu di quello che importa la sua rata et di ragione tutte dourrebbono pagare ugualmente et conformi a quel che se ne percepe. Cambiano: Questo non é colpa delli xvi. sig[no]ri quali non vorrebbono fare aggravio alcuno, ma é colpa et merito delli commendatori che sono stati buoni et mali amministratori che doppo l’ultime visite hano augmentate ò peggiorate le sue commende et beneficij. É colpa ancora delle guerre et de tempi ch’accrescono et diminuiscono l’entrate secondo l’occorenza per la verificatione et intelligentia delle quale [110/107v] entrate s’era ordinato nel Capitolo, che si tenne in Malta l’anno 1539, che si facessero nuove visite per tutti li beneficij nostri, et per tal’effetto furono deputati li commissarij ma per le guerre ch’erano fra li principi non si puote esseguir et fra tanto si fecero le tasse conformi al solito. Giustiniano: Li vacanti mortuorum et le despoglie non si mettono a conto per intratinimento dello carrichi ordinarij della Religione? Cambiano: Di ragione no. Perche l’impositioni et responsioni dourrebbono supplire all’ordinario et li vacanti mortuorum et le spoglie si dourrebbono conservar’ nell’erario per li carrichi straordinarij come sarrebbe quando vengono armate del Turco che bisogna fare preperation de soldatj et quando [111/108r] occorre alcuna disgratia di sommersione di galere o altri navilij o che si fa alcuna impresa per mare o per terra oltre il solito ma da molti anni in qua quelle spese sono quasi ordinarie, perche ogni anno habbiamo l’armata Turcesca a questi mari et bisogna fare nuove fortezze et preparationi de soldati et quando occorre alcuna desgratia far conduirre monitioni et vettovaglie a tempi convenienti perche alle volte sono piu cari del solito siche si consuma l’ordinario et straordinario massime stando in quella isola di Malta che bisogna comprare sino all’aqua per sterelità del luogo. Giustiniano: Viniamo all’autthorita del Conseglio Ordinario et ditemi come si procede nelle liti et differenze che nascono tra Cavalieri ta[n]to [111/108v] civili quanto criminali et chi n’ha il carico et n’é giudice? Cambiano: Nel Consiglio Ordinario intervengono il Gran Maestro il vescovo di Malta il Prior della Chiesa gli otto Baili conventiali tutti i Priori che

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si truovano in convento li Baili Capitolari et il tesoriero con il vice Cancelliero quale non ha voto alcuno ma scrive tutti li decreti sentenze et app[ellazio]ni del Conseglio quale Cons[egli]o ha prima cognitione de tutte le cause liti et differenze che s’agitano tra li nostri Religiosi, et si osserva uno stile assai breve et lodevole nelle speditioni delle liti quale e questo. Compareno li litigantj in Conseglio et narrano succintamente le cause delle sue defferenze et dimandano commissarij per [112/109r] intenderle. Il Gran Maestro et Conseglio diputano commissarij d’altre lingue che non sono li litigantj con l’authorita d’intendere le parti vedere le scritture et essendo bisogno ch’esaminano testimonj produtti dalle parti et che’l tutto referiscono in Conseglio et é in libertà delli litiga[n]ti di dare per sospetti di commissarij o qual tenaglia d’essi. Purch’allegliono la causa della sospitione et che sia vera qual’essendo conosciuta legitima segli da altro o altri commissarij allequando le sue ragioni et quivi producono le sue scritture et prosecurono d’ottenere suo intento concludono le cause con le suoi debiti termini et competenti dilationi che li sono assignate da commissarij. Il che fatto et produtto il tutto li commissarij discorreno tra essj [112/109v] l’allegationi delle parti et prendono conseglio et parere dalli commendatori et Cavalieri sopra le difficolta delle cause et alcuna volta ricercano da dottori il paper loro. Doppo ad instanza delle parti et a loro presenza referiscono in Consiglio tuttj li meriti della causa et é licito a litigant replicare le loro ragioni per essere meglio intesi. Finito il contrasto li commissarij et le parti et tutti quelli che non sono del Cons[igli]o partono et il Gran Maestro et Consiglio disputano et pratticano sopra l’allegationi fatte dalle parti et di nuovo fanno chiamare li commissarij quali danno conto et ragione delli meriti della causa et dicono il parer loro et doppo partono et il Gran Maestro et Consiglio disputano. Et dopo disputato si partono dal Cons[igli]o et [113/110r] danno la sentenza et si apre il Conseglio et il vice Cancelliere legge le sentenze et decreti fatti dalli quali é licito appellarsi al Conseglio compiuto salvo in tre casi cio é quando un commandatore per sentenza é habilitato alla Gran Croce quando s’agita de casi criminali et quando s’agita de conventioni regolari cio é contra un transgressore della nostra Regola. Et et dal Conseglio compiuto si possono appellar al Capitolo Generale, ma tra tanto le sentenze del compiuto si pongono in essecutione. Il Conseglio Ordinario há ancora authorità d’eleggere uffitiali et ministri della Religione come sarrebbono ambasciatori recevitori agentj procuratori et altri offitialj et ministri. Nelle cause criminali si procede come nelle civilj [113/110v] ma vi e questa differenza che nelle civili non si fa processo alcuno et nelle criminali si et con stipulationi di notario et procurator fiscal. Giustiniano: Che differenza vi e dal Conseglio Ordinario al Compiuto et ch’autthorita ha piu questo di quello? Cambiano: Vi é questa, che nel Consiglio Compiuto sono incorporati il Gran Maestro con tutti quelli del Consiglio Ordinario et de piu altri xvi. commendatori et le diffinitioni et sentenze delli quali si passano per voti ó per bollette, accio ch’ognuno sia piu libero nel sententiare et giudicare. Il Conseglio

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Compiuto ha ancora authorità d’eleggere il Capitano, quando si fa essercito da terra, et retrovandosi Cavalieri sofficienti, et idonej nella [114/111r] lingua d’Alvernia quello e preposto agli altri. Elegge ancora il Capitano dell’Armata maritima et se nella lingua d’Italia vi e persona sufficiente et idonea é preposta agli altri ma non s’in dette lingue d’Alvernia et d’Italia non vi fossero religiosi sufficientj per si honoratj carrichi il Gran Maestro et Consiglio Compiuto provedono d’altri senza pregiuditio però della preeminentia de dette lingue havendo piu respetto alli benemeriti Cav[alie]ri ch’all antianita. Eligge ancora il Castellano qual é offitio sopra la quistitia delli secolari et li due Procuratori delli poveri, delli quali l’uno ha d’esser dottor. Molte altre cose si potrebbono dire della autthorità di questo Consiglio che per brevita preferisco concludendo, che li [114/111v] occorrenza et negocij della Relegione si dicedono et deffiniscono per questo Cons[igli]o massime per il Consiglio Ordinario ch’ogni settimana si tiene due o tre volte. Si tiene ancora una volta la settimana l’audienza pubblica cio é il vernadi, nella quale intervengono il Gran Maestro con tutti li signori del Cons[igli]o Ordinario il Castellano et il Giudice dell’Appellationi et l’Ordinario il Capitano il Giudice della Citta et lo Mastro Notaro della Castellania et é licito al Gran Maestro et Cons[igli]o de chiamare altri prelati se gli pare. Et in questa audienza si sentono le querele et si leggono le supplicationi delli secolari et se gli provede secondo l’occorrenze delli casi debitamente accio ogn’uno habbia il suo et se le liti si diffiniscono vi e doppo altro [115/112r] tribunale ch’anticamente ne fu ordinato per piu breve speditioni delle liti che si domando lo Sguardio nel quale i Cav[alie]ri giudicano le causa senza intervento del Gran Maestro et Conseglio ma però con sua licenza et vi é l’appellatione dallo Sguardio al resforzo di sguardio et doppo all’altro risforzo dove vi interveniva piu quantità de giudici ma al presente pare che non sia piu in uso non ostante che li Statuti largamente ne parlino, et io non l’ho visto attendere se non nelli cause criminali, quando si prattica di levar’ la Croce ad alcuno Cavalieri per li suoi demeriti o religioso nel qual caso lo Sguardio rivede li processi agitati in Conseglio Ordinario, et dà sentenza contra li malefattori quale sentenza si metter in essecutione se’l [115/112v] Gran Maestro non gli perdona ó commuta la pena il che si fa secondo sono li delitti che si commettono da Cavalieri o d’altrj. Giustiniano: Poi ch’havete discorso degli ordini che s’osservano dalla Religione nella celebration del Capitolo Generale sara bene che mi dechiate ancora come si celebrano li capitoli provinciali et quale sia la sua authorità perche non obstante che qua lo tengono ogn’anno non si sà se lo facciamo con tutte le ceremonie che si connengono. Cambiano: Li Capitoli provinciali conforme alli stabilimenti nostri si dourebbono tenere il di de San Giovani de Guigno giorno dedicato al nostro protettore San Gio[vani] Battista. Et prima si sente la messa dello [116/113r] Spirito Santo et si dicono le medesime orationi come al’ Capitolo Generale. Nel Capitolo sono obligati ritrovarsi li Priori Baili Commendatori di qual Priorato specialmente in persona salva sempre legitima occupatione sotto pena di pagare doppia pensione. Et congregate nel luogo Capitolare si

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leggono alcuni stabilimenti accio ch’ognuno habbia cognitione della Regola modi et stili della Religione quali stabilimenti sono annotati particolarmente nel volume delli Statuti. Et poi il Ricevetore presenta i suoi libri et si leggono al Priore et Capitolo dando conto delli denarj che si sono recuperatj et venuti in manitia a conto della Religione et da notitia si sono depositate ó se le tiene appresso di se mostrandone la chiarezza o sia polizza, et dechiarà [116/113v] li commandatori ch’hanno pagato suoi dirittj al tesoro et quelli che sono debitori et la summa che deveno. Ali quali il Prior ordiná et essorta et command ache debbiano sodisfare et pagare avante che si partano dal Capitolo altrimente si procedera alla sequestratione delli frutti et delle commende. Et s’alcuno Commend[ato]re fosse renitente si proceda contra di lui alla privation della commenda, nel che il Priore é obligato dare ogni auito et favore accio che con ogni rigore si proceda contra liniali pagatori. Nelli Capitoli provinciali s’affitano li vacanti et mortuarij dandogli a gli piu offerentj si sentono et decidano le querele che sono tra li nostri religiosi et laici si danno commissarij per vedere li miglioramentj delle commende [117/114r] et per fare le pruove della nobilita delli gentil’huomini che vogliono essere Cavalieri si anco per intender’ l’agravij che si fanno per caso alli Commandatorj et Cavalieri dalli principi et communita per inosservatione delli privilegij ó per altri casi. Et a quelli si provede senza dano della Relegione. Pero si procura, che li prelati non occupino nostra giuridittione et che li privilegj concessi dalla Sede Apostolica ne siano osservati. S’attende et provede a molte altre particolarità et occorenze, ch’accadano. Ha autthorità di provedere due commende con l’unione di due piccolo in una et di permutare li membri piu vicino essendo poco li membri che si commutano membri d’altre commende il che si fa per piu commodita et utile delli Comm[endato]ri. [117/114v] Giustiniano: Ditemi, che differenza é tra le semblee et li Capitoli Generali, ó per dir meglio, provinciali. Perche alle volte vengono provisioni dal Gran Maestro, ch’ordina, che si habbiano d’esigere in Capitolo Generale ó simblea et qual vocabulo é usitato tra noi. Cambiano: Simblea é parola francese, ch’altro non significa, che congregatione et si può ten[e]re sempre ch’occorrano alcune difficultà sopra le quali il Priore voglia haverre il parere d’alcuno commandatore, et se puo tenere essendosi il Priore con almeno tre religiosi accettati in convento. Hà auttorità di dare commissioni per le pruove de gentil’huomini et di effettuare quello che dal Gran Maestro ó dalla Releg[io]ne gli vien’ordinato in convento. Alle quattro [118/115r] tempora dell’anno si tengono le simblee dove il Gran Maestro con il Consiglio et tutti li relegiosi si congreggano nella chiesa nell’alba et si legge la Regola. Doppó il Gran Maestro riprende li mali costumi et defetti de suoi relegiosi persuadendo et essortando ogn’uno al ben vivere et al star attentj et vigilanti al servitio de Dio et sua Relegione. Si viene ancora a simblea quando si priva dall’habito alcun religioso delinquente. Et in essa non intraviene il Gran Maestro ma solo il suo luogotenente con li signori del’Consiglio per le gia dette cause. Havete inteso in punto che differenza sia tra simblea et tra il Capitolo provinciale. Il Capitolo non si fa se

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no una volta l’anno et le simblee si possono fare ad ogni beneplacito de Priori, li quali fano [118/115v] presenza nelli suoi prioratj, ó vero dalli suoi lougotenentj, secondo l’occorrenze et negotij. Giustiniano: Hormai mi havete detto tutto quello desideravo sapere quanto agli ordini et stilj di nostra Relegione ne saprei piu che dimandarvj. Però quando vi piaccia dirmi il parer vostro, et le cagioni perche la Relegione non possa perpetuare in Malta et che sarrebbe meglio habitar’ la Città di Tripoli, vi ascoltarò molto volentierj et ve ne diró anche io il parer mio perche non manco di voi desiderio l’augmentatione et la conservatione essa. Cambiano: La principale causa, che mosse Fra Flippo de Villert et la Relegione a dimandare Malta all’Imperatore non fu per che determinasse di far vi la sua continuata residenza [119/116r] ma solo per potersi ricoverar’ in quelle parti ó in qualch’altro luogo, finche Dio ne’ provedesse d’altro piu comodo luogo che questo non era, parendogli esser’ manco male stare in Malta sopra il suo et tenere li Cav[alie]ri suoi raccoltj ch’andar vagando, et habilitare in terre aliene come si fece in Viterbo, Niza, et Siracusa, et ancora per potere essercitar’ le galere nostre contra infedeli servando la professione et debito nostro il che male si poteva fare habitando altrove ove si non si fosse stato signore del luogo. Aspirava il Gran Maestro et li capi nostri alla recuperatione de Rhodi, dal quale luogo non gli mancavano gli intendimentj. Si prattico per la presa di modo qual’hebbe effetto ma non con quello compimento et riuscita, che tutti speravano. Ancor che [119/116v] con sette galere sacchigiassimo la città con mortalitá grande de Turchi et altri habitatori di essa, dalla quale menassimo priggioni tutte le donne et giovanettj fanciulli [es]sendo Capitano delle galere il Prior di Roma Fra Bernardo Salviatj, che si portó honoratissimamente, et con effetto si vedde che quella città non sarrebbe stata al proposito per nostra habitatione, per non esser vi porto capace di navj non di altri grossi vaselli, oltra che la potenza del Turcho era tale che malamente in quell luogo gli haveressimo potuto fare contrasto bastante, di anco perche a questi tempi non bisogna fare disegno in città alcuna posta nell’isola di Levante. Perche se ben noi fussemo sufficienti d’occupare qualche luogo ó città non lo vedere come [120/117r] ben si potesse defendere et mantener’ essendo che poca speranza possiamo havere dal soccorso de principi Christiani, nelle discordie loro occupati, oltre che non mi pare che si debba procurare di perseverare l’habitatione di Malta, luogo sterile per natura, et mal’sano per il gran caldo che vi fa l’estate, si che pare che quelle putregittino fuoco. Onde questo altro ve si agiunge, che gli huomini sono forzati come a mangiar fruttj et fare altri dissordini, che partoriscono infirmita incurabili. La parte poi dove habita la Relegione vicina all porto é aspra et inculta, di modo che non vi é luogo dove si possa spatiando recrear l’animo, tal che malvolentieri li Cavalierj vi stanno. Bisogna poi che tutte le vettovaglie vengono da Sicilia, perche nell’isola [120/117v] non vi é ne grano, ne vino, ne legne, me carne, ne manco habilità di poterre haver’ per industria humana. Et se pur qualche cosa vi si raccoglie non basta per quattro ó sei mesi dell’anno per uso di Maltesi. Di pollamj, ve n’é, perche tutto

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l’ano ve si nodriscono polli, lepri, pernice, et altre salvaticene ve n’é gran copia. Perche e per li mali et aspri camini non vi é delettatione di caccia. All’incontro della Città, qual’é discosta dall’habitatione della Relegione sei ó settemiglia vi sono alcuni giardini nelle vallette delle colline con alcuni fonti d’acqua dolce et campi cultivati, ma li Maltesi ve siminano piutosto bombace che frumento per esser quella di maggior utilitá. Il circuito dell’isola non é piu di 40 miglia, et é cosa meravigliosa, ch’in si poco spatio et luogo [121/118r] sterile vi sono tanti habitantj, percio che in ogni parte vi sono casali et villaggi di 100 et 200 fuochi per ciascuno. In luogo di legne usano li cardi secchi, et con lo sterco del bue secco al sole coceno lo pane. Il suo ordinario bere é acqua piovana, conservata nelle cisterne pura, delle qual conserve tutta l’isola n’é abondante per esser tutta petrosa come hò detto. Gli huomini sono assai robusti per uso ch’hanno fatto al continuo travaglio, oprano la lingua Moresca per la vicinitá di Barbaria, benche la maggior parte de principali intendono la lingua Italiana, et si truovano Maltesi assaj che passano cento an’i, come huomini assuefatti a quell’aere et per la simplicitá di cibi con che vivono. L’isola e copiosa de pozzi con gran fondo, pur tittavia vi é carestia [121/118v] d’acqua. Vi piove di raro et vi signoreggiano venti impetuosissimj per esser la piu parte pianura òvero colline ma bassissime. Le frutte sono assai saporitj specialmente l’uve, et meloni, ancor che ve si truovano poche vigne. Viso dette queste proprietà dell’isola, accio che sappete la poca commodita et il poco utile che la Relegione ne riceve et quanta disconvenga ch’una Relegione si honorata, nella quale vi sono delli primi gentil’huomini della Christianità, debbia stare in luogo tanto dishonorato et sterile dove altre volte di Spagna et d’Italia si confinavano banditj, et altre persone simili per castigo de suoi demeriti, de quali vi sono persone, che discendono et tirano la nobilità loro dalle prime case d’Italia et di Spagna, et le quale prima che la Releg[io]ne [122/119r] havesse il dominio di quel luogo, essi n’erano capi e quasi padroni tal ch’essi con mal animo fin’ad hora comportano che la Relegione l’habbia posto il freno et levate le quella autthorità, che s’havevono usurpata sopra li poveri habitatori. Et per questo essi ogni giorno cercano et procurano qualche novita contra di noi tal ch’ora dal’Imperad[o]re hora dal Vice Re di Sicilia sono ricorsi con sinistre imputationj, infamandoci, et querulandosi de noi. Ancorche poi se sia proveduto al tutto con nostra giustificatione et reconosciutasi la loro inquità et malignita con confusion et opprobio loro. Li quali tutti discomodi et disaggi si potrebbono comportare quando noi sperassimo col tempo potere ampliare il nostro dominio, ma [122/119v] stando rinchiusi in una isola com’é quella non so, che speranza possiamo havere d’accrescere et augmentare giamai le cose nostre, per le cause sudette et per altre, che si potrebbono dire. Però sarej di parere che si abbondanasse Malta et che si facesse ogni sforzo possibile per habitar Tripoli di Barbaria, quale si farebbe inespugnabile, per essere in sito forte et che le due parti sono circondate dal mare, et la parte di terra é circondata da fossi et muraglie la quale facilmente si ridurebbe, in

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modo che si defonderia d’ogni potente essercito. La parte della marina ancor lei ha muraglia et torrioni all’antica, pero sono di modo tale ch’anch’essi con qualche poca spesa si farrebbono, et [123/120r] ridurrebbono fortissime. Il posto é capace di navilj et galere che tutte si possono accostare all Città. Vero é che le navi grosse di portata di 2000 salme di grano non possono appressarsi all Città piu presso che mezzo miglio et ivi é buono sorgitore. All’incontro della Città non vi é luogo eminente donde li nemici potesero danneggiarla, non si puó dubitar’ de mine per essere il terreno arenoso, et abbondante d’acque et de fonti le quali si truovano cavando sei ò sette passi sotto terra, onde si potrebbe con questa via fare li fossi pieni d’acqua, la quale non potrebbe in modo alcun essere impedita dagli nemici. Ma quello, che piu importa é che cento miglia verso Levante [123/120v] et altre cento verso Ponente non vi é porto alcuno, dove l’armata de nemici potesse sicuramente fermarsi, di modo ch’io giudico che Tripoli sarrebbe assai piu forte di Malta et il paese megliore ad habitarsi. Giustiniano: Le ragioni, che voi mi allegate hanno assai de verosimile, ma dubito, che le forze de nostra Relegione non bastino per habitare et radicarsi in una Città posta alle confine degli nemici, anzi nelle lor parti. Cambiano: Che le nostre forze abbastassero non presumo dire. Senza dubbio, che bisognarrebbe ricorrere a principi Christiani per aiuto. Perche certo credo ch’ognun di loro non manchariá ad una impresa tanto signalata. Tanto piu, che s’é veduto [124/121r] che’l Papa, l’Imperadore, et il Re di Francia, tutti sempre si sono mostrati desiderosi della conservatione del nostro ordine, et ne’ hanno sempre favorito, et aiutato. Giustiniano: In questo certo ce bisognarebbe piu tosto l’aiuto de contantj, che il favor de principe alcuno. Alla qual sorte di soccorso mal volentieri pongono li sig[no]ri del mondo. Cambiano: Vi diró un remedio, che ne potrebbe pruovare assai. Io ho pratticato altre volte essendo in Germania per servitio dell’unione, che si facesse una unione della Relegion de Portia et della nostra, di che ne ragionai con il signor Don Ferrante Gonzaga, ch’in quel tempo si ritruovava in Spira, alla corte dell’Imperadore, si che [124/121v] per havere quell signore un figliolo Cavalieri delli nostri, et per esser’egli vi a Re de Sicilia alla quale siamo vicini et dalla quale habbiamo mille commodita et dove ogni giorno ricorriamo da lui si dimostró molto nostro affettionato et narrandogli io il beneficio grande, che universalmente ne risultarebbe á tutta la Christianitá, et particolarmente á tutti i luoghi maritimj de Christiani, quando essa Religione fosse congionta con la nostra, et che sarrebbe cagione, che si potrebbono tenere x. or xij. galere, esso signore si mostrò molto inclinato, et desideroso, che si facesse questa unione. Si reprattico con il Gran Maestro di quella Relegione, ch’in quel tempo era un [125/122r] Corrado di Bramberga, che si truovava quivi in Spira, il quale non rifiuto la prattica, ma haurebbe volute che fossimo stati congiunti et non unitj, cio é ch’havessimo habitato tutto un luogo tenendo ogn’uno il suo habito, come si faceva in Hierusalem, segli rispose che sarrebbe stato meglio fare un’habito solo, che contenesse la memoria di tutte due le Releggioni per levare le discordie, che potessero occorrere, nel

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qual negotio il vescovo d’Augusta, ch’al presente é cardinale, s’offerse d’essere mediatore, et che sperava di trovar modo, che et l’uno, et l’altro ordine restasse sodisfatto, fatto queste pratticche, io ne havisai il Gran Maestro nostro, Fra Giovani d’Homades avante, che venessi la risposta l’Imperad[o]re [125/122v] si parti da Spira et questi sig[no]ri mediatori ancora essi partono dalla corte, di modo che cesso questa prattica. Ne credo, che piu se ne sia parlato, et crederei che quando questa unione si facesse che saressimo bastantj d’habitare et fortificare Tripoli, con qualch’altro poco d’auito, che si potrebbe sperare dal Papa et dagli altri principi nostri. La cagione perche si movea il Gran Maestro di Galitia d’considerare al partito era per l’occupation ch’haveva fatta il Marchese di Brande’burgh delli suoi paesi di Prusia et Livonia, come ho di sopra detto, et il poco rispetto che principi et città Lutherane usano alle sue commende et all’entrate sue. Perch’essendo ricchi, ne facendo l’offitio suo contra [126/122r] infedeli, come son tenuti erano biasmati d’essi et sempre l’usavano male compagnia, il che non si faceva a nostri Cavalieri et benefitij, ma ch’erano respettati per il essrcitio militare, che de continuo facemo. Gli movea anco la coscienza, parendoli che fosse giusto godere quell’entrate con otio, le quali erano state applicate et impiegate alla guerra contra infedeli. Le quali ragioni ancora adesso l’inclinarrebbono a congiungersi con noi. Il che ne sarrebbe di grande aiuto, perche per quanto intendo essi hanno gran somme di danari. Si potria ancora per questo supplicare al Papa, che ne concedesse un general Giubileo, co’l quale in Francia, in Spagna, et in l’altri paesi sottoposti all’obedienza del sommo Pontefice se ne potria [126/123v] ritrarre gran soccorso, come si fece doppo l’assedio de Rhodi nel tempo del Gran Maestro Fra Pietro di Busson, che per uno de questi Giubilei ce vennero dati per amor de Dio molte migliaia de scudi per ristorare le muraglia della Città. Et credo, che per l’acquisto de Tripoli anco li popoli auitarriano per la parte sua. Dall’Imperatore si potria mandare, che n’accomodasse delle sue galere, ò parte di loro, et simile dal Re di Francia finche la Città di Tripoli fosse ridotta in stato forte col’ridurre li fossi et le muraglie a buon stato, il che ne servirrebbe come se danari contanti dati ce fussero. Si potrebbe ancora fare, che tutti li Priori et Commandatori venissero a spendere [127/124r] l’entrate sue al servition della Releg[io]ne oltra che la presenza de Cavalieri ne portana molto utile. Giustiniano: Bisognaria á questo una gran quantita di monetioni, vettovaglie et altre cose necessarie, ne so come haver si potriá. Perche s’in Malta tanto vicino alla Sicilia ce ne carestia, molto maggiore saria il bisogno in Tripoli, che gl’e tanto lontana. Cambiano: Confesso ch’in questi principij saria bisogno di gran munitione, la quale pero si potria havere da Sicilia. Specialmente le carni salate et altre ma li frumentj si potriano cavare dalle città verso mezzogiorno, come saria de Basalicata Mazana Guirgenti et altre città dalle quali facilmente si conduirria il grano in Tripoli [127/124v] senza pericolo perch’ordinariamente regnano ponenti, che sono venti favorevoli per questo effeto, ne si costeggia per luoghi

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pericolosi di corsari. Li vini si potriano condurre di Candia piu facilmente che d’indi si conducono a Malta per esser viaggio manco pericoloso. Monitioni per l’artegliaria si potria cavare da Marsiglia et condurla come si fa in Malta, oltra che sempre le vettovaglie et altre robbe corrono dove corrono li danarj. In Malta ogni cosa é cara, perche li mercanti, che vi conducono robbe non hanno riporto d’altre mercantie, onde bisogna ch’essi vendono care le sue, che gli bastino per le spese, ch’essi fanno nel vener’et ritornare ancora che ne sia guadagno con il quale possono accrescere, et mantenere [128/125r] suo trafico, et compensare il rischio che corrono. Et questa é la causa ch’in Malta sempre le mercantie vettovaglie et munitioni sono piu care et in minor quantita che negli altri luoghi. Ma quando fussimo in Tripoli verrano mercanti non solo de Sicilia, Calabria, et altri prossimi luoghi, ma ancora ne verrebbono da Venetia, Spagna, Francia, et altre parti piu remote, come facevano nel tempo che Tripoli era habitato da Mori, ch’ogni anno venevano le galeazze de Venetiani. Et questo la causava la fertilità del paese, nel quale trovavano abbondanza di riporto d’oro, de finissime lane, bonissimo zaffrano, corami pene di struzzi, dattali, gran quantità de sehiani neri, et altri guadagni, che sarià prolixità narrarli tutti. Et li mercanti subbito che [128/125v] giungevano in quel porto ritruovano dispaccio et recapito alle loro mercantile. Et per li guadagni, che si facevano sopra li reporti si contentavano da lasciare le cose sue in minor prezzo. Oltra di questo, il paese circumvicino a Tripoli é tanto abbondante et fertile, che col’tempo potriamo havere grano et vino et legna senza ricercarle in altri parti. Perche il terreno é buono, et produce in abbondanza tutto quello che ve si semina, sopra tutte le reggioni del mondo. Abbonda vi aminissimi campi et pascoli, dove si ne driscono perfettissime carni d’ogni sorte d’annimale, et in tanta quantita, che par cosa incredibile. Perche la magior parte de Mori et Arabi per mancamento de vino et ancora spesso d’acqua alle [129/126r] volte si nodriscono di latte. Et si ritruova tal campo d’Arabi, che tiene piu bestiami solo che non é nella mettà del Regno de Sicilia, et tra 190 campi degli Arabi, che sono in quella provintia basterra un campo solo á provedere et abbondare tutta la Relegione nostra di carne. Et di questo posso far fede, per haverlo visto in quelle parti et pratticato io stesso senza che se né habbiava stare a relation degli altri. Giustiniano: Dubito, che la Relegione non potrebbe resistere alle forze de tanti nemici, che ogni giorno senza mancar giammai ne darebbono malestia, ne mai ci lasciarrebbono riposare. Cambiano: Io crederei il contrario, per esperienza ch’io ho visto in quelle parti, che moltj [129/126v] Mori habitavano con noi et per servitio nostro combattevano contra gli nemici et con tanta affetione et fidelità, come si fossero stati Christiani. Et ne provedevano di cavalli, et d’altre cose necessarie per la guerra. Oltra questo noi havevamo una commodità et occasione d’entrare a quel regno, qual’é habitato da molti campi d’Arabi nemici tra loro, un parte de quali sarrebbe in favor nostro. Et accio che potessimo esser’ piu cauti et securi della fedelià loro, ne darrebbono i suoi figlioli in hostaggio, come

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facevano nel tempo ch’io habitavo in quelle parti, ch’havevano fatto lega con noi per scacciare li Turchi dal Zante et Almeria, et ne donorno suoi figlioli per ostaggi, et fidelmente ne servirono in tutta q[ue]lla [130/127r] guerra di quanto era loro possibile di fare per noi in ogni occasione con le robbe et le persone. Et quanto piu lo farrebbono addesso, per liberarsi dalla tirrani[a] del Turcho, perche li tratta tutti malissimi et gli ha’indotti a disperarsi quasi. Anzi sperarei, che col tempo la maggior parte d’essi si farrebbono Christiani et n’aiutarrebbono ad ampliare il nostro dominio. Dicemo adunq[ue] che no’ é difficil cosa soggiogare un popolo ó sia regione che sia tra lei divisa et che non habbia principe, ne capo, che la possa unire et accordare. Et á questo proposito potriamo allegare molti essempij antichi et moderni, ma per non essere prolisso et fastidioso piu che vorrei, diremo solo ch’i Romani, quali al mondo sono stati tanto [130/127v] splendidi in fatti d’arme tra tutti gli altri, sempre usavano questa cautela di mettere et seminare discordia tra le regioni et popoli et città de nemicj. Accio che col favore et mezzo d’una parte si potessero fare signori dell’altra parte di dette regioni, popoli, et città, et con tale astutie soggiogorno la Francia, Spagna, Africa, Grecia, et altri infiniti regni et popoli. Horamente il Re Cattholico soggiogò Granada per la divisione, qual’era in quel regno. Noi non facciamo queste comparationi perche le forze nostre siano d’equiparare á quelle de Romani et del Re Cattholico, ma accio che ad esempio delle imprese passate, et ch’á tempo nostro sono occorse possiamo sperare che non sia molto defficile soggiogare un popolo [131/128r] tanto diviso, disperso, oppresso, disarmato, et senza capo ó guida come quello. Chi dubita, che non habbiamo ad esser ben visti et favorite dalli buoni s’in luogo di sterilitá, gli portiamo l’abbondanza, in luogo di guerra, la pace, in luogo di discordia, l’unione, et generalmente in luogo di vitij gli portiamo la virtu, castigando et opprimendo li tresti et apprezzando li buoni, et s’é bene in questo principio havesimo alcune difficultà di non potrarsi imperioramente disponere di quelle rationi, pur si puo sperare che con il tempo non ne potria resistere ne contrastare un popolo tanto sprovisto in tutte quelle cose ch’in lunghi successi di guerra sono necess[ari]e et quando bene havessero magior copia di genti et cavalli sempre gli manco forza [131/128v] l’unione. Perche tra essi non vi é persona che basti a tenerli uniti per la penuria degli denari et vettovaglie che sono mezzi per tratetenere la guerra. É ancora impossibile che lungamente possono stare unitj perch’ognuno ha da cultivar’ et seminare per havere i frutti con che possano sostentare le famiglie et case loro, et non vi é sig[no]re ne capo tanto grande ch’á suo tempo non vada a seminar’ et raccoglier le sue provisioni. Vi é ancora un’altro remedio per liberarsi dalle continue et improvise incorsarie delgli nemicj, qual era stato considerato et posto in opera dalli Tripolinj in tempo ch’habitavano quella città che si stendeva d’una mare all’altro et contena in se cinque o sei miglia di campagna nelle quale vi erano hortj, giard[i]nj, [132/129r] vigne, et altre possessionj de cittadinj, et non ve si poteva entrare se non per tre partj ch’erano forteficate con tre porte. Questo fosso ancora si potrebbe fortificare et munire, come si fa nelle principale città d’Alemagna et massime

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in Argentina che’l fosso e si ben munito et forteficato, che servi in luogo di battaglia et di muraglia, perche ha degli arboscilli spinosi et altri vergulti che stano contrasto et alli passi vi tengono sei torri con le guardie, che vedendo venire cavalli o fanti ne fanno segno alle guardie della città et mezza hora dinanzi che giungono se n’ha notitia. Et in tempi di sospetti di guerra tengono quelli passi forteficati et ben muniti con sue guardie. Il simile si potrebbe fare in Tripoli, il che non solo servirebbe per [132/129v] obviare all’improvise incursioni degli nemicj, ma ancora per obviare alla fugga delli schiavi et soldati et delli forzatj, alla fugga delli quali busognarrebbe havere gran avvertenza. Giustiniano: Non so dove la Relegione trovarrebbe tanto popolo per habitare quella città ed edificare le case et habitationi che del tutto dovrebbono esser rovinate. Il che sarrebbe una spesa troppo grande et passarrebbono molti anni inanzi che potesse essere del tutta quella città habitata et popolata, come si conderrebe, et come credo hoggi sia Malta. Cambiano: L’esperienza ch’ho visto in Nizza, Siracusa, et Malta mi fa credere il contrario di questo che voi ditte. Perch’al principio che la Relegione vienne ad habitare q[ue]lla [133/130r] città parevano quasi dishabitate a comparatione di quella che furono dapoi, che la Relegione hebbe habitato alcun tempo et che s’ampliorno non solo del popolo che la Relegione menò con essa, ma ancora de mercantj, et altri forestieri, che correvano al guadagno. Perche tra quello, che vi spende la Relegione in pubblico et li commandatori et cavalieri in privato e una somma tanto grande, che basta migliorare una città e le case et habitationi, che si sono fatte in Malta dapoi che la Relegione vi venne é cosa incredibile. Perch’al principio non credo vi fossero nel Borgo vicino al porto et dove habita la Relegione piu che cento cinquanta case, in modo che li commandatori et cavalieri erano sforzati far sue camera et suoi lettj nelle chiese [133/130v] et nelli magazini á guisa di Zingarj, et si fece la muraglia per fortificatione del Borgo, che conteneva in se molti hortj, et possession, che si cultivavano in spatio di tre annj il tutto fia edificato et pieno oltra che fuor della muraglia si sono fabricate piu de cinquecento case. Et se il Gran Maestro havesse dato licenza, credo che si sarrebbe fatta un’altra città. Perche vi concorsono la piu parte delli Rhodioti ch’erano dispersi per il Levante et gran numero de Secilianj. Dico dunq[u]e se in Malta ch’é luogo cosi sterile et spiacevole in cosi breve tempo vi concorse tanto popolo, che sarrebbe poi in Tripoli città si amena, fertile, et delittevole, dove il Gran Maestro potrebbe ripatriare premiando i suoi sudditj con territorj, giardinj, et hortj, quali bastarebb[o]no [134/131] a sustentarli senz’altro aiuto della Relegione. Credo ancora, che non solo gli Rhodiotj, ma molti Greci, et sudditi de Turchi, per liberarsi da quella tirannia, si ritirarebbono del’ certo con noi et in brevissimo tempo haveviamo tanto popolo, che non bastarrebbe il circuito della città a reimpirlo tutto. Perche al mio giuditio non contiene questo circuito piu ch’l numero di tre miglia fochi, et vi é una commodità di terra rossa, la piu conveniente et propria che si possa desiderar’ che con poca spesa si rifarrebbono le muraglie fortissime. Et in questo proposito, ne servirrebbono assai li Maltesi, la piu parte delli quali sono muratori

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sufficientissimj, et tirati dal guadagno ne seguirrebbono in ogni lougo. Ci portiamo ancora ser[vi]re [134/131v] delle pietre et altre fragmenti delle case rovinate, li lignami si potrebbono condurre da Venetia in Sicilia et di Calabria, come si conducono in Malta, et per le case de plebej, ci potessimo servire et provedercj di palme, delle qualli tutta quella regione e fertile et abbondantissima in tutte le partj. Giustiniano: Si questo luogo di Tripoli e tanto al proposito per la Relegione, qual’é la causa che li Gran Maestri che sono gia circa trenta an’i che fanno sua residenza in Malta con tanta discommodità come voi dite non si sono transferitj in quel luogo et non l’hanno almeno fortificato, et riparito di sorte che non venesse in mano degli nimicj dalli quali io vedo gran difficultà potendo ricuperare massimo in questo in questi tempi, ch’ogn’an’o [135/132r] l’armata Turchesca visita et discorre per questi mari. Cambiano: Io credo che tutti li Gran Maestri hanno benissimo considerato che l’habitatione de Tripoli sarrebbe stata piu á proposito di quella di Malta. Fra Felippo de Villert, che fu il primo ad entrare a quell’isola si ritruova esausto de contantj et travagliato dal lungo assedio comportato in Rhodi, et dalla peregrinatione, che havea fatta in città aliene come de sopra vi ho detto et non gli pareva di haver fatto poco di haver ottenuto Malta, et ridatta la sua Relegione in luogo proprio et sicuro, finche la Maesta di Dio ne provedesse d’altro. Et non n’é dubbio, che se quell Gran Maestro havesse visto il sito di Tripoli, che non haveva perduta l’occasione di habitarlo et [135/132v] di transferircesi con tutta la Relegione perch’era magnanimo et invitto et mosse con desiderio di veder quel luogo. A luj successe Fra Pietro di Ponte virtuoso et prudentissimo signore, quale per sua gran’eta non governò piu d’un ano et quasi sempre fu indisposto et infermo. Et in tempo suo l’imperador Carlo Quino fece l’impresa di Tunisi et della Goletta, dove si ritrovorno le nostre galere et anco la carracca con buon numero di Cavalieri, che s’acquistorno gran creditó et riputatione appresso sua Maesta. Fu poi eletto il Santa Jalla, stando in Francia, quale morì prima che venisse in Malta. Successe piu Fra Cocon d’Amades, quale dimostrava grandissima volontà et desiderio di transferirsi con la Relegione in [136/133r] quel luogo et prendeva grandissima dilettatione di raggionarno, pratticando l’mezzi et modi che per tal’impresa sarrebbono stati necessarij, et molte volte ne veniva in proposito con me, et diceva che ‘l Conte Piero Novarra, stando pregione in Castello del Nuovo di Napoli doppo la perduta di Rhodi, et essendo visitato da lui gli haveva detto, che la città di Tripoli sarrebbe stata á proposito della Relegione, et che si dovea fare ogni diligenza per ottenere che l’Imperadore la concedesse. Ma le continue guerre che sempre sono state tra Christiani hanno causato che questo santo desiderio mai habbia havuto effetto alcuno et noi senza l’aiuto loro, come gia s’é detto, non siamo bastanti ad esseguirlo. Et queste sono le cause che intertengono il presente [136/133v] Gran Maestro Fra Claudio della Sancle haura desiderio grandissimo di pigliare questa impresa, quale ancora ne tiene la medesima volontà et offerendoseli la occ[asio]ne non mancava ad esseguirla. In quanto alle fortificatione, che voi dite s’haveria da

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fare per non perderla, havete da sapere, che questo non é causato per altro per impossibilità perche la Relegione ritrovò ‘l Borgo di Malta dove havea da fare sua residenza aperto et il Castello molto debole, in modo ch’ha bisogno circondare il Borgo di muraglie et fortificarlo di balloardi et torrioni con tanta spesa et travaglio, che con difficoltà habbiamo possuto supplire a tant’opera. Et il medesimo ha bisognato fare al Castello del Borgo et alla fortezza di Santo Ermo, che s’é fortificata tutta [137/134r] di nuovo per conservatione et difesa delli duj porti del Borgo. Oltre dell’opere ha bisognato fare incredibile spesa d’artegliaria et munitioni, per provedere detti luoghi et ognj anno siamo constrettj provedere de soldatj, auxiliarij per resistere all’armata Turchescha et fare venire li command[ato]ri et cav[alie]ri dalle provincie remote. Et per questo effetto mai s’é mancato di pro[u]vedere Rhodi de tutto il necessario et era assai fortificato et munito per resister alli Mori et nemici circonstanti. Ma sopravenendo una armata reale de piu di 200 galere, et non aspettando soccorso da Christj[a]ni a resistere a un tanto impeto et havendo già il Castello aspettato infinite tiri d’arteg[le]ria et conoscendo li defensori esser’ impossibile sarvarlo parmi che meritante, dovevano esser’ scusati si salvando le persone donorno quello [137/134v] che non posseano tenere, perche la legge non dimanda da noi, piu di quello, che potemo tenere. Ma per tornare al nostro proposito dell’habitation di q[ue]lla città dico, che tutti li Gran M[aest]rig li sono stati inclinatj ma che li tempi et l’incommodità non l’hano comportato, oltra che questa impresa pare, che piu si convenga ai giovani, ch’a vecchi, come sono stati la piu parte delli Gran Maestri sopranominatj. Giustiniano: Come intendete voi, che questo non sia officio conveniente all’età del p[rese]nte Gran M[aest]ro, q[ua]le intendo ch’ancora non giunge a lx. ani, nella qual’età questo n[ost]ro Ill[ustrissi]mo D[ominio] suol dar’à suoi gentil’huo[min]i li piu importanti carrichi et governi, che ve siano, tanto di mar’ quanto di terra, et la piu parte de q[ues]ti sono cosi habili ad ogni essercitio come gli giovani, et si terrebb[o]no a carico d’esser chiamati vecchi. [138/135r] Cambiano: Io non dico, che ‘l Gran M[aest]ro p[resen]te sia inhabile per causa dell’età, perche ancora noi n’habbiamo molti de simil’ età robusti, et che s’opr[obbo]no in tutti gli officij della Relegione, ma che ‘l Gran M[aestr]o merita d’esser’ scusato p[er] sua indispositione di catarro et altre infirmità che lo travagliano, et dubito, che non potrebbe veder’ il fine di q[ues] ta signalata impresa, n’attendergla con q[ue]lla diligenza et cura, che sarrebbe necessaria et quando ben consi[dera]to sopra tutti li s[ervitor]ri ch’al p[resen] te sono della Gran Croce no’obstante che vi sono molti honorati cavalieri et releg[io]si p[er] questo non trovo pers[on]a piu habile ne di mag[gio]re espett [acio]ne ad essere Gran M[aestr]o ch’é piu di q[ues]to che ’l Signor Parissoto q[ua]le al p[rese]nte e bailio de Lango et religioso di grand’esperienza et bonta et dotato di tutte quelle virtù et cond[itio]ni che si richercano ad un capo di q[ues]ta Relegione, perch’e[s]sendo d’età [138/135v] di xv. an’i fu condotto à Rhodi di prender l’habito, dove ha perseverato sin’al p[rese]nte et si ritrovo all’assedio ne mai ha voluto abban[dona]re sua Relegione ne riveder suo p[ad]re et m[ad]re ne pr[ovinc]ia ne beni che teneva in Francia, non ob

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[sta]nte, che da suoi honorati fratelli et parenti molto ne fosse ricercato et persuaso. Et nel spatio de circa 40 ani che tiene la residenza ha havuti tutti gli gradi et officij che si po[sso]no dar’ ad un’ honor[a]to cav[alie]re, et sempre ha dato conto di se tanto in carrichi militari come civili per mare et p[er] t[er]ra, et s’é trovato in grandi pericoli dove sempre ha usato valor’et clemenza. Tiene compless[ion]e forte et robusta et habile ad ogni essecutione. Et se Dio ne facesse gr[ati]a che lui fusse Gran M[aestr]o tengo p[er] certo che egli sarrebbe l’aug[men]to et la co’servatione di q[ues]ta n[ost]ra Releg[ion]e et con ogni instanza procurarebbe transferirla in Tripoli al che par molto inclin[a]to, p[er] e[ss]ere stato [139/136r] gover[nato]re di quel luogo, et have grande esperienza et intelligenza di quel sito et delle condizioni prenarr[a]te molto meglio che p[er]s[on]a che porti l’habito. Giustiniano: Ho piacere che in nostra Re[le]g[io]ne ve siano si fatte Cav [alie]ri et piacesse a Dio che ve ne fossero molti simili et parmi che si farrebbe alle sue virtù torto q[ua]ndo non l’elegess[e]ro Gran M[aestr]o semp[re] che Dio ne pr[ive]ra del p[rese]nte. Hor ditemj, che modo ve sarria di ricup[era]re quel luogo de mano d’infedeli? Cambiano: Bisognarebbe ricorrere dalli principi Christianj et mass[im]e dal Re Filippo, al quale importa assai di trarre quel luogo da mani de Turchi. Perch’altrimenti si farà un nido de corsarj che di continuo terrano in travaglio non sola la Sicilia et il Golfo di Napoli ma tutte le riviere della Christianità. Et gia pare che’l Gran Turco face disegno d’impadronirsi della Barberia mediante la quale ponera un freno alla Christianità [139/136v] che se Dio n’auita sarrebbe causa di n[ost]ra destruttione per la vicinità et commodità del luogo et potemo pigliar’essempio dal pericolo, in che si trovorno Romani in tempo d’Anib[a]le, nel q[u]al tempo l’impero Romano era unito et gia dominava la Spagna, et la mag[gio]r parte di Francia et tutta l’Italia, et tant’altre provincie et non poteva resistere á Cartagenesi, che farrebbe adesso se la potenza del Gran Turco congionta á q[ue]lla di Barbaria venisse sopra di noj? Credo senza dubbio, che non gli potessimo resistare. Et però havemo da pregar’ Dio, che mandi la sua santa pace trá questi principi et gli illumini à reconoscer’ il pericolo che sono per cassar’ se no’ vi provedono. Et seguendo la pace, potriamo procur[a]re che ‘l Re Cat[toli]co n’accomodasse delle sue galere et delli soldati che ordinar[iamen]te tiene in Sicilia et Napoli. Il che farà ad essempio et imitatione del’Imp[erado]re suo padre che [140/137r] volendo i Turchi assicur[a]re il dominio di Barberia, li scacciò di Tunisi, d’Africa, et molti altri luoghi come a tutti e notorio. Speriamo ancora che’l Papa et il Re di Francia, et gli altri principi Chr[istia]n[i] ne sarrebbono favoreboli. Come gia s’é detto et credo ancora che questa Serr[enissi]ma S [igno]ria di Venetia non mancaria di darne ogni favore, perch’á lei tornarrebbe un gran pre[giudizi]o che quella città restasse in mano de Turchi per la commodità che havrebbono gli corsari di dannegg[ia]re i suoi navilij et impedirre suoi trafichi. Giustiniano: Tenete certo, che non v’é natione alcuna piu nemica à Turchi che la mia, et che piu desideri sua rovina che noi et se ben tenemo pace et

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tregua con loro, non crediate che sia per altro, che per conservatione dell’isole et suditi, che tenemo in Levante, et per la salvat[ion]e di q[ue]lle povere anime, che sarrebbono gia sottoposte all sua [140/137v] tirranide senza l’aiuto et prottettione n[ost]ra, ma in tutto quello che si potra aiutare et favorir’ la Christianità et la Releg[ion]e sanza pregiud[izi]o del stato n[ost]ro sempre lo faremo di boniss[i]ma volontà. Ma per essere hormai tempo de ritirarsj potremo metter’ fine à nostri raggionamentj, che sono stati molti piu lunghi di quello credevamo. Et s’alcuna cosa vi resta á dire, la direte per il camino, perche non saprei intender’ cosa che mi fusse ad maggior diletto.

Index of the Notable Affairs of the Order of Malta

[39/36r] The founder of the Order of Malta and the reasons for its foundation. Holding the brother of the Great Turk prisoner for annual tribute of fortyfive thousand scudi. Where, when, and under which Grand Master the Order undertook many of its endeavors and how knights were elected. The infidels expulse the Order from Jerusalem. The Order fortifies Rhodes. The Order resists a six-months-long Turkish siege of Rhodes. The outcome and result of the siege. The Order at Messina. The Order in the times of Clement VII at Viterbo. The Order in Nice in Provence and in Syracuse in Sicily. Charles V, benefactor of the Order. [39/36v] The Grand Master requests succor from the Christian rulers. How the most illustrious and most esteemed Grand Master is elected. How someone is made a knight. Their office and duties, in Malta and elsewhere. How a knight obtains a commandery or a position. How the Order maintains its knights. How the Order enacts impositions and levies depending on need. How important seniority is. Discourse on the installment of the Grand Master. The general revenues of the Order. Discourse on settling in Tripoli or Malta. The Order’s military expenses on land and sea. Notable exploits of the most illustrious Grand Masters and lord knights of the Order. [40/37r-v] [blank]

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[41/38r] Report on the institutions, privileges, and duties of the Order of the Knights of Rhodes, now at Malta, with certain characteristics of that island, and on many other things, in the form of a dialogue. Interlocutors: My lord Giustiniano, Commendator Cambiano, and my lord Girolamo Querini. Giustiniano: I have always had a great desire to find out who the founder was of our Order of Saint John, how it originated, and the ways in which it had become so great and honored. Being one of [41/38v] its knights and members, it seems to me that I should know that, and if there were a certain book or record that discusses the matter, it would be a great pleasure and delight to peruse it. Cambiano: My lord, I have seen neither a book nor a record specifically discussing or narrating that matter. Even if something did exist, it would consist of rather recent fragmentary handwritten notes, rather than full pages composed at the time of the events. Such would be the descriptions of the sieges of the City of Rhodes by the Sultan of Egypt and the Great Turk, especially at the time of the Grand Master Fra Pierre d’Aubusson.1 In his time, the Order rose to great honor and reputation, as Djem, the brother of the Great Turk, fled and found refuge in Rhodes, and, to keep him away [42/39r], the Great Turk paid the Order forty-five thousand scudi every year.2 Several authors who wrote about the wars of the Christians in the Levant speak highly of our Order, as they do of the Templars and of the Teutonic Knights, above all in the wars fought over Jerusalem and in the lands of Syria, since which, and to this very day, we have borne the name of Knights of Jerusalem. There are also some records of the first founder of our militia of the Hospitallers, in memory of which the Grand Master is called Master of the Hospitallers of Jerusalem. It would be a delightful undertaking to see these records collated in a volume, especially as we, the knights of the Order [42/39v], would enjoy learning about the virtuous feats that our predecessors performed in Jerusalem and in other parts of the Holy Land in past times. Giustiniano: I am surprised that there had been no one among so many esteemed knights to undertake the task to write, or to have written, of our past and present exploits. For virtues that are not brought to light and duly

1

2

Pierre d’Aubusson, Grand Master (June 1476–July 1503); see Gilles Rossignol, Pierre d’Aubusson: Le bouclier de la chrétienté (Lyon: La Manufacture, 1991). On the siege of Rhodes, see Guillaume Caoursin, Obsidionis Rhodiae urbis descriptio (Löwen, 1480); see also the evaluation of this work in Theresa M. Vann and Donald J. Kagay, Hospitaller Piety and Crusading Propaganda: Guillaume Caoursin’s Description of the Ottoman Siege of Rhodes, 1480 (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2015). On the siege itself, see most recently Robert Douglas Smith and Kelly DeVries, Rhodes Besieged: A New History (Stroud, UK: History Press, 2011). On Djem Sultan, see Nicolas Vatin, Sultan Djem: Un prince ottoman dans l’Europe du XVe siècle d’après deux sources contemporaines: Vâk¸ı’ât-ı Sult¸ân Cem, Oeuvres de Guillaume Caoursin (Ankara: Imprimerie de la Société turque d’histoire, 1997); and John Freely, Jem Sultan: The Adventures of a Captive Turkish Prince in Renaissance Europe (London: Harper Perennial, 2005).

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narrated fade quickly and do not bear fruit, while if recorded they serve as examples and inspire those who come afterward to imitate their predecessors. Cambiano: You speak the truth, but our predecessors were better at performing, than they were at describing, their good deeds. In fact, at present there is a knight, Fra Antoine Geoffroy [43/40r], called La Benadiera, who seeks most diligently to recover our predecessors’ past and thinks of rendering it in an entertaining and instructive chronicle.3 To that effect, he has researched, and keeps researching, old registers and manuscripts in the Roman archives. He has found many useful things in the Papal Library, above all many different privileges conceded by the Apostolic See, as well as deeds confirming the gaining of lands and cities in Syria and Armenia in the time when the Christians ruled the Holy Land and when our Order was so prosperous that it put in the field five or six thousand foot soldiers and more than a thousand mounted knights. [43/40v] Giustiniano: It would be a great pleasure to see this endeavor accomplished, because I have heard that this knight, apart from being wellread, is also gifted with fine judgment and is a worthy and experienced man, and nothing but good can come out of him. When this work comes into my hands, I will likely have it printed. But apart from history, I would be very pleased if you expounded, specifically, on issues I would like to know more about, such as the procedures and rules that our Order observes, the “tongues” and “nations” into which it is divided, the election of the Grand Master, the ordinary responsibilities and offices of our priors, bailiffs, commendators, and knights, its military, as well as how it got established on the island [44/41r] of Malta, where, as I understand, barrenness and unbearable heat oppress you. If my health were better, I would not have been content to just learn about all this, but would have repaired there myself to participate in the good works of the Order. I have always favored it, as is testified by the fact that I have given up offices, which I could have received from this most serene Republic, and benefices, which I could have hoped to obtain from the Apostolic See. To the extent that I have sought them, it has been out of my

3

On the early histories of the Hospitallers, see Anthony Luttrell, “The Hospitallers’ Historical Activities: 1291–1400,” in Anthony Luttrell, The Hospitallers in Cyprus, Rhodes, Greece, and the West 1291–1440 (London: Variorum, 1978), Part 17, 1–10, “The Hospitallers’ Historical Activities: 1530–1630,” Annales de l’Ordre Souverein Militaire de Malte 26 (1968): 57–69, and “The Hospitallers’ Early Written Records,” in Anthony Luttrell, Studies on the Hospitallers after 1306: Rhodes and the West (London: Routledge, 2007), 135–154. Fra Antoine Geoffroy “la Vinadière” (after his commendatory), while a lieutenant of the Order’s turcopulier (see infra), participated in the redaction of the Order’s statutes; see Pierre de Boissat, Histoire des Chevaliers de l’Ordre de S. Iean de Hierusalem, vol. 1 (Paris: Jacques d’Allin, 1659), 351. On Geoffroy, see Luttrell, “Historical Activities 1530–1630,” 58–59. Geoffroy wrote a description of the Ottoman Empire based on his travels in the Levant—Antoine Geoffroy, Estat de la court du Grand Turc (Paris, 1542)—but his research does not seem to have resulted in a history of the Order.

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commitment to serve our Order the best way I could. As it is, only my continuous ill health has prevented me from ever coming to Malta. [44/41v] Cambiano: I hope to satisfy this desire of yours, given that I have been with the Order for a period of twenty-seven or twenty-eight years, and I have come to know much. It would not be difficult to tell you all that I have seen and learned, but it would be a rather long discussion, and it seems to me that it would be better if we put it off for another, more convenient time. Giustiniano: There is a place of ours five miles away from here, in Malamocco, and we can go there tomorrow in a gondola. We can stay in a house, which I have had built in that place, spend the day there in discussion, and you could take your time telling me about all these things. My lord Girolamo Querini will accompany us. [45/42r] He is a worthy gentleman, who has a great affection for our Order and has always socialized and conversed with our knights. He is very close to Cardinal Bembo, who was in his youth Prior of Hungary and Commendator of Bologna,4 and at present is often, and almost continuously, in my company. Cambiano: I will be much pleased to do that. After we discuss everything you want to know, I will share with you an opinion of mine, namely that the Order could never and in any way prosper in Malta. It would be better to undertake to renovate the city of Tripoli in Barbary and settle there. I am quite certain that our Order could grow and thrive there. [45/42v] I will explain all the reasons that make me think so, and I trust that you will find them credible. If, in your judgment and opinion, my position deserves support, I will raise the subject with our most illustrious Grand Master, as I did with his predecessor, and perhaps our plan will be executed. Giustiniano: I will not be displeased to hear you out. We will set out tomorrow then, early in the morning, and I hope that we will have a great day in Malamocco. Later today, I will send an invitation to Querini, and we will take with us my nephew, Messer Bernardo. It would be good to have him join us in the conversation, given that he too is a knight [of the Order]. [46/43r] Cambiano: My lord, Messer Girolamo Querini has arrived, the gondola is ready, and the waters are calm. We can set off whenever you please and get on our way. Giustiniano: Let us go in the name of the Lord. You, my good knight, sit close to me, so I can hear you better, and let us bundle up, so the wind does not bother us. You can begin your discourse whenever you please.

4

Pietro Bembo (1470–1547) was a Venetian patrician, humanist, poet, literary and musical theorist, librarian of St. Mark’s and official historian of the Republic of Venice. He joined the Hospitallers in 1514, not exactly “in his youth” as Giustiniano states here, and became a cardinal deacon in 1539. He was granted the Priory of Hungary in 1517, but did not really enjoy its income. He appears to have obtained the valuable Commendatory of Bologna in 1530, and it was a major source of income for him. See Carol Kidwell, Pietro Bembo: Lover, Linguist, Cardinal (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004).

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Cambiano: Before I begin, please excuse me for not offering this discourse in the proper order and manner in which it should be narrated. I would say that I deserve to be excused, as I have never been a professional rhetorician. I have heard and read many times that our name of Hospitallers was first borne [46/43v] by someone called Gerard.5 He was in Jerusalem in 1099, in the time of King Gottfried, who took over the Holy Land. Seeing that there were many sick Christians and that there was no one to take care of them, and there were not any necessary materials, he thought that it would be a pious deed to refurbish an old hospital and dedicate himself and some companions to their service. He renovated the hospital that had been founded by the Maccabees for the needs of their army a long time ago.6 This is how Gerard, the promoter of this saintly deed, was called Master of the Hospital of Jerusalem. His successor was a certain Raymond du Puy.7 Considering how meritorious and God-pleasing [47/44r] was the provision of medical care, he had Pope Pascal II8 confer to those who engaged in that service the status of clerics under the name of St. John the Baptist along with the obligation to carry the white eight-pointed cross in order to distinguish them from other laymen who went to war in the Holy Land carrying the red cross. It is thought that in the beginning they lived on alms from the Christians who came to these lands, as many princes, lords, nobles, commoners, and pilgrims frequently appeared there to visit the Holy Sepulcher. As the latter saw the brothers exert themselves in this holy service and their good works in taking care of the sick, in which they practiced all the aspects of mercy, they were moved by the [47/44v] zeal of devotion and began to grant them revenues and properties in different parts of Christendom, so that the Hospitallers would be able to persevere in their saintly labors. Little by little, their possessions grew and the income sufficed not only for serving the sick but for providing armed and naval escorts for pilgrims who arrived in Jerusalem as well, so that they would not be harassed by the enemies and infidels who raided the countryside. This is how the Hospitallers acquired the name “knights.” The Apostolic See took them under its protection and conceded them wide-ranging privileges, while 5

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The Blessed Gerard (1040–1120), a lay brother in the Benedictine Order, and the founder of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. For Gerard, and the other early leaders of the Order discussed below, see Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Knights of St. John in Jerusalem and Cyprus 1050–1310 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 1967). According to the deuterocanonical First and Second Books of the Maccabees, the Maccabees were a Jewish clan that rebelled against Seleucid rule and the impact of Hellenism in the Jewish homeland, seized Judea, and founded the Hasmonean dynasty (ruled 167–37 BCE). Raymond du Puy de Provence (1121?–1160), the Order’s second recognized superior after one or two interim heads. Pope Pascal II (1099–1118) was a major figure in the promotion of the First Crusade and the Investiture Controversy; see Uta-Renate Blumenthal, The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988).

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the Christian princes and lords gave them ample estates [48/45r], which the Grand Masters and the Order handed over to the oldest brothers, which on account of their advanced age were not capable of service in arms, to administer and manage. These properties were called “commendatories” as something that has been commended to the commendators, who were obliged to account for their administration and who were entitled only to expenses for food and clothing. But as time went on and as the administrators’ involvement in the preservation and expansion of the properties grew, they were made usufructuaries.9 The Order reserved for itself the right to tax them and take back parts of the properties as it saw fit if need be, and those who possessed them had no right to object, according to the needs [48/45v] of the time. This arrangement is still valid, and the Order is at liberty to take back a quarter, a third, a half, or the entire estate at will, and those who possess it cannot object to this in any way.10 As the Order expanded its military and medical services and the brethren grew to a large number, they were divided into eight “tongues” or “nations”—that is, Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon, England, Germany, and Castile. Every tongue selects a chief of its own nation, whom we call polezziero. He enjoys a special dignity and pre-eminence of office that distinguishes him from the others. [49/46r] A Prior of the Church is appointed as well, who is the chief spiritual prelate, and has the authority to excommunicate and absolve the brothers and servants of the Order, according to the privileges conceded by the Apostolic See. He wears the miter and pastoral and other insignia and has precedence before all bailiffs and priors. Turning to the conventual bailiffs,11 I will say that the tongue of Provence has the Grand Commendator, who has the authority to review the accounts of all the properties of the Order and who is the preceptor of the Treasury, or Treasurer, in the company of the other chiefs, who sit together in council. The tongue of Auvergne has the Marshal, or the Superintendent of Justice, that is, of the disputes and quarrels that occur between the brethren [49/46v] on account of debts, and the captaincy of land campaigns, and confers the standard of the Order, the white cross against a red background, to whomever he pleases, provided that he gets the consent of the Grand Master and the Council. The tongue of France has the Hospitaller, who is the head of the infirmary or the hospital of the Order and who is in charge of the pious and meritorious work 9

That is, the commendatories became benefices, and their administrators now had the right to use the property and its revenues. 10 Generally on the early institutional history of the knights see Helen Nicholson, The Knights Hospitaller (Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2001), 68–97 (Chapter 4, “The Hospitallers’ Organization and Religious Life”); and the detailed discussions of Jochen Burgtorf, The Central Convent of Hospitallers and Templars: History, Organization, and Personnel, 1099/1120–1310 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). The division into “tongues” occurred in the late thirteenth century. 11 The conventual bailiffs were supposed to reside in the convent, that is, the knights’ headquarters.

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of ensuring that the sick are served and treated well. He supervises the doctors, surgeons, pharmacists, and other salaried employees of the Order that work in the infirmary. The tongue of Italy has the Admiral, who has authority over the naval personnel paid by the Order and who makes sure they are provided for, and together [50/47r] with the Grand Commendator, inspects and supervises the staffing and provisioning of the Arsenal. The tongue of Aragon, which includes Catalonia and Navarra, has the Grand Conservator, who is the superintendent of the stipends disbursed to the knights and the other servants of the Order and who ensures that everyone goes around clothed according to his own rank. The tongue of England has the Turcopolier, who supervises the [coastal] defenses. To that effect, he exercises command over all of the Order’s subjects, but only with the consent of the Grand Master. The tongue of Germany has the Grand Bailiff, whose duty it is to inspect the Order’s fortresses and make sure that they are well [50/47v] provided with soldiers, victuals, munitions, and other necessary things. The tongue of Castile has the Grand Chancellor, who undersigns the bulls, provisions, obligations, and consignments of the Order as well as the decisions and decrees of the Council. These eight chiefs of the tongues are called “conventual bailiffs.” They wear habits with the Grand Cross, which are different from and more dignified than those of the ordinary knights. They are required to reside continuously in the convent, and the Council cannot be held unless they or their lieutenants are in attendance. They provide for the needs of all the knights of their respective nations, withdrawing from the Treasury funds and victuals for their endeavors and expenses. The houses, which they maintain and where the knights congregate, are called [51/48r] “hostels,” but the knights have other houses where they reside. If there were some commendators or knights who do not wish to eat in the hostel, with the permission of the Grand Master they are allowed to take their meals in their own homes, drawing from the Treasury their portion of money and provisions. Giustiniano: I would like to know how these eight chiefs of tongues are compensated for the trouble to be continuously in residence and for having to entertain so many knights at their table and at their expense. Cambiano: They are foremost in the priories and bailiwicks of their nations, over which they have the right of seniority, antiquity, and the right to recover,12 and can vacate priories and other commendatories should the priors or bailiffs become incapable of administering them. [50/48v] Giustiniano: Detailing the eight tongues, you divided France into three parts, and Spain into two, which does not seem right to me, as France and Spain should count as one tongue each. Cambiano: You are correct. However, our predecessors divided France into three tongues due to its large number of benefices and commendatories and the quantity of knights and lay brothers, and in addition each of these 12 Jus quaesitum, which is the legal “right to ask or recover.”

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tongues covers several provinces. For example, Provence contains Gascony, Languedoc, parts of the Delphnate, and other regions nearby, and has two priories, that is, Saint Gilles, which is the head of all the commendatories of Provence, and the Delphinate and Tossa, the head of those of Gascony and the neighboring territories, and a bailiwick in Monaco. [52/49r] The tongue of Auvergne contains Auvergne, Savoy, parts of Burgundy, and parts of the Delphinate, and has only one prior, called the Prior of Auvergne, and one bailiwick, the bailiwick of Lions. The tongue of France includes the territories around Paris, plus Aquitaine, Champagne, Brittany, Loraine, Flanders, and other adjacent provinces, and the bailiwick of the Morea is conjoined with that tongue. They have the Treasurer, and he carries the Grand Cross. Originally, Spain was just one tongue, but it was later divided into two, that is, Aragon, which includes Catalonia, Navarra, Valencia, and Majorca, on the one hand, and Castile, on the other, which contains Castile, Portugal, and Granada, as well as other realms of Castile, and because it was the last to be divided, it is counted in the last place in the Order. Giustiniano: Can the knights of these tongues have commendatories and benefices in priories other than those in which they were born? Cambiano: What you ask me differs among the tongues, according to the agreements and conventions made between them. The priories and commendatories of the tongue of Provence can be shared among all other knights and lay brothers. A Gascoignard can hold a commendatory or a priory in Provence or in the Delphinate, and a Provençal can hold them in Gascony. Similar is the case with the tongues of Auvergne, Italy, England, and Germany. It is the contrary with [53/50r] France and Spain. A knight from the Priory of France cannot hold a commendatory in the Priory of Champagne and Aquitaine, nor can a knight from Champagne hold it in the Priory of France. Only the offices of the Grand Cross, that is, the priors and the bailiffs, are shared among these provinces. In Spain, they keep the priories and commendatories separate. An Aragonese cannot be prior or commendator in Navarra, nor vice versa in Catalonia. The Kingdom of Valencia is united with Aragon, and the island of Majorca, where there is also a bailiwick, is united and conjoined with Catalonia. Similarly, [53/50v] Castile is separate from the Kingdom of Portugal, and a Castigliano cannot have a commendatory in the Priory of Portugal, nor can a Portuguese hold it in Castile. The bailiwick of Negroponte is held in common between the two tongues of Spain. In Italy, we hold all priories and commendatories in common. We have seven priories and four bailiwicks, that is, the Priory of Rome, and those of Lombardy, Pisa, Venice, Messina, Capua, and Barletta, and the bailiwicks of Santa Euphemia, Santo Stefano, Venosa, and Naples. A Neapolitan can be Prior of Lombardy, or elsewhere, if there is no other priory. It is the opposite in England, where there are two priories, those of England and Scotland, with the bailiwicks of Aquila and Ireland. [54/51r] In Germany, there are four priories, Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, and Dacia, and the bailiwick of Brandenburg. The Priory of Hungary has been usurped

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by the Turks.13 Those of Bohemia and Dacia and the bailiwick of Brandenburg with their commendatories were exempt from residence in Rhodes at the time of Grand Master Fra Battista Orsini14 on account of the great distance, and paid their dues to the General Council and the provincial council of the Priory of Germany. That priory with its commendatories obeys and serves the Grand Master, and the better part of the knights of that province resides continuously in Malta with the Grand Master. [54/51v] There are also three offices with the rank of Grand Cross, which are shared among all the tongues, that is, the Prior of the Church, the Commendator of Corre, and the Bailiff of Lango. Giustiniano: Before you proceed any further, tell me if you know when the Order was expelled from Jerusalem and how and in what time it came to settle and make its residence on the island of Rhodes. Cambiano: It can be read and seen in many chronicles that, after the Christians recovered Jerusalem and the better part of the lands of Syria and Armenia by sheer force, and after several princes of Christendom arrived there with powerful armies, there were great wars [55/52r] with the infidels and above all with the Sultan of Egypt, who had always been an implacable enemy. In the year 1187, King Guy of Jerusalem15 was utterly routed by Sultan Saladin16 and was taken prisoner along with many Christian princes, among whom was the Grand Master of our Order. Saladin then moved on Jerusalem and after many days of continuous siege took it by force with a great slaughter of Christians.17 Those who escaped betook themselves to other cities held by the Christians until the relief force led by the kings of France and England and many other Christian princes arrived. With their help and succor, Jerusalem was retaken [55/52v], but in the year 1219 it was taken back again by the infidels, who completely destroyed it in such a manner that it could never become once again what it used to be.18 For that reason, King John of Jerusalem19 and the Masters of the Hospitallers and the 13 After the Battle of Mohac in 1526, the eastern part of Hungary was taken over by the Ottomans. 14 Giovanni Battista Orsini was Grand Master from 1467 to 1476. 15 Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem (1186–1192) and Cyprus (1192–1194). 16 An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, known as Saladin in Western parlance and modern scholarship, was Sultan of Egypt (1171–1193) and founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. 17 After the Battle of Hattin on July 4, 1187; see John France, Hattin: Great Battles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); on the Muslim recapture of Jerusalem, see Helen Nicholson and David Nicolle, God’s Warriors: Crusaders, Saracens, and the Battle for Jerusalem (Oxford: Osprey, 2005). 18 Jerusalem was actually not recovered by the Third Crusade. The main achievement of the expedition was the treaty of 1192, which confirmed Saladin’s control but allowed Christian pilgrims into the city, which had been the status quo before the Crusades. The destruction that Cambiano mentions only came in 1244. See below, note 20. 19 John of Brienne, (titular) King of Jerusalem (1210–1225) and Latin Emperor of Constantinople (1229–1237).

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Templars were forced to request aid and succor from the Pope and the other Christian princes, which they obtained with great difficulty. Among others, King Philip of France granted them three hundred thousand Parisian livres, that is, one hundred thousand to the king, one hundred thousand to the Hospitallers, and one hundred thousand to the Templars. Later, the King of Jerusalem gave his daughter as spouse to Frederick II, Emperor and King of Naples, and renounced against his will the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Frederick went with a powerful army to recover the kingdom, but the Pope had excommunicated him for his other demerits and prohibited the Grand Masters of the Orders of the Hospitallers, the Templars, and the Teutonic knights to provide him with any help or aid as an excommunicated person and a rebel against the Church. A short while after the Emperor had undertaken that endeavor, he had to turn back to defend the Kingdom of Naples, a good part of which had been occupied by the Pope, but before he left Syria, which he had penetrated with his army, he made a treaty with the Sultan of Egypt, who gave him back the ravaged city of Jerusalem and some other fortresses.20 [56/53v] After that, joining with the King of Navarra21 and many Christian princes, who due to the destruction and ruin of Jerusalem had settled in Acre,22 and several other cities possessed by the Christians, and waged continuous war on the infidels with losses and death on both sides because of the skirmishes and raids that were continuously made, there arrived King Louis of France with a mighty army and his two brothers and the better part of the barons and lords of France.23 He took on the sultan24 with his strong army, but, oppressed by the heat and affected by other troubles, pestilence, and sickness, in the end he was routed and completely destroyed by the infidels. The king with his brothers ended up miserably [57/54r] as prisoners of the sultan. After regaining his liberty on honorable terms, he remained continuously 20 The city was returned to Christian control in 1229 after a diplomatic agreement between Emperor Frederic II (1194–1250), who undertook the Sixth Crusade, and the Egyptian Sultan al-Kamil (1177–1238), but was lost again after it was sacked by the Khwarazmians in 1244; Cambiano’s reference to the destruction wrought on the city is misdated by about twenty-five years. On the conditions in Jerusalem, see Adrian Boas, Jerusalem in the Time of the Crusades: Society, Landscape, and Art in the Holy City under Frankish Rule (London: Routledge, 2009). 21 Theobald I, King of Navarre (1234–1253), led the Baron’s Crusade (1239–1241), an expedition that contributed to the temporary loss, and then return, of Jerusalem to Christian rule. See Michael Lower, The Barons’ Crusade: A Call to Arms and Its Consequences (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005). Theobald did, indeed, spend a good deal of time in Acre. 22 Cambiano uses the Hellenistic name of the city, Ptolemais. After the Sixth Crusade, it was also known as Saint Jean d’Acre, because it was the headquarters of the Hospitallers, who administered it on behalf of the crusaders. 23 Louis IX, King of France (1226–1270), leader of the ill-fated Seventh Crusade (1248–1254); see the magisterial work of Jacques Le Goff, Saint Louis (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009). 24 The Ayyubid Turanshah (1249–1250); Louis IX was formally prisoner of the Bahri Mamluk emirs who were in charge of Egypt.

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in the region for five years and then returned to France. Edward of England, too, went there for some years, a fierce enemy of the infidels, and under the instigation and with the help of the Pope, all Christian princes strove to defend from the incursions and savagery of the enemy those cities and fortresses in Syria that were still in the possession of the Christians.25 In these times, our Order flourished. Nothing was done in these parts without the knowledge, participation, intervention, or consent of the Grand Masters and [57/54v] the knights of our Order. They were lords of, and owned outright, the district of Arsuf and San Lorenzo of Rettania on Mount Tabor, and many castles and vassals round about Jerusalem, and for a long stretch, almost until 1291, continuously attacked and harassed the enemy on land and at sea. Then, al-Ashraf, the Sultan of Babylon,26 with an army of sixty thousand horse and about sixty thousand infantry captured Acre after a fierce attack, and expelled the poor Christians from all the strongholds and cities of Syria, savagely killing many of them.27 Those who escaped betook themselves to Cyprus, and requested aid from the Pope and the Christian princes [58/ 55r], who were much disturbed and saddened at the news of such a loss. Massive preparations for the recovery of the Holy Land were undertaken, but as the Pope unexpectedly passed away and the wars in Italy and elsewhere began anew, the endeavor dissipated into thin air. The three military orders, that is, the Hospitallers, the Templars, and the Teutonic knights, were forced to look for other places to establish themselves. The Templars relocated to France, and there they ended badly, because in the time of Pope Clement V they were condemned as heretics. Their properties were given to other Orders; our Order acquired a good part of them. The Teutonic knights moved [58/55v] to Germany. Not wishing to remain idle, they took on the Tatars, who in that time raided and harassed almost all of eastern Germany. With the support of the Emperor and other German princes, the knights captured Prussia and Livonia from the hands of the Tatars and settled there. Currently, the provinces are under the Grand Master of that Order, the Marquis of Brandenburg, who married and made himself their lord and prince, despoiling his Order. The commendators and the knights installed another Grand Master, who is an imperial prince and who allocates and administers the wellendowed commendatories and benefices in Germany [59/56r].28 25 Edward I, King of England (1271–1307), led a crusading expedition in 1270–1272 known as the Ninth Crusade. 26 Al-Ashraf Salah ad-Din Khalil ibn Qalawun, Sultan of Egypt (1290–1293). Steven Runciman’s third volume of A History of the Crusades: The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951) is still the readable account of the political events of the time. 27 On Acre’s strategic importance and its sieges and captures, see John France, Acre and its Falls: Studies in the History of a Crusader City (Leiden: Brill, 2018). 28 Albert of Brandenburg, the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, abdicated, converted to Lutheranism, and became the secular Duke of Prussia in 1525; in 1527, the knights elected Walter von Cronberg as head of the German territories of the Order, then as administrator of Prussia and of the remainder of the Order.

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Expelled from Acre, our Order betook itself to a fortress called Macri;29 forced out by the infidels, it then moved to another castle, which was called Acre.30 Unable to resist the press of its enemies, however, and not expecting aid from the Christians due to their inordinate infighting, it was forced to retire to Cyprus. Grand Master Fra Foulques de Villaret, a Frenchman, appealed to Emperor Alexius II of Constantinople,31 who granted him the island of Rhodes, then occupied by rebels. Through valor and ingenuity, in the year of our salvation 1308, Fra Foulques conquered the place. It is said that to overcome [59/56v] the defenses of the city of Rhodes, the knights staged a clever ambush close to the city. Some of them covered themselves with sheepskins32 and, driving the sheep between them, approached the gates of Rhodes and attacked the guards with such impetus that the enemy scattered. The stratagem having succeeded, the city was seized. Its tyrant threw himself from a window. The knights remained lords of the place until the year 1522, when the Grand Turk Suleiman took it from them after a six month-long brutal siege and great losses on both sides. The valor and daring spirit demonstrated by the Grand Master, the Order, and the people of Rhodes in the defense of the city [60/57r] stunned everyone. Seven hundred knights and about three

29 30 31

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He became Grand Master in 1530. See H. J. A. Sire, The Knights of Malta (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 192–208 (Chapter 13, “The Tongue of Germany”) and Adam Wienand, ed., Der Johanniterorden, der Malteserorden: Der ritterliche Orden des hl. Johannes vom Spital zu Jerusalem: Seine Geschichte, seine Aufgaben (Cologne: Wienand Verlag, 1988). Likely Margat, a castle near Laodicea, in the principality of Antioch The Hospitallers held a General Chapter there in 1204or 1206, see Burgtorf, The Central Convent of Hospitallers, 116. Cambiano must have used different sources here and did not realize that this “Acri” is the same city he earlier referred to as “Tolomaida.” Cambiano has the wrong emperor name, circumstances, and likely date as well. The conquest of Rhodes took almost four years, beginning in 1306. The sheepskin ambush, if it ever took place, must have been during one of the final episodes in the conquest of the city, the last remaining Byzantine stronghold, on August 15, 1310. It is unclear which of the many reports on the capture of the island and its capital Cambiano is following here, as the course of events that some of them report may support the year 1308. The Byzantine Emperor Andronicus II (1282– 1328) actually refused to grant the island, and the knights captured it after he was excommunicated by the Pope; see Nicholson, The Knights Hospitaller, 46–47. Fra Foulques de Villaret was Grand Master from 1305 to 1319; see Anthony Luttrell, “Notes on Foulques de Villaret, Master of the Hospital 1305–1319,” in his The Hospitallers of Rhodes and the Mediterranean World (Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1992). For a detailed discussion, see Anthony Luttrell, “The Hospitallers at Rhodes, 1306–1421,” in Harry W. Hazard, ed., History of the Crusades, vol. 3: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), 278–313, and Albert Failler, “L’occupation de Rhodes par les Hospitaliers,” Revue des études byzantines 50 (1992): 113–135. Cambiano uses “pelle di castratj,” which here could mean specifically “ewes’ skins” or generally “sheepskins.”

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thousand other foot soldiers resisted an army of two hundred thousand Turks and not only defended three circuit walls from the ferocious attacks and assaults of the enemy, but often made sorties to fight and skirmish with them and always returned victorious and with prizes. The Turk had a great quantity of high-caliber artillery, with which he attacked and demolished the walls, bastions, and ramparts, but the knights built new bulwarks and trenches behind which they defended themselves vigorously, always hoping that with the advent of winter the Turk would retire his army [60/57v], as it did not appear likely that such a large crowd would be able to stay on the island, being at the mercy of the winds and facing the prospect that it would entirely perish from hunger. But the Turkish Emperor Suleiman, seeing that his army had spent three months without accomplishing anything in spite of the efforts of its commander Ibrahim Pasha, and that the siege was proving difficult, was so upset that such a small town with a limited number of defenders resisted his huge army and force, which had occupied so many powerful kingdoms and provinces without any difficulty, consulted his council and resolved to go to Rhodes in person and not depart from there until he could report victory. [61/58r] His arrival generated an incredible amount of excitement among the troops. It was deliberated and decided right away to invest the town from more sides and subject it to varied assaults, which they undertook with such force and numbers that its walls and bastions were breached in several places. Yet God did not want to completely abandon his faithful, and gave them the strength and vigor to repulse the Turks and hurl them into the fosses; the artillery slaughtered about nine thousand Turks that day. Much saddened by that and seeing that his efforts produced no results, Suleiman determined to pile up a mound that would surmount the entire city. He did it [61/58v] with a speed and diligence that appeared incredible and impossible to those who saw it, for such a thing was unseen and unheard of in either ancient or modern times. But the Grand Master, the Frenchman Fra Philippe de Villiers,33 on the advice and counsel of experts in these affairs, above all that of Gabriele Martinengo,34 had mines dug underneath the mound and the designs of the enemy came to naught. As well, the Grand Master sent envoys to the Pope, the Emperor, the King of France, and to other Christian princes, to request aid and succor to deal with the calamity that had befallen the island, which had been put under siege and oppressed by such a powerful army of the 33 Fra Philippe de Villiers de L’Isle-Adam (1464–1534), Grand Master from 1521 to 1534. 34 Gabriele Tadino di Martinengo (1476/9–1543), was a prominent military engineer and Venetian subject from the Brescian dependency of Martinengo. In the years preceding the siege of Rhodes, he supervised the fortifications of Venetian Candia on Crete. In the beginning of the war, a special embassy of the Order solicited his help. The Venetian authorities forbade his involvement, but Gabriele defied the order, sailed for Rhodes, entered the Order, and lent his expertise to the knights; see Guido Tadini, Gabriele Tadino priore di Barletta (Bergamo: Bolis, 1986).

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enemy. But Pope Hadrian VI, who had only recently come to Rome from Spain to ascend to the papacy [62/59r] had exhausted the treasury and was not able to offer help. The Christian princes, who were busy with fighting large-scale internecine wars between themselves, were not concerned with our predicament. The priors and knights all over Christendom did all in their power to aid their Order. A group of them armed a large ship in Genoa and took off from there hoping to sail directly to the Levant. The Prior of Castile, Don Diego de Toledo, armed another ship and sailed from Spain to Sicily. But as it was winter, neither vessel was able to complete its journey. Similarly, the French knights recruited at great expense more than a thousand fighting men [62/59v] and armed ships in the port of Marseille, but the same impediment prevented them from aiding the afflicted city. The Prior of Barletta, a Neapolitan from the House of Pignatella, armed a ship and took off to do his duty, having recruited six hundred knights from the Kingdom [of Naples], and was amply supplied with victuals and munitions, but fate was against him. The winter season and the weather prevented him from setting sail, and this valorous and generous knight, who exceeded in both bodily strength and prudence, was not able to offer succor to his Order.35 Thus he and all others were hindered by such unfortunate impediments and could not put into effect their valorous designs and magnanimity of spirit due to adverse and hostile circumstances. The Grand Master was forced to open negotiations for his surrender, for he saw that he had been abandoned by the Pope and the other Christian princes, and that there was no help forthcoming from any quarter, and he saw and experienced the tenacity of the enemy, who had persevered with the siege from the Feast of St. John in June to the last day of December and obstinately kept it up day after day, replenishing their troops because they were aware that there would be no succor from the Christians due to the discord among the princes. He also saw that the walls and bastions of Rhodes had all been fractured and demolished to the extent that the enemy had already occupied half the city, that the people had retired behind the better defenses after having practically consumed all of their provisions and munitions, that the better part of the artillery was destroyed, and that his poor knights were either killed or mortally exhausted by incessant labors and vigils. Suleiman accepted the Grand Master’s surrender on honorable conditions, as was narrated in detail by Pontano, Giovio, and other writers who had recorded those things,36 allowing the knights to go free with their possessions and the people 35 The Prior of Barletta was Fabrizio Moncada Pignatelli, scion of an illustrious family; Vertot suspects that the delays were deliberate, see René-Aubert Vertot, The History of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem Styled afterwards the Knights of Rhodes and at Present the Knights of Malta, vol. 2 (New York: Leonard & Co., 1856), 335. 36 Cambiano refers to eyewitness Giacomo Pontano’s treatise on the siege; for a copy in Italian, see Francesco Sansovino, Historia universale dell’origine guerre, et imperio de Turchi (Venice: Sebastiano Combi & Giovanni La Nou, 1654), 361–394. Paolo

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to join them. Sailing with a carrack, three galleys, and other vessels, they found refuge in Candia, leaving the ravaged city in the hands of the Turks. For this, the Christian princes bear the blame because they were preoccupied in their [64/61r] little wars and did not care to defend it.37 From Candia, the Order went to Messina, where it remained but a few days, and then betook themselves to Rome, and arrived there just as Pope Hadrian VI passed away.38 After the latter’s death, Pope Clement VII, who was a knight and then protector of our Order, granted us Viterbo for our residence.39 Then the General Council, which was held at that place, decreed that the Grand Master was to go to the Emperor and to the other Christian princes to inform them of the perilous condition in which our Order had found itself and implore them to be generous in confirming the benefices that were in their domains. Similarly, he was to solicit Emperor [64/61v] Charles V to grant us the island of Malta for our residence, which had already been negotiated on the order of the Grand Master Fra Philippe de Villiers by Don Diego de Toledo, Prior of Castile and by Fra Gabriele Martinengo, who was made Prior of Barletta. While the Grand Master was on this voyage, the Order moved to Nice in Provence, and Pope Clement confirmed and renewed all of the privileges already granted to us by his pontifical predecessors and showed himself to be very affectionate and favorable in considering our needs. The Grand Master paid a visit to the Emperor and to King Francis of France, who at that time was a prisoner of war in Spain,40 then crossed over

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Giovio, Commentario de le cose de Turchi (1538), diii, does indeed refer to the siege, as he does in his biography of Pope Hadrian VI, Pauli Iovii Novocomensis Episcopi Nucerini De Vita Leonis Decimi Pont. Max. Libri Quator his Ordine Temporum Accesserunt Hadriani Sexti Pont. Max. et Pompeii Columnae Cardinalis Vitae (Florence: Lorenzo Torrentino, 1551), 115–149. In the 1550s, there were other publications in print reflecting in much detail on the events that Cambiano summarizes, such as Jacques de Bourbon, La grande et merueilleuse et trescruelle oppugnation de la noble cite de Rhodes (Paris: Pierre Gromors, 1525) and Jacques Fontanus, De bello Rhodio libri tres (Rome, 1524). On the Ottoman siege and capture of Rhodes, see Eric Brockman, The Two Sieges of Rhodes, 1480–1522 (London: Murray, 1969); James Reston, Defenders of the Faith: Charles V, Suleyman the Magnificent, and the Battle for Europe, 1520–36 (New York: Penguin, 2009); and Douglas Smith and DeVries, Rhodes Besieged. Hadrian VI (1522–1523), born Adriaan Floriszoon Boeyens, the only Dutchman to ascend to the papal throne, reigned for less than two years and died on September 14, 1523. Clement VII (1523–1534), born Giulio di Giuliano de Medici, a great patron of artists such as Michelangelo and Rafael and scientists such as Copernicus, was also instrumental in securing Malta for the Hospitallers. Illegitimate scion of the Medici, he began his career as a military man and was a member of the Order already in his late teens, and was later to become Grand Prior of Capua; see Kenneth Gouwens and Sheryl E. Reiss, eds., The Pontificate of Clement VII: History, Politics, and Culture (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005). Francis I was captured on February, 24, 1525 at the Battle of Pavia and spent a year as a prisoner of war in Madrid until March 17, 1526.

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to see King Henry of England. He returned to [65/62r] Nice via Savoy, where he visited Duke Charles and became his godparent, holding at baptism the present Duke Emmanuel Philibert.42 All the princes and kings received and entertained him well; they commiserated over his loss and the travails of his journey, promised him all sorts of favors and aid, and endorsed our relocation to Malta. From Nice, our Order went to Syracuse in Sicily, where it remained for about a year while the residences of the Grand Master and his knights were being prepared and furnished. On the propitious October 4, 1530, the said Grand Master and the Order relocated to the island.43 Giustiniano: You told me about some of the exploits of the Order in parts [65/62v] of the Holy Land. It would please me as much if you narrated in detail some of its signal achievements during the time in which the Order resided on and possessed the island of Rhodes. Cambiano: I will definitely do that as I have planned to, but I think we better take some food first as I see everything is already prepared and it seems to me it is time for that. Giustiniano: You are right. I delighted so much in the conversation that I forgot about lunch. Have another drink for the long talk you gave us and for what you are still to relate. Cambiano: Actually, I should have one less, lest I forget what I am about to say. [66/63r] Querini: I was extremely pleased to hear about the tremendous commitment that the Pope, the Emperor, and other Christian princes had to the preservation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, where our Lord Jesus Christ accepted passions and death for the redemption of the human race and where so many pilgrims flock to visit the Holy Sepulcher and other holy places. It does seem, however, that nowadays our faith has grown cold and that we have become so aloof and negligent in that most holy endeavor that the Christian princes suffer the holy places to be occupied and desecrated by the Turks. Little wonder, then, that God sends us all these wars and tribulations. [66/63v] Cambiano: There is no doubt, my lord Girolamo, that you are perfectly right. It seems to me that the principal task to which the most holy popes should attend has to be to exhort and spur the Christian princes to devote themselves to that endeavor. Because, apart from the benefits that would accrue to the Christians from harassing the enemy and their domains, engaging in the salvific enterprise of recuperating the Holy Land will also 41 Henry VIII (1509–1547). 42 Charles III (1504–1553), Duke of Savoy. Duke Emmanuel Philibert (1553–1580), the third son of Charles III, was born on July 8, 1528 in Chambéry. 43 On the Hospitallers’ wanderings before settling in Malta, see Victor MalliaMilanes, “A Trial of Hospitaller Strength: From Rhodes to Malta via Nice and Villefranche (1522–1530),” in La Navigation du Savoir: Réseau des arsenaux historiques del al Méditerranée Actes du colloque. Premières Journéss internationals du patrimoine maritime méditerranéen, 27 au 30 mars 2003, Villefranche-sur-Mer (Nice: Malta International Foundation, 2006), 73–81.

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suppress wars and curtail the heresies that are on the rise. Because if the potentates do not engage in war with the infidels, then they tend to fight between themselves. This is well attested by the fact that, while Christendom attended to the preservation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem [67/64r], it was at peace with itself and that, if per chance discord flared up, peace and quiet were immediately re-established through the authority of the Pope. Giustiniano: Everything happens according to the will of our Lord God. You, my knight, continue your discussion, picking up where you left off. Cambiano: Not long after the Grand Master and the Order became lords of the city and island of Rhodes, the sultan’s navy sailed there to attack them. However, the Duke of Savoy, who at that time was called [the] Count [of Savoy],44 happened to be in the city with a good number of soldiers and fought so valiantly in its defense that the armada [67/64v] suffered severe losses and was forced to lift the siege. To commemorate this, the Duke of Savoy gave up the ancient coat of arms of the House of Savoy, which descends from Emperor Otto III, and took up that of the Order, that is, a white cross on a red background bearing the motto and insignia of these four letters, “FERT,” which stand for “Fortitudo Eius Rhodium Tenuit.”45 The Dukes of Savoy carry these insignia and motto to this day. It makes sense that such an honorable prince would not have relinquished his ancient [coat of arms] and adopted that of the Order were it not so favored and respected by the Christian princes. As the Turks grew to become a great power [68/65r], they took to harassing Rhodes even more often, especially in the time of Grand Master Fra Jean de Lastic46 in the year 144047 and in the time of Grand Master Fra Jacques de Milly.48 In those times, the knights defended themselves with honor and reported victories that earned them great praise, reputation, and credit among the Christian princes, and the Holy See granted the Order extensive privileges. Similarly, in the year 1478,49 when Fra Pierre d’Aubusson50 was Grand Master, the city withstood the great siege of Mehmet, the second of that 44 Count Amadeus VI (1343–1383); see the classic work of Eugene L. Cox, The Green Count of Savoy: Amadeus VI and Transalpine Savoy in the Fourteenth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967). 45 Meaning “His Valor Saved Rhodes.” 46 Jean de Lastic (1437–1454). 47 In 1440, the attack on Rhodes (and another one in 1444) was by the Mamluks of Egypt, not by the Ottomans. On the troubled relations between the Hospitallers and the Levantine Muslim powers, see Charles Bosworth, “Arab Attacks on Rhodes in the Pre-Ottoman Period,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Third Series) 6, no. 2 (1996): 157–164; and Albrecht Fuess, “Rotting Ships and Razed Harbors: The Naval Policy of the Mamluks,” Mamluk Studies Review 5 (2001): 45–72. 48 Jacques de Milly (1454–1461). 49 It is somewhat strange that Cambiano does not have the correct year of the great siege of Rhodes in 1480. 50 Grand Master Pierre d’Aubusson (1476–1503).

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name and the eighth emperor of the Turks. In that time, the poor city was under attack for three full months; yet such was the resilience of the Grand Master and the knights that they emerged [68/65v] victorious, having often beat back the infidels from the walls and the bastions, which the latter had already occupied. It was then that our Lord God demonstrated the miracle of the Cross, which appeared in the air alongside our protector St. John the Baptist, and so frightened the Turkish army that it fled without being pursued by the Christians and abandoned the siege, as is narrated in detail by Pontano, a trustworthy historian of the time.52 The Grand Turk was so upset and distressed by this that in a short while he died of grief and melancholy. He left behind two sons. The older, Bayezid I, was born to him before he became Emperor of the Turks; the younger, Djem, [69/66r] was born after that. The two fell out between themselves, as each of them wanted to inherit the empire. The first had the support of the Janissaries, while the second was backed by some of the pashas, the Sultan of Egypt, and the King of Cilicia.53 After several brutal armed clashes, Djem, realizing that he would not be able to resist the might of his brother, resolved to flee to Rhodes.54 To that effect, he sent envoys to Grand Master Fra Pierre d’Aubusson, who called the Council to decide whether to accept or decline his request. Opinions on the issue varied. Many suspected that Bayezid would then attack Rhodes with all of his forces, and because its walls [69/66v] were still in ruins due to an earthquake, which, together with the recent siege, rendered the city’s bulwarks and bastions quite weak, advised that it would be a rather imprudent decision to accept [Djem] and thus surely provoke anew the wrath and fury of such a powerful lord as his brother. On the other hand, considering that Djem’s valor had led so many people to rise up and rebel, there was the reasonable expectation that he could be used to throw all of Turkey into confusion, which would be an excellent opportunity to unite the Christian princes for the conquest of Constantinople and the nearby territories of the Holy Land. [70/67r] In the end, it was decided that Djem should be carried to safety. The galleys and the carrack sailed out immediately and entered the Frisian Sea, about eighteen or twenty miles from Rhodes, where Djem was waiting for the answer. As he saw our topmasts appearing, he announced his intention to seek refuge on Rhodes, which he had kept hidden and secret until that moment out of fear that the army would hold him back. He got into a boat and took off, and as he was sailing away, wrote a letter to Bayezid in his own blood, attached it to an arrow, and shot it toward the shore with his bow. In it, he accused him bitterly of cruelty, saying that he had been forced to seek refuge with the enemies of his faith, for which he sought just [70/67v] 51 Mehmet the Conqueror (1451–1481). 52 See note 36 on Pontano. 53 Bozkurt Bey (1480–1515) of Dulkadir (Dhu al-Qadr), the Turkmen principality of Cilicia. 54 On the story of Djem Sultan (1459–1495), see Vatin, Sultan Djem: Un prince Ottoman dans l’Europe du XV siècle d’après deux sources contemporaines.

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vengeance against him from Mohammed and his God. They say that, after having read it, Bayezid uttered a sigh and for three days neither saw nor was seen by anyone. And so, Djem’s boat reached the Rhodian galleys, and he was received with great honor on the carrack. Tables were laid out, and he was served by the principal Christian lords and knights like the great prince that he was. His meals were tasted before him in the manner usual with Christian princes, but this lord marvelled greatly and asked for the reason it was done; the reply was that Christian princes and lords were served that way to prevent poisoning. To this, Djem responded that he wished to stay with them as a private person, that, by entrusting himself to the knights [71/68r], he did not fear anything, and that he did not wish to have his food tasted beforehand. He was then conducted to Rhodes, and he entered [the city] via a splendid bridge built specifically for his illustrious reception. He was met and accompanied by the Grand Master and all the knights and people of the city who had flocked for the unusual spectacle, and he was lodged in the palace of [the tongue] of France, as it had the most comfortable rooms. Then he appeared before the Council and explained the reasons for which his lordship had to undertake such an action and requested their aid and counsel in his adversity. A multitude of Turks congregated in Rhodes following their lord and were lodged outside the city. Guards were posted on duty around the clock both within and without as if expecting an enemy [71/68v] attack. Hearing the news about his brother, Bayezid returned to Constantinople with the army and, after long negotiations, offered to the Grand Master forty-five thousand ducats a year to keep Djem away. The proposal was accepted, and the funds were used to restore the ruined walls and buildings of Rhodes as well as for the upkeep of Djem, whom the Grand Master sent to Pope Innocent VIII55 accompanied by thirty knights and many Turks. Djem then went to France, seeking assistance from the Christian princes, above all from Emperor Maximillian56 and Charles VIII, the King of France, for waging war on his brother and exhorting them not to miss the opportunity to recuperate Constantinople, offering up the city [72/69r] in return for their aid. But the princes, busy fighting between themselves, did not care to undertake this honorable endeavor. Then Alexander VI57 ascended to the papacy; he wanted Djem in his hands, so that he could deprive the Order of the tribute and appropriate it himself. Meanwhile, Charles VIII, the King of France, went to recover the Kingdom of Naples.58 Passing through Rome, he took Djem with him, saying that after acquiring the Kingdom of Naples he would cross over 55 Innocent VIII (1484–1492). 56 Maximillian I, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (1459–1519), and Charles VIII, King of France (1470–1498). 57 Alexander VI (Rodrigo de Borgia) was pope from 1492 to 1503. 58 Charles VIII’s (1483–1498) expedition of 1494, which opened the Italian Wars, pitting France and the Milanese against Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, the Papacy, and a coalition of Italian territorial and city-states. One of the formal reasons for the expedition was Charles’s claim to the Kingdom of Naples through

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to Valona and wage war on the Turks. However, after they left Rome and arrived at Bolletro, now called Velletri,59 Djem died of poisoning. It was thought that it was given to him because of the envy of Alexander VI, so the king did not have the benefit of the forty-five thousand ducat tribute [72/69v] that his brother the Turk gave for his food and maintenance. Thus, because of the Pope our Order lost the tribute and the Christian princes lost such a great and important opportunity to fight their enemy on his own turf. Djem left a son of his own on Rhodes, which the present Grand Turk wanted to have in his hands. After he conquered Rhodes, he had the boy’s head cut off right away in order to completely extirpate contenders for the throne. Our Order held and possessed six of seven islands round about Rhodes, where too deeds worthy of recording were performed. On the mainland, there was the castle of San Pietro, with its unconquerable fortress. There, the Order kept a fine garrison strengthened by knights and soldiers, a place [73/70r] that provided safe refuge to all poor Christians who fled the attacks and raids of the Turks. In this castle, there was a marvelous breed of dogs, who could tell Christians from Turks by their odor. Every day, they ran in the fields around the castle, and if they happened upon a Christian, they nuzzled him and led him to the fortress, but if they found a Turk, they mauled him brutally. It is said that a Christian once fled the Turks and sought to save himself in the castle. To avoid being overtaken and seized by the Turks, he was forced to jump and hide in a ravine near the fortress, but then could not climb back out by himself [73/70v] and without assistance. One of these dogs strayed there by chance, and smelling his footprints recognized him as a Christian and began bringing him the bread it had been given to eat. The commander [of the castle] noticed that the dog was getting emaciated and realized that it had been taking out the bread that it was given. They followed the dog and, finding the man in the ravine, pulled him out, whereby he testified that the dog had in this manner supported and nourished him for the eight days he had been thus confined.60 Giustiniano: I would not call those who would not believe this or take it on faith heretics or infidels. Cambiano: I cannot force you to believe this, but given what we know about other dogs performing so many marvelous deeds, it is not impossible that the dogs of the castle [74/71r] of San Pietro would be able to discern between a Turk and a Christian by the way they smell.

his connection to the House of Anjou, which had ruled Naples between 1266 and 1442. 59 Velletri is a town in Lazio about twenty miles southeast of Rome. 60 The tale of dogs supposedly able to distinguish between denominations enjoyed a wide circulation in the early modern Mediterranean. It is told, with various embellishments, by several authors. See, for example, a variation from the 1470s in Kiril Petkov, ed., Coriolano Cippico: The Deeds of Commander Pietro Mocenigo in Three Books (New York: Italica Press, 2014), 18–19.

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While our Order resided in Rhodes, it kept three galleys well-armed and ready at all times, which crisscrossed the Archipelago,61 attacking and harassing the enemy ships that sailed in this area and sacking and despoiling the enemy villages located close to the shoreline. In the time of Grand Master Fra Fernando de Heredia,62 our galleys and other ships seized the town of Patras63 as well as other locales and places of the Turks. Our knights armed galliots and fusts [74/71v] and with them harried the Levant and fought the Turks over the place. In fact, our Order alone waged more wars on the Turks than the rest of Christendom put together. In the time of Grand Master Fra Emery d’Amboise, the armada of the Order captured and sank the sultan’s armada, even though it was larger than ours.64 And it can be seen and read in our annals as well as in Venetian works that our Order had many times cooperated and allied with this most serene Signoria to inflict harm on the Turks, putting all our forces at your service and for your benefit, defending the islands and the subjects that you have in the region. In the time of Grand Master Fra Pierre d’Aubusson, the carrack of the Order fought and captured the carrack of the Turks [75/72r] and the Moors along with goods of inestimable value. It would be a long story indeed if someone wanted to report in detail on all the good works performed by the Order while at Rhodes; it is better to narrate it at another time. Giustiniano: Tell me please the procedure for electing a Grand Master, for I know you are familiar with that. Cambiano: You can find out about that in our Statutes,65 but as I see that you would enjoy hearing it from me, I will tell you what I have observed at 61 The clusters of islands in the Aegean, bracketed by continental Greece and the Peloponnese in the west, Anatolia in the east, Crete in the south, and the southern Balkans in the north. 62 Grand Master Juan Fernandez de Heredia (1376–1396). 63 A port city on the northwest coast of the Peloponnese. Patras was captured by the knights in 1387, after having been seized by the Ottomans, in the course of a campaign in which Heredia sought to take over the Principality of Achaea, which encompassed the Peloponnese, during an interregnum. See William Miller, The Latins in the Levant: A History of Frankish Greece, 1204–1566 (New York: Dutton and Co., 1908). 64 Emery d’Amboise served as Grand Master from 1503 to 1512. 65 In his institutional summary, Cambiano follows the Statutes of the Order. For an English translation of the early tradition, originally published by Joseph Delaville Le Roulx, Cartulaire-Général des Hospitaliers de Saint Jean de Jérusalem (1100– 1310), 4 vols. (Paris: Leroux, 1894–1906), see E. J. King, The Rule, Statutes, and Customs of the Hospitallers 1099–1310, with Introductory Chapters and Notes (London: Methuen, 1934), and for the Statutes after the relocation to Malta, see Wolf-Dieter Barz, “The Maltese Statuti e Ordinamenti of 1533,” Id-Dritt (Journal of the Law Society of the University of Malta) 15 (1990): 5–20. A detailed English-language commentary on these and later Statutes is available in Wolf-Dieter Barz and Michael Galea, eds., Lectures on the Statutes of the Sacred Order of St. John of Jerusalem at the University of Malta, 1792 by Antonio Micallef

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the two or three elections that have taken place in my time and in my presence. Immediately upon a Grand Master’s death and burial, the full Council convenes and elects an interim Master. He is in office [75/72v] up to the day of the [new] election. Meanwhile, the obsequies are performed and the divestment of the deceased Master is ordered. Then the day of the election is announced, on which all bailiffs, priors, commendators, knights, and other members gather in the fortress of Malta. In Rhodes, I think, it was done in the church. At dawn, the mass of the Holy Spirit is celebrated and then, with the authorization of the interim Master, the eight tongues congregate separately having beforehand, in the presence of the interim Master, taken an oath on the cross of their cloaks. Each tongue then elects a worthy and accomplished member of exemplary character to elect [in turn] the chief of the election and the three electors of the Grand Master, that is, a knight, a chaplain, and a sergeant, [76/73r] the three ranks of the membership of our Order. Once selected, the eight electors appear before the interim Master and, on their knees, and in the presence of the entire congregation, which among us is called an assembly, swear on the holy Gospels that they will elect a respectable knight from among either the assembly or the eight of them for the benefit of the Order. After the oath, they enter a room and elect a chief of the election. Having elected him, they inform the interim Master and the assembly of their choice. The chief appears before the interim Master and takes an oath, in the manner already described, that he will preside over a fair [76/73v] election. At that moment, the interim Master stands down and the chief of the election takes his place. At this point, the already mentioned eight electors take a new oath on the Gospels and elect a worthy and accomplished knight, a chaplain, and a sergeant, to elect in turn the members of the committee that will elect the Grand Master in the following manner. After the oath, the said eight electors enter in conclave, and elect a knight, a chaplain, and a sergeant. Once these are elected, the eight electors stand down. The three new electors are presented to the chief of the election and the assembly, and take an oath [77/74r], in the above-mentioned fashion, that they will elect the electors for the election of the Grand Master. Having taken the oath, they enter in conclave and elect a fourth elector. He immediately takes the public oath in the same manner as the first three electors and enters in conclave with the other three. These four electors elect a fifth one, who takes the same oath and enters the conclave, joining the other four. The five of them elect a sixth one, the six a seventh, and so forth, until they reach the number of sixteen, that is, two per tongue, and all of them take the said oath. You should also know that none of these sixteen can be one of the Grand (Karlsruhe: KIT Scientific Publishing, 2012). The complete early modern original edition of the Statutes closest to the time of Cambiano is Statuti Hospitalis Jerusalem (1588), a full digital copy of which is available at: https://www.wdl.org/en/ item/9912/view/1/1/.

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Cross,66 nor are they allowed to elect one of the electors as Grand Master [77/ 74v]. Once they become sixteen in number, on the order of the chief of the assembly, that is, of the election, they are confessed by the chaplain of the election, hear mass, receive the holy sacrament, and pray to God to illuminate them and grant them to elect a worthy and accomplished Grand Master to reign over and govern our Order. Having done that, the sixteen appear before the assembly and the chief of the election and most reverently fall on their knees, put their hands on the holy wood of the Cross and the holy Gospels, and one after another swear on this most holy wood of the Cross, on the holy Gospels of God, and on the holy [78/75r] words of the preface of the mass that, having put aside any envy, rancor, fear, love, hope for reward, and any other inordinate affect, and keeping their eyes and minds trained on God and our Lord Jesus Christ, for their honor and glory, they will elect the Grand Master of the Hospital of St. John the Baptist of Jerusalem from among all the knights of our Order, present and absent, a knight born of legitimate marriage who is worthy, experienced, virtuous, accomplished, and suitable for the office of the Master, and who will honor and serve the Christian religion according to his conscience. After the oath, they seclude themselves in conclave where no one can talk to them [78/75v], and proceed to elect the Grand Master, scrutinizing and discussing between themselves the virtues and defects of all the bailiffs and priors of our Order. Each of them has the right to state everything that they know and think about the merits and demerits of any of the lords, bailiffs and priors, because even though the Statutes enjoin that they can pick any knight of the Order, it is always a bailiff or a prior that gets elected, as they are senior and experienced in similar offices. After a long conversation, these sixteen electors choose four, or six, or less bailiffs and priors, for which ballots are cast; whoever gets most votes and ballots is declared the Grand Master. [79/76r] Giustiniano: I would like to know whether the election is carried out promptly. Cambiano: Sometimes it is carried out quickly, sometimes it takes a while. But it cannot be extended for more than a day or a night because they are only fed once and have to be expeditious if they do not want to die of hunger in there. After the election, the knight in charge of the election and his companions appear before the chief of the election and the full assembly and ask them whether they would accept as their proper superior the Grand Master that has been elected. They answer “yes” and affirm this by swearing on it three times. Then the knight in charge of the election declares and announces [79/76v] the name of the Grand-Master-elect. If present, he is led to the main altar of the church, where he swears on our Statutes and takes the obligation that he will abide by the Rule and the praiseworthy Customs of the Order, 66 That is, they could not be chiefs of the tongues or members of the top Order officialdom, numbering forty-nine chiefs with the rank of Grand Cross.

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and will govern and transact the Order’s business with the participation and advice of its principals. If the Grand-Master-elect is absent, an order is issued for his return. Meanwhile, the full Council elects a lieutenant, who carries out and disposes of the current business of the Order in the company and with the consent and assent of the said Council until the arrival of the Grand-Master-elect. [80/77r] Giustiniano: The manner of the election in the way that you explain it is praiseworthy, but it seems to me that sixteen [electors] is a small number and that it would be easy to influence and sway them to favor someone who is not worthy of the office. Cambiano: This will be most difficult if not outright impossible. The electors do not know whether they will be elected, and immediately after being elected they are sequestered in a room where they can be neither talked to nor interacted with. Besides, care is taken to entrust this charge to well-known, accomplished persons, and one would think that after confessing, taking the holy sacraments, and swearing the solemn oath they would proceed with all integrity [80/77v] and would be more beholden to their conscience and their Order than to any specific [person]. There has been no indication so far that they had done or proceeded otherwise. Giustiniano: Having explained the protocol of the election of the Grand Master, it would be just as good to tell me in what way the proof of nobility for gentlemen who desire to become knights is established. Cambiano: This will be easy. I have been charged with doing that many times and have seen and have been informed of how others have done it. [81/78r] First, there has to be a commission by the most reverend Grand Master and Council of Malta, or by the provincial chapter or assembly of the province or priorate where the knight who desires to become a knight was born. It enjoins upon two knights of the Order to examine the proof of nobility. More than two knights are nominated; two are elected. The two knights thus elected take an oath in the hands of other knights to carry out and fulfill their commission in the manner in which it should be done and in conformity with the rules and regulations of the Order. In case there are no other knights around, they take the oath in one another’s hands, swearing that they would act properly and in good faith, and the notary records that in his books. [81/78v] The said commissioners are to examine separately and under oath, as stipulated by the notary, two or three trustworthy nobles about whether they know the gentleman who wishes to become a knight, what testimony and deposition they can make about his age and disposition, whether he had been born of a legitimate marriage within the borders of that province or priorate, and whether he has been considered a noble and recognized as a noble by name and by a coat of arms. Also, they have to inquire about his father and his cognomen, whether he had been considered a noble of rank, office, or pre-eminence, and whether he had been held and recognized as a noble by everyone. The same inquiries are

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to be made about his paternal and maternal ancestors, and the witnesses have [82/79r] to state their [ancestors] names and cognomina. They have to provide full and certain confirmation of nobility for the father, as has been said, and if, per chance, that has not been known to everyone for a long time, then the witnesses have to be informed about these details before they submit to the thorough examination so that they can fully attest to it when testifying. If any of these details are missing, the proof will be null and void and will not be accepted at Malta. Once the said witnesses are examined in the manner already explained, the commissioners and the notary inquire ex officio with two or three other witnesses about the above-mentioned details to find out whether [82/79v] the witnesses provided by the gentleman have told the truth in their statements and testimonies. With the above-described inquiries having been made and recorded, the notary authenticates them together with the depositions with his signature and credentials. Then the commissioners sign, apply their seals, and secure them. Thus closed and sealed off, they are sent to the gentleman who wishes to become a knight. Then he himself takes them to Malta, because the knight’s cross cannot be bestowed in any other place. On arrival in Malta, the knight has to pay the receiver of the Order a hundred and fifty gold scudi,67 but if, per chance, the knight does not get accepted, due to deficient proofs or to another [83/80r] reason, the cross is not bestowed upon him and the money is returned to him. Having arrived in Malta, the gentleman appears before the assembled tongue of this birth, asks to be accepted as a knight according to the Statutes and the standards of the Order, and presents his proofs of nobility, which are reviewed and inspected most diligently. If it is found that they had been made in conformity with the Statutes and the standards of the Order, they are accepted and confirmed. Then the most reverend Grand Master is informed, and he authorizes those whom it concerns to bestow the habit upon him. If, however, the contrary is established, the invalid proofs are rejected, and the gentleman is notified [of this decision]. [83/80v] Giustiniano: I suspect that the manner of establishing proofs, as you have explained it, is not strictly followed, nor can it be followed in full, because one sees many that carry the cross who are not noble nor have ever been, but carry it, having gone through such examinations.

67 The silver scudo was the standard coin and unit of account on Malta and was equal to 12 tari; the gold scudo must be the gold zecchino, also known as “gold scudo” or the standard gold coin, equivalent to a Venetian ducat of 3.5 grams. See Felice Restelli and Joseph C. Sammut, The Coinage of the Knights in Malta, 2 vols. (Malta: Emmanuel Said, 1977). For a handy table of Maltese measures and currency during this period, see Joan Abela, Hospitaller Malta and the Mediterranean Economy in the Sixteenth Century (Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2018), xxiv.

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Cambiano: I would confess that what you say is correct, but those are not knights but chaplains and sergeants. These cannot hold commendatories or the dignity of the Grand Cross or the offices that only the knights can have. The chaplains serve our churches and the sergeants serve in offices befitting their rank and receive benefices that are separate and of lesser value than those of the knights. Proofs of nobility are not conducted for them. [84/81r] Giustiniano: Apart from that, I see some who do hold commendatories pertaining to knights and other important benefices and who do not appear to be noble. And they do not seem to me to be worthy of this dignity. Cambiano: These have been made knights or commendators by His Holiness, the Pope. Even though he had conceded us ample privileges and confirmed our Statutes on occasion, having been won over by the importunity of knights and other persons, he concedes commendatories to whomever he pleases and accepts quitclaims of our benefices at the expense of poor knights who had continuously served the Order and who had given up their blood, their patrimony, their youth, and their very life in the service of Christ only to see themselves sidelined by many commoners [84/81v] who are not worthy of the Order. They are deprived of their rewards, which is contrary to the injunctions of the privileges conceded to us. Furthermore, His Holiness also makes knights out of some of those [people] you mentioned whenever he pleases and without proofs of nobility or any other formalities. This only happens, however, within the poor tongue of Italy, which has been abandoned by everyone, and there are indeed knights there who were not required to go through the procedure of providing proofs. But those who enter through the door, so to speak, and get accepted at Malta, go through the full proofs procedure precisely as explained above, and exceptions are granted very rarely and with great difficulty. Giustiniano: What does it mean to be a knight of the Order, what are one’s duties as such, [85/82r] how is the cross conferred, and who confers it? Cambiano: Let me first answer the penultimate of your questions, and then I will address the rest of them.68 First of all, the gentleman who wishes to become a knight has to confess and pray to God to inspire him to perform deeds in His holy service. After confession and prayer, he goes to hear mass in the company of the bailiff and prior or commendator who has been authorized by the Grand Master to confer the habit on him. The Gospels having been read, he genuflects before the said authorized person, who asks him what he wants, and promptly replies that he wants to be a knight of St. John’s. He is then told that he is asking for something [85/82v] quite special, for originally the rank of knight was not conceded to anyone who had not 68 The text follows loosely the Statutes of the Order, Title II. For an English translation of this part of the Statutes, see George Bowyer, The Ritual of Profession of the Knights and Religious Ladies and the Receptions of Donats, of the S.M. and R. Order of St. John of Jerusalem or of Malta (London: Burns and Lambert, 1858), 3–18.

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deserved it by merit and exceptional virtue, but that given that his ancestors had held noble status due to their accomplishments and virtues, and in the hopes that he would not fall below the level of his predecessors, it will be granted to him. For this, he promises to do that which true knights are expected to do, which is to fight the infidels, to defend the holy Catholic faith, to defend his honor against anyone who would infringe upon it, and to protect widows and orphans in the name of the Order. The gentleman having responded that he is ready to adhere to [86/83r] these objectives, the golden spurs are taken out and attached to his boots with the statement that attaching gold, the most precious metal there is, to the weakest part of the body signifies that, in the service of the faith of Christ and in the upholding of His honor, gold is to be scorned and that its being in the shape of spurs is to inspire him to remember and adhere to the above-mentioned objectives. This having been done, the aspiring gentleman brings forth the sword with the golden hilt and raises it three times with his hand, which signifies his soul’s readiness to be honored as a knight. Then, he hands it over to the knight, who commands and exhorts him to strive to be pure and clean of soul as he [the gentleman] becomes [86/83v] a knight of St. John’s, and in memory of this he strikes him three times with the flat of the sword on the left shoulder, the side of the heart, and gives him back the sword, which he [the gentleman] goes on to sheathe. With this done, he returns to hear the remainder of the mass, dressed in a long cloak and carrying a burning white candle in his hand. After mass, he takes communion, goes back to the knight again, falls on his knees, and asks to be accepted in the company of the brothers of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. The knight gives him the habit with proper and devout words, praising greatly his intention and explaining what a salutary and meritorious thing it is to serve the poor of Christ [87/84r], to perform good works of mercy, and to put oneself in the service of defense of the holy faith, things that many have desired but have been unable to obtain. After that, he is reminded of the Order’s rules of strict obedience according to which he has to abandon his own desires and obey his superiors, and he is asked whether he is ready to fully obey and comply with these things, to which he responds with a “yes.” Then, he is asked whether he has made a vow to another Order, has consummated a marriage, is involved in a major litigation, or is anyone’s serf, because if it turns out that he is implicated in any of those things, even though he may have been already accepted, he would be rejected ignominiously as a transgressor against the oath that he had already taken. If he replies that he is [87/84v] free [from such impediments], the knight who has given him the habit opens the missal and the new knight puts both hands on the sacred scriptures and says: “I, so and so, make a vow and promise to the Almighty God and the blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and St. John the Baptist, that with the help of God I will always be truly obedient to the superior that God and my Order will grant me, and further that I will live purely and chastely.” The knight then picks up the missal with the sacred scriptures and tells him: “We now

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acknowledge you as a servant of the poor and the infirm, dedicated to the defense of the Catholic faith.” The new knight responds: “And I acknowledge myself as such,” kisses the missal, and takes it to the altar [88/85r] and returns it as a sign of obedience. This done, the knight prepares the black pallium, which is a garb that our predecessors used in the past to signify, I think, the camel hide worn by St. John the Baptist, because it has no sleeves and is not tailored in any way, but is wrapped around the shoulders and tied up with its pointed ends, which are made mostly of wool interwoven with cords and fastened at the neck with certain ribbons and trusses of black-and-white silk signifying the scourge and trusses and the other mysteries of the passions of our Lord Jesus Christ. On this garb is depicted the eight-pointed white cross, which is shown to the new knight. He is then asked whether he believes that this [88/85v] is the sign of the cross on which the blessed Christ died to redeem us, the sinners. The new knight replies that he believes it. Now the knight who gives him the habit says: “This is the sign that we enjoin upon you to carry always,” and the new knight kisses the cross. This done, he wraps the pallium around his shoulders, with the cross on the left side, kisses the new knight, and tells him: Take this sign in the name of the Holy Trinity, the blessed Virgin Mary, and St. John the Baptist for the expansion and exaltation of the faith and the defense of the Christian name, and for the service of the poor and all the sick. Brother, we bestow the cross on your [89/86r] [left] side so that you love it from the bottom of your heart and with your right hand fight manfully and strenuously to defend and protect it. And if per chance, while combating the enemies of the faith of Christ, you abandon the standard of the Holy Cross and flee that just war, in compliance with the rulings of our Statutes and Customs, you will be deprived of the vestment with the cross and as a violator of your oath will be shamefully and ignominiously expulsed from our company as a putrid and rotten member. Then he ties up the cords of the pallium, saying: “Take the yoke of the Lord, which is light and gentle, and may your soul find peace in it. We do not promise you luxuries, but only bread, water, and humble vestments [89/86v] as well as the partaking of your soul and those of your relatives and kinsmen in the good works, which our Order and our brethren perform all over the world,” and the new knight responds: “Amen.” This done, the knight who has given him the habit embraces and kisses him in sign of fraternal affection. Those in attendance do the same, and the priests who officiate at the mass say the prayers according to our Statutes and enjoin upon the knight to say one hundred and fifty Paternosters every day or else the service of Our Lady or that of the dead instead of the Paternosters. Giustiniano: As you describe all that, tell us also about the prayers that are said at the ordination of the knights.

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Cambiano: I would need to consult our Statutes to be sure, but it seems to me, if I recall well, that they say this: Suscipimus Deus misericordiam tuam in medio templj tuj. Psalmas. Magnus Dominus et laudabilis nimis in civitate Dei nostri in monte sancto eius Gloria amen, et caterae; Suscipimus Deus Alleluia Chirie eleyson Christe eleyson. Salvum fac servum tuum. Domine Deus meus sperantem in te. Mitte ei Domine auxilium de santo et de Syon tuere eum. Nihil proficiat in ea et filius iniquitatis non apponat nocebit ei. Esto ei Domine turris fortitudinis a facie inimici et persequentiums eium. Domine exandi orationem meam et clamor mens at te veniat. Dominus vobiscum et cum spiritu tuo. Oremus. [90/86v] Deus qui iusti ficas impium et non vis mortem peccatorum, Maiestatem tuam suppliciter deprecamur ut hunc famulum tuum N. de tua misericordia confidentem coelesti protegas benignus auxilio et assidua protection conserves. Ut tibi iugiter famuletur et nullis a te tentationibus seperetur. Per Dominum nostrum serum Christum filium tuum qui tecum vivit et regnat in secula seculorum. Amen. Omnipotens sempiterne Deus qui facis magna mirabilia solus, praetende super famulum tuum ne spiritum gratia salutaris ut veritate tibi complaceat perpetua ei rorem benedictionis tua infunde per Christum Duminum nostrum. Amen. Suscipiat de Dominus in numero fideliam et licit nos indegni N. Suscepimus in orationibus. [91/88r] Orationibus nostris concedat tibi Dominus locum bene agendi et voluntatem perseverandi et gratiam ad aeterna vita beatitudinem haereditatem faelicitatem perveniende et sicut nos charitas fraternitatis convinxit in terris ita divina pietas quae delictionis auxiliatrix est cum suis fidelibus convingere dignetur in coelis praestante Domino nostro Jesu Christo et vi cum Patre et Spiritu Santo vincit, et regnat in secula seculorum. Amen. You have to know that the brothers who are chaplains and sergeants do not have the rank of knights, are not required to provide proofs of nobility, and are only obliged to state the province where they were born and that they are sons of men of means and of good reputation, and that they were born of a legitimate marriage. The habit of St. [91/88v] John is granted to them with the same ritual described above. The allowance, which the Order affords to the knights as well as to the chaplains and sergeants, covers their expenses and those of a servant. Each of the knights also receives a stipend, which we call soldea, of forty florins in Rhodesian currency. Chaplains and sergeants are given twenty florins. Furthermore, if they happen to fall sick, the Order pays their doctors and surgeons and pays for their medicines. There are few knights without an allowance or pension from home on top of the allowance and the soldea from the Order, which they use to maintain themselves in style and live [92/89r] and perform their service, and who will not, in due time, end up without a commendatory.

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Giustiniano: I would like to know how commendatories and other benefices are distributed to the knights. Cambiano: The commendatories are given in turn, for betterment, and by grace. Those in turn are given when the knight’s turn comes, that is, after all the knights who have received the habit before him have been made commendators. After a commendatory is used for five years and is shown to have been continuously improved, both with regard to revenues and to buildings, it can be exchanged for another one. The one taken instead of that which is being returned is called a commendatory of betterment [92/89v]. The commendatories by grace are those that the Grand Master confers at his discretion once every five years to those that he thinks deserve them, one for each priory. The tongues, too, can grant commendatories to whomever they please, but this is rarely done. The knights of Malta do their service on the galleys, twenty-five to thirty knights per galley. They are designated by their own tongue and rotate every four months, so that every one of them shares in the burden that we call “going in caravan,” a phrase that is Arabic in origin.69 [93/90r] They are also posted at the castles of the Order. As some of them want to keep horses, the Order assists them with barley, because theirs are horses suitable for service in arms, and this is in the purview of the Marshal, the chief of the tongue of Auvergne. If news comes that enemy fusts or galliots are approaching, the knights who keep horses join the Marshal or another man appointed as captain by him or by the Council and ride out to deny landing to the corsairs and defend the island. Giustiniano: Tell me something about the authority of the Grand Master and the allowance he receives to live comfortably in the style that befits his rank. [93/90v] Cambiano: He has impressive authority, for he is the master and superior of such a great and honored Order, to which belong the sons and brothers of the foremost princes of Christendom, and to which kings do not consider it dishonorable to send their brothers and sons. I have seen a brother of the King of Portugal, a brother of the Duke of Guise, a brother of the Duke of Alba, a son of Don Ferrante Gonzaga, and so many other lords that it would be tedious to list all of the rulers who profess obedience to and acknowledge the Grand Master as their lord and master. On account of his authority, he is served and honored by princes, and on account of the favors and incomes he does and could bestow upon them and the commendatories by grace, which he grants every five years for each priory [94/91r], which I told you about above and from which he is paid an annual fee. He is chief of 69 On the Order’s navy, see Charles Petiet, L’Ordre de Malte face aux turcs: Politique et stratégie en Méditerranée au XVI siècle (Paris: Hérault, 1996); Joseph M. Wismayer, The Fleet of the Order of St. John, 1530–1798 (Malta: Midsea Books, 1997); and Joseph Muscat, The Maltese Galley (Malta: Pubblikazzjonijiet Indipendenza, 1998).

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the Council of the Order, which comprises the eight conventual bailiffs, that is, the heads of the tongues and their lieutenants, all the priors, and the capitolar bailiffs, who meet in Convent and have the authority to mint coins of gold and silver. He is lord of the isles of Malta and Gozo: you can say “lord and master” because all officials and servants depend on him. However, he governs and disposes of all business with the participation and consent of the lords of the Council, and all bulls and edicts are issued jointly in his name and that of the Convent. His revenues are very large. He receives a stipend of twelve thousand scudi from the Treasury of the Order, or rather used to [94/91v], as it is said that the current Grand Master, Fra Claude de la Sengle,70 being a generous man, is content with and requests only eight thousand. In each priory, he owns a Master’s Chamber, which he leases out for an appropriate payment, plus an upfront payment of two full annual leases according to the true value of that commendatory, which he grants by grace. He receives the revenues from the customs and the tariffs for the islands of Malta and Gozo, which import a great deal. He owns, as a commendatory, the income from a good quantity of land of the said island [of Malta], and of the products thereof, which he disposes of as he pleases. [95/92r] Furthermore, he gets thirty scudi per knight for the maintenance of all knights who serve him, but in this case it often happens that he aids the Order with his own funds rather than receiving an income. He maintains six chaplains for service in his own chapel and goes to mass every day. He serves twelve poor men in memory of our Lord Jesus Christ and the twelve apostles, and the priors and the bailiffs carry the plates. He is the head of the judicial officials who preside over the vassals of the island in both criminal and civil cases, has sheer plenipotentiary power, and can pardon and commute the sentence of the condemned. Finally, he is the absolute lord of all the vassals of the said [95/92v] island, because the Emperor conceded to the Order the dominion and authority over this island, and he holds it for a tribute of one falcon. [He] nominates the Bishop of Malta, one of the three [bishops] elected by the Order,71 and [ensures] that the Admiral does his duties, as can be seen in more detail in the letters of donation that his Majesty had made for the entire island and the fortress and city of Tripoli.72 70 Fra Claude de la Sengle, Bailiff of the tongue of France and Grand Master, September 11, 1553–August 18, 1557. See Joan Abela, “Il-Gran Mastru Claudio De La Sengle,” Il-Mument 5 (1999): 20–23. 71 For the Grand Master’s authority in church matters, see Fabrizio D’Avenia, “Making Bishops in the Malta of the Knights, 1530–1798,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 66, no. 2 (2015): 261–279. 72 A digital file of the charter is accessible at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Deed_of_Donation,_1530.jpg. For an English translation in print, see Whitworth Porter, History of the Knights of Malta of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (London: Longman, 1858), 469–478, Appendix 16. See also

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Giustiniano: I was exceedingly pleased to hear your account of the authority and income of the Grand Master. Now tell me, what would be the income of the Order itself ? Cambiano: You are asking me about something that will be very difficult to explain. Our benefices [96/93r] are divided and dispersed all over Christendom, and it is hard to tell what their value is. What I could tell you is the value of the payments and levies that the Order receives at present. They can increase or decrease as time goes on and as the needs of the Order change, as you will see later. What is currently collected is between sixty and seventy thousand scudi, apart from the legacies of commendators and knights who pass away, and the vacante mortuorum of commendatories. Giustiniano: Could you please explain precisely what falls under the category of vacante mortuorum? Cambiano: Mortuorum refers to all income [96/93v] from the day the commendators die to the day of St. John in June.73 Vacante refers to the usufruct and revenue that constitute the commendatory from the day of St. John to the next day of St. John in June—that is, one whole year. Bear in mind that all usufructs and revenues under vacante mortuorum belong to the Grand Master. Giustiniano: And how about any creditors? Who pays them back at the death of a commendator? Cambiano: They are paid from the spoils that commendators leave behind, that is, from the usufructs and revenues from which payments would have been advanced in these years, factoring in gold, silver, horses, [97/94r] clothes, and other things save household movable goods, which belong to the commendators and their successors in the commendatory. If there are no spoils, or if they are not sufficient to pay back the loans, it is possible to pay them back from the goods newly acquired by the commendators. If there are neither spoils nor goods available, the creditors will have to wait. Giustiniano: What is the reason for not paying back the creditors from the revenues while the commendator is still alive, before he dies? Cambiano: The reason is that the Order is master and owner of all our benefits, and from the moment the commendator—who can be called a user or, better, [97/94v] a usufructuary—passes away, all incomes and revenues that still exist belong to the Order, which has priority before all other creditors. You can find all that I am telling you in our Privileges in different injunctions pronounced in favor of the Order against creditors who have claimed that the mortuorum should not apply to spoils, because the Order cannot collect payments and routine levies from these sources unless it charges them at its Victor Mallia-Milanes, “Charles V’s Donation of Malta to the Order of St. John,” Peregrinationes: Acta et documenta Carlo V e Mercurino di Gattinara suo Gran Cancelliere 2, no. 2 (2001): 23–33. 73 The feast day of St. John the Baptist is June 24.

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discretion, which it can only do for the year after they had been counted as spoils, as the commendator would not have been able to dispose of them, even though he had already paid the dues and impositions on the revenues [98/95r] for that year. Giustiniano: And what is to be done in case the revenues and incomes had already been spent by the commendator? Cambiano: In such case, the Order would have to wait, because the mortuorum is intended to be on what exists at the moment rather than on what has already been spent. The creditors should be aware of the way of life of our commendators and brethren, because the vow of poverty we take is of great advantage to the Order. Giustiniano: I am not really satisfied [with the answer], nor do I see the issue clearly. Pray explain better so that I can understand. Cambiano: I will explain the matter better with an example that will make all the difference. [98/95v] If you had a servant or a friend to whom, because he deserves it or for another reason, you grant a property to enjoy for life in exchange for a pension or annuity, and if it so happened that this servant or friend of yours passed away without having paid your pension or allowance, but left behind the revenues from the said property, would you not avail yourself of these revenues in spite of the existence of other creditors? Giustiniano: Yes, on account of the fact that the revenues from my property are mine after the death of the person who has not paid me the due pension or annuity. Cambiano: The same applies to the Order. It is the owner, and we are its servants. We hold these properties from the Order. They differ in kind from the commendatories of other ecclesiastical benefices [99/96r], of which the knights are usufructuaries and administrators, and the term “commendator” means nothing else but that they hold these properties as entitlements for life. Giustiniano: I am satisfied. Now tell me, if you know, whether our Order has other revenues. Cambiano: There are the occasional gains made by our galley ships of infidel ships, goods, and slaves. When such a ship is seized by force, the goods on deck are taken as booty but everything below deck belongs to the Order. If the ships surrenders without a fight, all the goods belong to the Order. Yet this cannot be accounted for as regular revenue, as it is rather uncertain and occurs rarely and not that often. The obligations and outlays of the Order are heavy. Five to six hundred knights are maintained and supported at any given time, and the sum of their stipends and expenses runs quite high. Even though the commendators and others who hold properties from the Order do not receive stipends, and although the medicines for the sick included in these outlays do not cost much, it all comes to about one hundred and fifty thousand scudi per year, not including the already mentioned salary of the Grand Master. Four first-rate galleys are kept ready and armed around the clock at the price of seven to eight thousand scudi each, because each of them carries

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more than a hundred fighting men, plus the knights [100/97r] and their servants, and the free rowers who in time of need are given arms to fight, and they do their duty and fight courageously. The Order supports its own Church, in whose service there are many churchmen and our chaplains of all the tongues. It is outfitted with rich and sumptuous trappings of gold and silver and silk and an intricate apparatus, which is fit to equip any Christian bishopric. Its head and chair, called the Prior of the Church, is elected from among the chaplains, carries the Grand Cross, and is of a higher rank than all bailiffs and priors. [100/97v] Maintaining the infirmary or the Hospital is so expensive it cannot even be estimated. It accepts everyone, be they religious or secular, and they are all served and treated with due care and affection by the Great Hospitaller, the chief of the tongue of France, who visits them every morning and serves them their bread with his own hand. Two knights, called “bredonii of the infirmary,” are appointed to see to it that the sick are well treated and restored to health and that the doctors and surgeons and other personnel do their duties and visit them often and no less than twice a day, and, even more importantly, they make absolutely sure that the medications and the syrups and the other suppositories in the pharmacy are all in perfectly good condition. [101/98r] A brother with the rank of sergeant, called infirmiere, is in charge of the infirmary. His job is to ascertain that the custodians, that is, the men charged with the care and service of the sick, are competent and skilled, and that the latter’s food is prepared according to the doctors’ orders, as well as to provide the said infirmary with proper furnishing of beds and other things, as it is also a place licensed as asylum for trespassers who have not committed major and abominable crimes. Great expenses are undertaken for the building of fortresses, especially after the arrival in Malta, because it was necessary to fortify the Castle and to rebuild from scratch the land-side walls and the fort of San Elmo, which was begun in the time of [101/98v] Strozzi, Prior of Capua,74 to defend the entrance to the Castle, that is, its gate, and the port of Marsamxett, which had been penetrated by the Turkish armada in the year 1552, as well as the fort on the Claudian island, which was newly built for the settlement of our subjects, and many other construction projects on which the Order expends a great deal. Large sums are collected and continuously distributed to the Greeks who abandoned the city and island of Rhodes and accompanied the Order, and alms are handed over to the poor who were already in Malta and are still quite numerous at present. Much is spent on the purchase and transportation of grain, wine, and wood, which are all brought over from [102/99r] Sicily for the subsistence and maintenance of the Order in Malta, which of itself is so 74 Leone Strozzi (1515–1554), a scion of the Florentine Strozzi family, knight of Malta since 1530, and Prior of Capua for the Order.

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barren that the grain cultivated here suffices for no more than four months, give or take, depending on the harvest.75 Then there are the stipends and salaries of a great number of officers and servants, which the Order continuously maintains both in Malta and in various Christian provinces to protect its rights. There are other expenses for the construction of ships and galleys, and for other incidentals, but it would be too tedious to explain them all in detail. Giustiniano: Given that there are so many knights of different nations, I marvel that there is no [102/99v] continuous discord, strife, controversy, and discontent, especially if there is disagreement or war between their respective princes, due to the natural hatred that seems to exist between nations and that is openly demonstrated elsewhere. Cambiano: So far God, in His infinite mercy, has freed us from such discord, and I hope that He will keep us free from it in the future, besides the fact that good care has been taken to conserve unity. Because, to begin with, there are no overlapping interests between the nations, which is the primary root and the true and proper foundation of discord, on account of revenues. As I had already told you, each nation keeps its revenues separate. An Italian cannot receive revenues from France or Spain, nor can a Spaniard [103/100r] get them from Italy or France. Each tongue and nation derives its revenues and has its income from its own country, as I have explained in more detail earlier. As for the Order’s offices that are held in common, the Grand Master and the Council divide them up in such a way that neither envy nor discord can arise. Then, during meetings, negotiations, and discussions everyone acts according to their rank, which is according to seniority, that is, the time since they had taken up the Cross. Seniority is respected and highly esteemed among us. Normally, the nations sort out their disputes and differences among themselves. Should a disagreement arise, the Grand Master and the Council [103/100v] immediately dispense justice, castigate the insolent, and break off quarrels with the authority vested in them. Furthermore, at the time he takes up the habit and becomes a member, every honorable knight must renounce and set aside all rancor and private attachment, and accept all other members of the congregation for brothers—because we are all Christians and equals, and we all fight for the faith of Christ our Redeemer. I have seen, at the conquest of Coron of Patras and at other places in the Levant, which were captured76 with our galleys in the reserve squadron of the imperial fleet, French knights doing their duty as well as if they were Spaniards or properly in the service of their own king of France. [104/101r] It was the same at the conquest of Goletta, Tunis, and Africa, and at other 75 On Malta’s import economy, see Abela, Hospitaller Malta, especially 67–112 (Chapter 2, “The Grain Trade”). 76 An imperial armada, led by Charles V’s admiral Andrea Doria, attacked, took and briefly held Coron and Patras in the Peloponnese in 1532 as a retribution for Barbarossa’s depredations in the western Mediterranean in 1529.

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endeavors in Barbary. It seems to me, therefore, that it is only just that as we all wear the same habit, we all have the same desire, that is, the preservation and prosperity of our Order and the defense of the Christian faith, in conformity with the oath that is taken at the entry into the Order. Those who do otherwise are considered perjuries and not worthy of that habit and the title of a knight. Giustiniano: Tell me please, if you know and do not mind: who has the authority to impose liens upon our benefices and in what manner are they imposed? [104/101v] Cambiano: Our Order has three high tribunals, the General Chapter, the full Council, and the ordinary Council. There are two extraordinary [tribunals] as well, that is the Sguardio and the Audienza,78 of which I will say more after I explain the first three. The General Chapter must be held every three or four years. All bailiffs, priors, commendators, knights, and ecclesiastics of the Order are under the obligation and requirement to attend personally or procure suitable representatives in case they are prevented from attending. Every tongue elects a representative, and the commendators from each priory similarly elect and appoint another representative for themselves. [105/102r] The bailiffs and priors who are absent and not present are to elect a representative each, so that there are forty-nine attendees for the forty-nine Grand Crosses, besides the representatives for the priories and tongues, which number about thirty-two. Those who do not attend and do not send representatives are nonetheless obligated to abide by the conclusions and the orders of the General Chapter regardless of their absence and lack of representation. At dawn on the day appointed and decreed for that meeting, the Grand Master, accompanied by all the knights of the Order, goes to the church where its prior serves a solemn mass of the Holy Spirit, to which they devoutly pray [105/102v] and invoke it to grace and illuminate them so that they could discuss and arrange the public business with sound minds. With the mass finished, the Grand Master and the participants in the Chapter and the other clerics exit the church and betake themselves to the place determined for the meeting of the Chapter accompanied by a solemn procession led by the Prior of the Church, who is dressed in pontifical vestments, and his chaplains, deacons, and clerics, singing the hymn of the Holy Spirit. On arrival at the place of the Chapter, they sing “Salvos fac servos tuos” and the prayer to the Holy Spirit is recited. Then a priest sings from the Gospels, “Cum veneris filius hominis,” etc. After that the Grand Master, the bailiffs, the priors, and the other participants in the Chapter take their seats according 77 Goleta and Tunis were seized by Barbarossa in 1534 and then retaken by a large imperial expedition, again under the command of Andrea Doria, the following year, 1535. 78 The Sguardio was the Order’s criminal court, dealing with crimes committed between knights or against knights. The Audienza (Tribunale dell’Udienza) was the Order’s Court of Appeal. Both were regularly functioning courts.

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to their pre-eminence and the rank of their office [106/103r] and the Rule is read. Then a learned and qualified person preaches a sermon on the matter of public service and the salvation of their souls. That done, the participants in the Chapter and those who are not going to attend separate and the Grand Master announces what he considers appropriate for the state of the Order and public affairs. On the second day, the participants convene in the venue of the Chapter and together with the Grand Master elect commissioners from among those who sit on the ordinary Council to review and make official the appointments and mandates of the bailiffs, the priors, [106/103v] and others, who are all required to appear before the Chapter assisted by a chancellor. If the appointments are found proper and satisfactory, they are accepted and filed. If not, they are rejected. This done, the bailiffs, the priors, the chaplains of the levies, and the other representatives and participants in the Chapter each receive a bag with their names inscribed on it. Inside, there are five grains of silver in lieu of coins, the bag having been used in Rhodes to indicate rank. Attached to the bag, there is a scroll on which the nature of their office is defined, with a note on what appears to make it necessary for the public good, as well as the seal of each one’s office. They present these to the Grand Master, in order of their rank and pre-eminence, and reverently kiss his hand. [107/104r] The Marshal presents the banner or standard of the Order. Once the bags, the scrolls, and the standard are presented, the names of the attendees of the Chapter are written down. Then the Vice-Chancellor reads the scrolls loud and clear, in order of the rank and pre-eminence of those who had presented them. With the scrolls read, the attendees proceed to the election of the Sixteen members of the Chapter. The manner of incorporation of brothers into the Chapter is as follows. Each tongue convenes separately, and each tongue elects two representatives from their nation from among those who are chiefs, worthy, and qualified, and these present themselves before the Grand Master. The Sixteen thus elected take an oath, with due reverence and in the presence of the Grand Master and the Chapter [107/104v], that they will forsake and put aside all personal interest and will consult, postulate, and deliberate on that which is honorable and of use to the Order and the brothers. For their part, the Grand Master and the other attendees of the Chapter swear and promise to accept all that the said Sixteen would determine, deliberate on, and postulate. Then the Sixteen retire to a nearby room along with the representative of the Grand Master, who has consultative role and cannot vote on decisions, as well as the Vice Chancellor, who records the deliberations. All together, they confer, discuss, and deliberate the affairs of the Order and everything that matters and pertains to it, in the following manner [108/105r]: first, the impositions of payments to carry out and support the operations of the Order; then the governing and functioning of the Treasury or treasure; after that, the scrutiny of the lists of those elected to reform the [Order’s] Customs and institute the laws; and, finally, other matters or issues pertaining to or concerning public affairs.

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Meanwhile, the Grand Master and the others in the Chapter attend to other issues, among which are appeals in litigation, granting licence to bequeath or permute, and other business that cannot be performed or executed or conceded without the permission of the General Chapter. They carry on with this continuously for fifteen days. Because it is not possible to dispense of all current business in fifteen days, by the authority of the General Council [108–105v] the task to complete the remainder of the business within a predetermined number of days deemed necessary for the execution of the charge is conceded to ad hoc councils, which are called Councils of Retention. On the last day of the Chapter, at the toll of the bell all the knights and religious convene at the site of the Chapter in a solemn procession led by the chaplains. Then, in everyone’s presence, the Vice-Chancellor reads and publishes the decisions, statutes, and injunctions of our Sixteen lords of the Chapter. After that, the Grand Master returns to everyone their bags and seals and the standard to the Marshal. This done, the chaplains render thanks to God and offer the prayers that are specified in detail in our rules and regulations [109/106r]. Giustiniano: You explained in a rather summary way the manner and procedures, which the Sixteen members of the Chapter follow in the taxing of benefices. This is something that I am quite interested in knowing more about, and I asked you about it, but I was not able to grasp it well. It would be great if you could please explain it more clearly. Cambiano: I related it to you precisely as it is established in our Statutes on the operation of the General Chapter. Nonetheless, as you wish to know the manner and procedures which they follow, it would not be difficult for me to explain it, knowing it well, and because I am also quite familiar with it as in my time I used to participate in General Chapters. [109/106v] Once the Sixteen lords retire to their meeting room, they call the scribe of the Treasury and review all expenses and payments that the Order makes for the maintenance of the knights, the galleys, the construction works, the pensions, the provisions, the munitions, and all other necessary things, and establish the total sum needed for their maintenance and sustenance. Then, knowing the value of the Order’s priories, bailiwicks, commendatories, and benefices, they tax them at one-third, one-fourth, or more (or less) in order to derive and get a certain sum or quantity, which is calculated and obtained for the needs of the Order, according to what they deem expedient and not oppressive for those who hold them. [110/107r] Giustiniano: It appears to me that these impositions are not made in a manner that is at all just and fair. Because certain commendatories pay little but are valued a lot, while others are of very little value but pay a lot, more than their proper share. It would make sense if they all paid the same and in conformity with their perceived value. Cambiano: This is not the Sixteen lords’ fault. They do not want to oppress anyone. The commendators are to blame or praise here. Some are good administrators, others are not. Some improve on the commendatories and

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benefices, compared to the last inspection, others let them deteriorate. Other reasons are the wars and simply time, as they increase or decrease revenues, depending on what comes to pass. To compile and verify the information on these revenues [110/107v], the Chapter that was held in Malta in 1539 decreed that new inspections were to be carried out of all of our benefices, and commissioners were appointed for the task, but due to the wars between the princes this could not be done and in the meantime the usual impositions were levied. Giustiniano: Are the vacanti mortuorum and the spoils factored in to cover the operating expenses of the Order? Cambiano: Not really. The impositions and levies have to be sufficient to cover the operating expenses, while the vacanti mortuorum and the spoils are to be saved in the Treasury for extraordinary expenditures, as for example a naval attack by the Turks for which soldiers have to be prepared, in case [111/108r] of a misfortune such as the sinking of galleys or other vessels, or in case of a military endeavor on land or at sea other than the usual engagements. However, for many years now such expenses have become almost routine, because every year we see the Turkish fleet in these seas and we need to construct new fortresses and prepare soldiers, and to prepare for disasters we stock up on provisions and munitions whenever we can, for at times of both ordinary and extraordinary consumption these are more expensive than usual, especially here on the island of Malta, which is so barren that even water has to be purchased. Giustiniano: How about the authority of the ordinary Council? Tell me also the procedure in case of disputes and conflicts between knights, [111/108v] both civil and criminal, and who has the right to adjudicate them. Cambiano: The ordinary Council includes the Grand Master, the Bishop of Malta, the Prior of the Church, the eight conventual bailiffs, all priors who participate in the Convent, the chapter bailiffs, and the Treasurer with the ViceChancellor, who does not vote but records all decrees, decisions, and claims presented to the Council. It is the court of first instance for all legal cases, controversies, and disputes that occur between our brethren, and it adjudicates them in a quick and praiseworthy manner, which is as follows. The litigants appear before the Council, state succinctly the reasons for their dispute, and request commissioners to investigate them [112/109r]. The Grand Master and the Council appoint commissioners from tongues other than those of the litigants with the authority to investigate each party, review records, and, if necessary, examine witnesses produced by the parties and report on all that to the Council. The litigants have the right to challenge the commissioners or their findings, and if they have valid reasons for the challenge to be deemed legitimate, they are granted other commissioners according to their argument. Then they produce their papers and apply themselves to obtain what they seek, making their case within the limits, deadlines, and extensions granted them by the commissioners. With all this done and presented, the commissioners discuss among themselves [112/109v] the claims of the sides, seek aid and advice from knights and commendators on aspects of

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the case, and in some cases request the advice of legal experts. Then, on the request of the parties and in their presence they report to the Council on the merits of the case. The litigants are permitted to reinstate their positions to make them better understood. After they have made their case, the commissioners, the parties, and all those who do not belong to the Council leave, and the Grand Master and the Council confer and discuss the allegations made by the parties. Then they call the commissioners back again. The latter present their opinion on the grounds and merits of the case and leave, and the Grand Master and the Council deliberate. With the deliberation finished, they exit the Council and [113/110r] pronounce their sentence. The Council is then opened and the Vice-Chancellor reads the sentences and the decrees. The Council is thus completed, except on three occasions, that is, when a commendator is granted the Great Cross by sentence [of the Council], in criminal cases, and in cases of statutory conventions, that is, when the case is against a transgressor of our Statutes. The decisions of the Council can be appealed to the General Chapter, but in the meantime its sentences are put into effect. The ordinary Council also has the authority to elect the officers and ministers of the Order, for example its ambassadors, receivers, agents, procurators, and other officials and servants. In criminal cases, the procedure is the same as in civil cases [113/110v], with the only difference being that in civil cases there is no trial as there is in criminal cases, which feature stipulations by a notary and the fiscal procurator. Giustiniano: What is the difference between the ordinary Council and the Complete Council, and which one has higher authority? Cambiano: The difference is that the Complete Council includes the Grand Master and all those in the ordinary Council, plus the sixteen commendators. Its decisions and sentences are arrived at by voting and ballots, so that everyone feels freer to adjudicate and sentence. The Complete Council also has the authority to elect the Captain in case of campaigning on land, and if [114/11r] in the tongue of Auvergne there are experienced and worthy knights, they are preferred for the position. It elects the Captain of the fleet as well, and if in the tongue of Italy there is a skilled and worthy person, he is the first choice. If there are no brethren worthy of serving in such highly esteemed offices in the tongues of Auvergne and Italy, the Grand Master and the Complete Council can have recourse to others, although without prejudice to the pre-eminence of the said tongues, and considering the merits of the knights rather than their seniority. [The Complete Council] also elects the Castellan, which is the officer with jurisdiction over the lay persons,79 and the two Procurators of the Poor, of which one should have a legal degree. There is so much more to discuss about the authority of this Council. For the sake of brevity, I will conclude by stating that [114/111v] the charges and business of this Council are determined and defined by the ordinary Council, which meets two or three times per week. Once a week, that is, on Thursdays, 79 That is, the Maltese population.

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a public audience is given by the Grand Master with all the lords of the ordinary Council, the Castellan, the Judge of the Court of Appeals, and the ordinary [court], the Captain, the City Judge, and the Master Notary of the Castellany. The Grand Master and the Council can add prelates if they deem it necessary. At the audience, they hear cases of disputes and read the supplications of lay persons and adjudicate according to the proper nature of the case, so that everyone gets justice and the cases are resolved. Then there is another [115/112r] tribunal, which was originally established for expediting cases, which is called the Sguardio, and at which the knights adjudicate cases with the permission but without the intervention of the Grand Master and the Council. From the Sguardio, one can appeal to the augmented Sguardio, and then to another court expanded with a larger number of judges but at present it appears that it is not used any longer, even though the Statutes discuss it at large. I have not seen it in session except in criminal cases, concerning a brother in the religion, or when a knight has to be deprived of the Cross because of his transgressions. The ordinary Council refers such cases to the Sguardio, which tries them and pronounces the sentence against the malefactor, and the sentence is then executed, unless [115/112v] the Grand Master pardons the offender or commutes the penalty, depending on the nature of the crime committed by the knights or other brethren. Giustiniano: You explained the protocols followed by the Order in the meetings of the General Chapter. It would be great if you explained as well the operation of the provincial Chapters and the scope of their authority, because even though we convene it here every year, it is not clear whether we do it with all the appropriate procedures. Cambiano: In conformity with our regulations, the provincial Chapters are held every June during the day of St. John, the day dedicated to our protector St. John the Baptist. First, the mass of [116/113r] of the Holy Spirit is served and the same prayers as at the General Chapter are recited. All priors, bailiffs, and commendators of the respective priory are obligated to attend in person, unless they have a legitimate business, on the penalty of paying a fine twice their stipend. Once they gather at the site of the Chapter, the regulations are read aloud so that everyone is cognizant of the Rule and the mode and manner of operation of the Order, according to the regulations established in detail in the books of our Statutes. Then the Receiver presents his books. They are read to the Prior and the Chapter to account for the funds that have been collected and that have gone through his hands on behalf of the Order. He makes a note on whether the funds have been deposited or whether he has them available, showing the receipts, and announces [116/113v] the commendators who have paid their dues to the Treasury and those who still need to pay, with the sums they owe. The Prior exhorts, commands, and orders the latter that they must satisfy their debts and pay before the Chapter is adjourned, otherwise their revenues and commendatories would be sequestered. If a commendator proves reticent, a procedure is opened to deprive him of the commendatory, which the Prior is obligated to support and facilitate in

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every possible way, so that defaulters are rigorously pursued. The provincial Chapters lease out the vacanti and mortuarii, handing them over to the highest bidder, hear and decide legal cases between our brethren and lay persons, and appoint commissioners to review improvements to the commendatories [117/114r] and in order to investigate the proofs of nobility of noblemen who wish to become knights as well as to inquire into burdens that may have been imposed on our knights and commendators by princes and communities in disregard of our privileges, or for other reasons, and compensate them so that the Order does not suffer damage. Care is taken to prevent prelates from usurping our jurisdiction and to make sure that the privileges conceded by the Holy See are observed. There are many other issues and affairs, which are discussed and taken care of as they occur. [The Chapter] has the authority to arrange for two commendatories by consolidating two smaller ones into a larger one and by swapping nearby lands for as long as they belong to other commendatories. This is all done for the convenience and benefit of the commendators. [117/114v] Giustiniano: Tell me now, what is the difference between the Assemblies and the General Chapter or, by the same token, the provincial [Chapters]? Because occasionally commissions come from the Grand Master, with orders to execute them by the General Chapter or by an Assembly. What terminology is used among us? Cambiano: “Assembly” is a French word, which means simply “gathering.” It can be held at any time if there is an issue on which the Prior wants to have the opinion of a commendator, and is licit to be held by the Prior and at least three brethren who are members of the Convent. It has the authority to give commissions on the proofs of noblemen and to implement the orders of the Grand Master or the Order in Convent. Assemblies are held every quarter [118/115r]. The Grand Master, the Council, and all the brethren gather at the church at dawn and the Rule is read aloud. Then the Grand Master rebukes the bad customs and failings of his brethren and pleads with and exhorts everyone to live well and stay alert and vigilant in the service of God and their Order. An Assembly is also held when a delinquent brother is deprived of the habit, which the Grand Master does not attend for the above-mentioned reasons. Only his lieutenant and the lords of the Council appear there. You understand the difference between the Assembly and the provincial Chapter: the Chapter convenes only once a year, while assemblies can be held by the priors [118/115v] whenever they wish and are held in their priories, or by their lieutenants, depending on the circumstances and the business at hand. Giustiniano: Now that you have told me everything I wanted to know about the regulations and procedures of our Order, I do not know what else to ask. However, if it pleased you to tell me what you think of the issue of why the Order could not remain in Malta and would be better off if it settled in the city of Tripoli, I would listen with pleasure and tell you what I think as well, because I desire its safeguarding and prosperity no less than you. Cambiano: The main reason that moved Fra Philippe de Villiers and the Order to request Malta from the Emperor was not because they had determined

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to make it their permanent residence [119/116r], but only because they wanted to be able to recuperate there (or elsewhere) until God provided them with another, more convenient place than that. He deemed it better to stay in Malta, on his own soil, and keep the knights together, than wander around and reside in foreign countries, like in Viterbo, Nice, and Syracuse, and because being able to deploy our galleys against the infidels, fulfilling our vows and doing our duty, would have been difficult to do if we were residing someplace else, where he would not have been the lord of the land. The Grand Master and our chiefs aspired to recover Rhodes, and did not lack intelligence about the place. There was an attempt to seize it, and it had some effect, but it was not the accomplishment and the success for which everyone was hoping. Even though [119/116v] with seven galleys we sacked a city and killed a great many Turks and other inhabitants, and carried away as captives all the women and young girls, and although the captain of the galleys, Fra Bernardo Salviati, the Prior of Rome, acquitted himself most honorably, it was clear from the outcome that this city could not have served as our residence because it had no harbor ample enough for round ships and other large vessels, apart from the fact that the power of the Turks was such that we would have hardly been able to oppose them effectively them from that place.80 Also, in these times we should not be making plans on any city located in the islands of the Levant, because even if we were able to occupy a certain place or city, I do not see how [120/117r] it could be maintained and defended, given the little hope we have to receive aid from the Christian princes, busy as they are with their quarrels. It does not seem to me that we should preoccupy ourselves with staying on Malta either, as it is a naturally sterile place and quite unhealthy because of the great summer heat, when it appears to breath out fire, and in addition people are constrained to eating fruit and other rubbish, which engenders incurable diseases. Also, the area occupied by the Order, close to the harbor, is so arid and rough that there is no place to take a walk to refresh oneself, and the knights dislike staying there. Then, all provisions have to be brought over from Sicily because [120/117v] there is neither grain, nor wine, timber, or meat on the island, as it lacks the capacity to deliver for the industriousness of men. Whatever can be produced there would not satisfy the needs of the Maltese for more than four or six months of the year. There is poultry throughout the year, as chickens are raised there and there are hares, partridges, and other game, but hunting cannot really be enjoyed because of the 80 This expedition was meant to capture Modon (ancient Methone), a key port located at the southwestern tip of Messenia, Peloponnese, as a possible base for recovering Rhodes. It took place in August 1531, and was undertaken by a coalition fleet consisting of eight Hospitaller, Genoese, Sicilian, and freebooting galleys led by Salviati. Bernardo Salviati (1508–1568), a Florentine nobleman and condottiere related to the Medici, whose family had century-long connections to the Order while still in Rhodes, was at the time Prior of Rome and Captain of the Galleys, or Admiral of the Order. For a succinct account, see Miller, The Latins in the Levant, 504–505.

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broken and arid terrain. Around the city, at a six- or seven mile-distance from the headquarters of the Order, there are gardens in the small valleys between the hills, with sweet water springs and cultivated fields, but the Maltese grow more cotton than wheat there, as the former is of better use. The island is no more than forty miles in circumference, and it is a real wonder that there are so many inhabitants in such a small space and such a barren place [121/118r] so that everywhere there are villages and hamlets of a hundred or two hundred hearths each.82 Instead of firewood, they use dry thistle, and bake their bread with cattle dung dried in the sun. Rainwater is their ordinary beverage, conserved clear in cisterns, of which they have a great many all over the island, for the ground is stony, as I already mentioned. The men are quite robust due to continuous labor. They are familiar with the Moorish language because Barbary is close, although the better part of the leadership knows Italian. There are many Maltese who are more than a hundred years old, as befits men accustomed to such an air and due to the simple foods on which they subsist. The island abounds in deep-bottomed wells, because in general water is scarce [121/118v]. It rarely rains, and fierce winds rage because the better part of the island is a flatland and the hills are quite low. The fruits are quite delicious, especially the grapes and the melons, but there are few vineyards. Such are the qualities of the island, and you can figure out that it is of very little comfort and benefit for the Order. It is also a deplorable situation that such an esteemed Order, to which belong some of the foremost noblemen of Christendom, has to reside in a place so barren and debased, where at times from Spain and Italy exiles and other persons of their ilk have been confined as punishment for their demerits. Among them, there are persons who descend and derive their nobility from the topmost houses of Italy and Spain and who, before the Order [122/119r] acquired the lordship over this place, were its lords and masters. They still bear ill feelings toward the Order, as it reined them in and deprived them of the authority they had usurped and exercised over the poor inhabitants. Because of this, every day they seek to cause us new trouble, be it with the Emperor or with the Viceroy of Sicily, instigating sinister imputations and allegations and squabbling with us, although after we provide our explanations and everything is sorted out their malevolence and iniquity is made clear and they are condemned and disgraced. We could have put up with all this trouble and tribulation if we were still in the hope that with time we would be able to enlarge our domain. However, [122/119v] holed up as we are in an island like this one, I do not know how and what expectations we could ever entertain to extend and broaden our 81 It is instructive that the first legal promulgation of the Order, even before the Grand Master took official possession of the island, included a ban on hunting partridges; see Abela, Hospitaller Malta, 47. 82 The Maltese population at the time of the arrival of the Hospitallers must have been around twenty thousand; see Abela, Hospitaller Malta, 66 and n. 5 and 6.

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undertakings, for both the above-mentioned reasons and other issues. Anyway, I am of the opinion that Malta ought to be abandoned and every possible effort ought to be made to settle in Tripoli in Barbary. It could be made unassailable, because it is situated in a secure site surrounded on two sides by the sea, while the landside is encircled by a wall with a fosse, which could easily be fortified for defense against a powerful army. The part toward the harbor has an old-fashioned wall with bastions, but even that one is in such a condition that it could be rebuilt with little expense [123/120r] to become extremely strong. The port can take in galleys and cargo ships; they can dock directly at the city. It is true that large vessels with carrying capacity of two thousand or more salme83 of grain cannot come closer than half a mile from the city, but there is a good anchorage there. There is no elevated place close to the city from which enemies could endanger it, nor is there fear of digging up tunnels, since the terrain is sandy and the underground abounds in waters and springs at a depth of six or seven paces. The fosses could be filled up with that water, and there is nothing the enemy could do about that. What matters most, however, is that for a hundred miles east [123/120v] or west there is no port where an enemy armada could safely stop. In my judgment, then, Tripoli would be much stronger than Malta, and the country provides for a better living. Giustiniano: The arguments you put forward have much to be commended, but I doubt that the forces of our Order would be enough to occupy and establish themselves in a city located on the border with the enemy, nay right in their country. Cambiano: I would not presume to state that our forces would suffice. Without doubt, we will have to call on the Christian princes for aid. I am convinced that none of them would miss on such a conspicuous endeavor— even more so after having seen [124/121r] that the Pope, the Emperor, and the King of France have consistently demonstrated that they wish the preservation of our Order, and have always favored and aided us. Giustiniano: In a case like this, the cash, rather than the favor, of princes is what is really needed, and the lords of the world are not eager to proffer that kind of aid. Cambiano: There is quite a good remedy for that, and I will tell you about it. I have mentioned on another occasion that I have been to Germany, working on the union, that is, the enacting of a merging of the Order of Prussia with our [Order]. I conversed on that matter with my lord Don Ferrante Gonzaga,84 who at that time was in Speier, at the court of the Emperor. [124/121v] As one of this lord’s sons was a knight of ours and he was himself 83 A Maltese salma as a measure of capacity depended on the commodity measured. For wheat, barley, and rye, it equalled 288.51 liters; for other cereals and salt, it equalled 334.656 liters. See Abela, Hospitaller Malta, xxv. 84 Don Ferrante Gonzaga (1507–1557), a condottiere in service of Charles V. He served as Viceroy of Sicily from 1535 to 1546.

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at the time Viceroy of Sicily, to which we are close, from which we obtain a thousand commodities, and to which we have recourse every day, he showed himself very favorably disposed toward us. I explained to him the great benefit that would result for all of Christendom in general, and specifically for Christian maritime areas, from the eventual union of that Order with ours, because that would allow the maintaining of ten or twelve galleys. The said lord expressed support and desire for the enactment of the union, as there was a discussion on the matter with [125/122r] Conrad of Bamberg,85 who at the time was the Grand Master of that Order, and was present in Speier. He did not turn down the proposal, but wanted us to be conjoined rather than united, that is, we would all reside in the same place but would keep our [separate] attire, as it had been done in Jerusalem. It was responded to him that it would be better if there were a single habit for all, which would display the symbolic of both Orders in order to prevent any conflicts from occurring. The Bishop of Augsburg, who is currently a cardinal,86 offered to mediate in the matter, as he hoped to find a way to satisfy each Order. I informed our Grand Master, Fra Jean de Homedes,87 of the negotiations. Before the response came in, the Emperor [125/122v] had left Speier, the lords who were to mediate had departed from the court as well, and the negotiations had been terminated. I do not think there were further discussions, but I would think that had the union been enacted there would have been enough of us to settle in and fortify Tripoli—with some help, which we would hope to obtain from the Pope and other princes. The reason that moved the Grand Master of Galicia88 to consider the undertaking was the occupation of his domains of Prussia and Livonia by the Marquis of Brandenburg,89 as I explained above, and the little circumspection that the Lutheran princes and cities afforded to his commends and revenues. Because they were wealthy and did not do their duty against the [126/122r] infidels as they should have, they were accused of leading dissolute lives. That was not the case with our knights and benefices, who have always been respected for our service in arms. His conscience also prodded him, as it appeared to him that it was only just to earn these revenues through action, 85 Most likely Walter von Cronberg (1477–1545), who declared himself a Grand Master in 1525 after Albert of Brandenburg, the titular Grand Master, converted to Protestantism and reorganized the better part of the Order’s domain as a secular principality, the Duchy of Prussia. Walter was appointed officially the head of the Teutonic Order by Emperor Charles V in 1527 and held the title until 1543. Here again, Cambiano most likely worked from memory and made a mistake. 86 Otto Truchsess von Waldburg (1514–1573), imperial Prince-Bishop of Augsburg, papal chamberlain, head of the Roman Inquisition (since 1562), Cardinal of Santa Balbina (1544–1562), and Cardinal-Bishop of Albano (since 1562). 87 Jean de Homedes, Grand Master from 1536 to 1553. 88 Again, Cambiano is most likely referring here to Walter von Cronberg. 89 Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order from 1510 to 1525, and Duke of Prussia from 1525 to 1568.

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as they had been earmarked for and dedicated to the war against the infidels. These same reasons have him inclined even now to join us. This will be of great help, because as I understand they possess a great amount of money. For that, it is also possible to petition the Pope to concede us a general jubilee, through which in France, Spain, and in other countries that profess obedience to the supreme pontiff large sums [126/123v] could be collected for our assistance. This was done after the siege of Rhodes in the time of Grand Master Fra Pierre d’Aubusson. By means of one of these jubilees and for the love of God many thousands of scudi were given for the restoration of the city walls. I believe that for the acquisition of Tripoli people would also offer similar help. The Emperor and the King of France could be asked to spare their galleys, or some of them, until the city of Tripoli were fortified by putting the walls and the fosses into a good condition, which would be as effective as giving cash, if it were to be done. Another thing that could be done is to have all priors and commendators spend [127/124r] their revenues in the service of the Order, in addition to the participation of the knights, which would be of great benefit. Giustiniano: All that would require a large quantity of munitions, provisions, and other necessary things. I do not see how all these would be obtained. Because if there is scarcity in Malta, which is so close to Sicily, the need would be even greater in Tripoli, which is so far away. Cambiano: I agree that the enterprise would require a great deal of munitions, but they could be acquired in Sicily, and even more so salted meats. Grain could be procured from the cities in the south, from Basilicata, Mazana, Giurgenti, and from other cities. From there, the grain could be easily transported to Tripoli [127/124v] and quite securely too because normally westerlies prevail and these winds are favorable for that, as sailing is not endangered by corsairs. Wines could be shipped over from Candia even easier than they are now brought to Malta because the voyage is less dangerous. Munitions for the artillery could be procured in Marseille and transported just as they are now conveyed to Malta. Besides, provisions and other things always follow the money. In Malta, everything is expensive because the merchants who import goods cannot buy anything with the proceeds [of the sale]. Because of that, they have to sell the goods at a high price to cover the expenses incurred for the return trip as well plus the gain with which to maintain and grow [128/125r] their business and recompense them for the risks they are taking. This is the reason why in Malta merchandise such as provisions and munitions are more expensive and sold in smaller quantities than they are elsewhere. If we were to be in Tripoli, however, merchants would come not only from Sicily, Calabria, and other nearby places, but from Venice, Spain, France, and other faraway places as well, as they did when Tripoli was under the control of the Moors: at the time, the Venetian galleasses sailed there every year. The reason for this was the fertility of the country and the availability of commodities for the return journey such as gold, fine woolens, excellent saffron,

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skins of ostriches, dates, great quantities of black Sahtian leather, and other merchandise; it would be tedious to list them all. As soon as [128/125v] the merchants put in that port, they found transportation and buyers for their goods. And because they sold the goods they bought for their return journey at such a profit, they were content to sell their merchandise very cheaply. Besides, the countryside round about Tripoli is so bountiful and fertile, that with time we could have grain and wine and wood without having to procure them from elsewhere because the terrain is good and grows in abundance everything that is sown—more so than any other place in the world. It abounds in lovely fields and pastures, where the flesh of all sorts of animals is fattened to perfection and in incredible quantities. This is because the larger part of the Moors and Arabs, for the lack of wine and often of water as well [129/126r], on occasion feed themselves with milk. One sole Arab camp raises more beasts than half the Kingdom of Sicily. Only one of the one hundred and ninety Arab camps that are in the province could provide our entire Order with an abundance of meet. I can vouchsafe for that, as I have seen them and dealt with them, and it can be read in others’ reports. Giustiniano: I suspect that the Order would not be able to resist the forces of so many enemies who molest us continuously, without missing a day, and will never afford us any rest. Cambiano: To the contrary, I think. My experience, based on what I have seen there, is that many [129/126v] Moors lived with us, fought our enemies in our service with such fervor and loyalty as if they were Christians, and provided us with horses and other war materiel. In addition to this, we have a convenient opportunity to enter that kingdom, where there are many Arab camps feuding with one another, and part of them would be favorably inclined toward us. For the sake of caution and to be on the safe side, they would give us their sons as hostages, as they did in the time when I was in these parts, when they allied themselves with us to chase the Turks out of Zante and Almeria, and gave us their sons as hostages. They served us faithfully, to the extent they were able to, throughout [130127r] that war, with men and materiel. They would do it even more eagerly now in order to free themselves from the tyranny of the Turk, because he treats them abominably and has almost brought them to despair. I hope as well that with time the better part of them would become Christian and would help us expand our domain. One can also say that it would not be hard to subjugate a people, or a region, divided between itself, which has neither chief nor leader who could bring it to unity and agreement. Many examples can be given for that, both ancient and modern. To avoid long and boring stories, let me just state that the Romans, who performed the world’s most [130/127v] splendid feats of arms, better than anyone else’s, always employed that precaution, to spread and disseminate discord among the peoples and cities and regions of their enemies. With the support and through the means of one party they were able 90 A type of fine, soft, embossed leather.

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to become lords of all other regions, peoples, and cities, and so astutely subjugated France, Spain, Africa, Greece, and an infinite number of other kingdoms and peoples. In our time, the Catholic King conquered Granada because of the division in that kingdom. We do not make these comparisons to claim that our forces are on a par with those of the Romans or of the Catholic King, but because examples of the endeavors, which have occurred both in the past and in our time, give us hope that it would not be too difficult to subjugate a people [131/128r] so divided, dispersed, oppressed, disarmed, and without a leader like those. Who doubts that we would be welcomed and favored by the well-disposed, if in place of deprivation we lead them to abundance, if in place of war we bring peace, and in place of discord we bring unity, and, in general, in place of vice we bring them virtue, chastising and reprimanding the evil and encouraging the good. True, we may have problems in the beginning in firmly imposing these principles, but it can be hoped that, in the long term, a people so lacking in all the things that are necessary to ultimately prevail in war would not be able to resist or oppose us. They may have large numbers of men and horses, but they would always lack the strength of unity, [131/128v] for there is no person among them who could keep them together, due to the scarcity of money and provisions, which are the means through which one persists in war. It is impossible for them to stay united for a long time because each of them needs to cultivate and sew in order to have the crops by which they sustain their families and their clans, and there is no lord or leader among them so great that, when the time comes, would not go to sew or harvest his crops. Also, there is another device to safeguard against the continuous and sudden attacks of the enemy, which was contrived and put in place by the Tripolitanians. In the time they inhabited the city, it extended from the one sea to the other and encompassed five or six miles of countryside, comprising orchards, gardens [132/129r], vineyards, and other properties of the citizens, and it could only be entered from three points, each fortified with a gate. That fosse could also be fortified and armed, as it is done in the principal German cities, especially in Strasbourg. Their fosse is so well fortified and armed that it serves as a wall and a rampart because of its impassable thorny bushes and other shrubbery. At these passages, there are six gates whose guards, seeing horsemen or infantry approaching, signal the city guards; thus the alert is out half-an-hour in advance. If war is expected, they keep the passages fortified, armed, and garrisoned. The same can be done in Tripoli, and it will not only serve to [132/129v] prevent sudden incursions by the enemy, but it will serve to hinder the flight of slaves, soldiers, and conscripts as well, as it is very important to be forewarned of such breakouts. Giustiniano: I do not know where the Order would find so many people to populate the city and rebuild its houses and residences, which are likely quite ruined. It would be hugely expensive, and many years would pass before the entire city is as properly occupied and inhabited as I think Malta is at present. Cambiano: My experience, from what I have seen in Nice, Syracuse, and Malta, makes me believe the opposite of what you say, for when the Order

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first settled in these cities [133/130r] they appeared almost deserted in comparison to what they looked like after the Order had resided in them for some time. Their population increased not only because of the people that the Order brought in, but also because of the merchants and other foreigners who flocked there for the profit: between the Order’s public spending in these places and the private expenditures of commendators and knights, the sum spent is so large that it suffices to rebuild an entire city. The houses and residences built in Malta after the Order arrived there are an incredible sight! In the beginning, I do not think that there were in Borgu and close to the port, where the Order established itself, more than a hundred and fifty houses, so that the commendators and the knights were forced to make their lodgings and their beds in churches [133/130v] and shops, very much like Gypsies. As the wall protecting Borgu was built, it encompassed many orchards and plots. Then, in the space of three years, all this was fully developed and built up, besides the over one hundred and fifty plots that were constructed outside the wall. Had the Grand Master permitted it, I think a whole new city would have been built because the better part of the Rhodiots, who had been dispersed all over the Levant, settled there, as did a large number of Sicilians.91 What I am saying, then, is this: if in Malta, which is such a barren and unpleasant place, so many people gathered in such a short period of time, how would it be with Tripoli, a city so agreeable, fertile, and pleasant, where the Grand Master could relocate and reward his subjects with terrains, gardens, and orchards, which would suffice [134/131r] to support them without additional assistance from the Order? Also, I think that not just the Rhodiots, but many Greeks and subjects of the Turks, to liberate themselves from the latter’s tyranny, would surely relocate there with us, and in the shortest time we would have so many people that it would be impossible to accommodate them all within the city walls. In my opinion, the walls do not encompass more than three thousand hearths, but inasmuch as red clay of the most suitable and proper kind you can desire is plentiful there, the walls could be rebuilt to a formidable condition at little expense. In this respect, the Maltese would be of great service, as the majority of them are excellent builders. Attracted by profit, they would follow us anywhere. We could also use [134/131v] stone and other rubble from the ruined buildings. Timber could be brought over from Venice, Sicily, and Calabria, as it is brought to Malta. As for the houses of the commoners, we can bring in and use palm trees, which grow copiously all over the region. Giustiniano: If Tripoli is as advantageous for the Order as you state, how come the Grand Masters, who had by now resided in Malta for almost thirty years in such discomfort, have not relocated to that place or have not at least fortified and repaired it, so that it would not fall into the hands of the enemy, 91 On the fortification of Malta by the knights, see Alison Hoppen, The Fortification of Malta by the Order of St. John (1530–1798) (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1979).

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from whom I think it would be very difficult to take back, especially now, when every year [135/132r] the Turkish fleet sails in and criss-crosses these seas? Cambiano: I think that all the Grand Masters were well aware that Tripoli would have been a much better location than Malta. Fra Philippe de Villiers, who was the first to settle on the island, was short of cash and exhausted by the long travails endured during the siege of Rhodes and the peregrination through foreign cities, as I explained above. It appeared to him not a small accomplishment to have obtained Malta and conveyed his Order to a suitable and safe place until God’s Majesty provided for something else. There is no doubt that had that Grand Master seen the location of Tripoli, he would not have missed the opportunity to occupy it [135/132v] and relocate there with the entire Order, because he was considerate and quite inclined and eager to see that place. His successor, Fra Piero del Ponte,92 a virtuous and prudent lord, was very old. He only ruled for a year and was sick and infirm almost all the time. In his time, Emperor Charles V conquered Tripoli and Goletta with the participation of our galleys and the carrack with a good number of our knights, who earned his Majesty’s great praise and recognition. Then Saint-Jaille was elected, but he was in France and died before arriving in Malta,93 and Fra Jean de Homedes y Coscon came after him. He demonstrated a great desire to relocate the Order [136/133r] to that place94 and talked about it with excitement, discussing the ways and means that would be necessary for this endeavor. He brought up the issue many times before me, and said that once he visited Count Pietro di Navarra, while he was a prisoner in Castel Nuovo in Naples after the loss of Rhodes, and the count told him that the city of Tripoli would have been great for the Order and that no effort should be spared to have the Emperor concede it.95 But the incessant and continuous [internecine] wars between the Christians made it impossible to put this holy desire into effect, and without assistance, as already mentioned, we were unable to pursue it. These are the obstacles that impeded us. The current [136/133v] Grand Master, Fra Claude de la Sengle, had a great desire to embark on this endeavor. He still wants to do it and would not fail to pursue it if the opportunity presents itself. As for the fortifications that you say would need to be constructed in order not to lose it, you have to know that this would not be impossible at all, because we found the Borgo of Malta, where the Order was to establish its 92 Pietro del Ponte, Grand Master from 1534 to 1535. 93 Didier de Saint-Jaille, a French nobleman, was elected in 1535, while in France, and died on September 26, 1536, on his way to Malta. 94 Tripoli. 95 Pietro di Navarra, Count of Alvito (1460–1528), a Spanish condottiere who switched sides in the French–Habsburg Wars after he was captured by the French in 1512 at the Battle of Ravenna and left to languish in prison for three years due to his high ransom price. He was recaptured in March 1528 by the Spaniards and incarcerated in Naples, where he was executed in August 1528.

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residence, undefended, and the Castle was quite weak. We had to surround the Borgo with walls and strengthen it with bastions and towers at great expense and with much effort, and it was quite difficult for us to accomplish that feat. We had to do the same with the Castle of the Borgu and the fort of St. Elmo, which too was constructed from scratch [137/134r] to defend the two ports of the Borgo. Apart from the works, we had to spend incredible sums on artillery and munitions for these places, and every year we are forced to spend on additional soldiers to resist the Turkish fleet and to recall knights and commendators from remote provinces. Speaking of which, we have never failed to provide Rhodes with everything that was necessary. It was strongly fortified and armed to resist the Moors and nearby enemies. But on the arrival of the [Ottoman] imperial fleet of over two hundred galleys, having no expectations of Christian succor to repulse such an assault, with the Castle already hit by an infinite amount of shells and the defenders knowing that they would not be able to hold their own, it appears to me that they should be excused for saving their persons, giving up what [137/134v] they were not able to keep. The law does not demand from us more than what we can hold. But to return to the matter at hand and to the settling [of the Order] in the city [of Tripoli], I would say that all Grand Masters desired it, but the times and the opportunities were adverse. Besides, it is an enterprise more befitting younger men than elderly men like most of the above-mentioned Grand Masters. Giustiniano: Would you argue, then, that this is not a proper endeavor for the age of the current Grand Master, who, as I understand, has not yet reached sixty? It is an age at which it is common for this illustrious government of ours to entrust its noblemen with the most important charges and offices there are, both on land and at sea. The better part of these are as good at any endeavor as are younger people, and would be horrified to be called “old.” [138/135r] Cambiano: I am not saying that the current Grand Master is incapable on account of his age, because we have many of similar age who are quite strong and keep busy in all the offices of the Order, but that the Grand Master should be excused because he suffers from catarrh and is afflicted by other infirmities. I am afraid that he would not be able to see this remarkable endeavor executed, and that he would not be able to attend to it with due diligence and care. Considering all officials currently with the rank of Grand Cross, even though there are many highly respected knights and members of the Order, I do not find a person better suited or with better prospects to become Grand Master than my lord Parisot,96 the current Bailiff of Lango.97 He is a very experienced and generous member of the Order and possesses all those virtues and qualifications expected from the head of this Order. At the 96 Jean Parisot de Valette, Grand Master from 1557 to 1568. 97 Bailiff of Langen and Prior of St.-Gilles. On Valette, see recently Victor MalliaMilanes, “Frà Jean de la Valette, 1495–1568,” in Tony Cortis, ed., The Maltese Cross (Malta: Malta University Publications, 1995), 117–129.

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age [138/135v] of fifteen, he was brought to Rhodes to take up the habit and has persevered in it to this day. He was present at the siege and has never contemplated abandoning his Order or seeing again his father, his mother, his country, and his possessions in France, even though his esteemed brothers and relatives sought him out and tried to talk him into doing so.98 In the forty or so years that he has been a member, he has gone through all the ranks and offices that could be bestowed upon a respected knight, and has always acquitted himself well in all charges, civil and military, on land or at sea, has overcome great dangers, and in all of that he has always been valorous and merciful. His complexion is strong and robust, and he is capable of any kind of action. If it were God’s will for him to be the next Grand Master, I am certain that it would be for the benefit and preservation of this Order of ours, and he would strive mightily to relocate it to Tripoli, to which he seems much inclined. He used to be [139/136r] governor of that place and has far better experience and knowledge of it and the conditions detailed above than any other person who wears the habit.99 Giustiniano: I am pleased that there are such accomplished knights in our Order (may it please God that there be more like that!), and it appears to me that it would be an injustice to his virtue not to elect him as Grand Master, whenever God deprives us from the current one. Now tell me, what would be the way to recover that place from the hands of the unbelievers? Cambiano: We have to impart on the Christian princes, above all on King Philip, the great importance of snatching this place out of the hands of the Turks. Otherwise, it would become a corsairs’ nest and they would incessantly molest not just Sicily and the Gulf of Naples, but all Christian coastal regions. It already seems that the Grand Turk is scheming to become the master of Barbary, through which he could blockade all of Christendom. [139/136v] If God does not help us, that would be the cause of our ruin due to the place’s vicinity and ease of access. To give an example, we would be in the peril that the Romans were in the time of Hannibal. In that time, the Roman Empire had extended into and dominated Spain, the better part of France, and all of Italy, as well as so many other provinces, but was not able to resist the Carthaginians. What would happen now, if the power of the Grand Turk, united with that of Barbary, were to confront us? I think there is no doubt 98 Valette’s parents were Guillot de la Valette and Jeanne de Castres, his brothers Guillot and François. François de la Valette-Cornusson, Bishop and Count of Vebres (1561–1585), arrived in Malta in November 1563 after attending the Council of Trent, and was hosted by Valette for two months. For Valette’s relatives, see Annuaire de la Noblesse de France (Paris: M. Borel D’Hauterive, 1862), 224. Several close members of the family, presumably cousins and nephews, were knights of the Order during Valette’s time; see René Aubert, Histoire des Chevaliers Hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jerusalem, vol. 4 (Paris: Rollin, Quillau, and Desaint, 1726), 400. 99 Valette was Governor of Tripoli in 1537–1538 and defended it against attacks by the corsair captain Dragut Reis.

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that we would not be able to resist them. Therefore, we have to pray to God to send His holy peace to the [Christian] princes and to enlighten them to realize the danger that would befall us if they do not desist. Once peace is secured, we could arrange with the Catholic king to assist us with the galleys and men he usually keeps in Sicily and Naples. In that, he would follow the example and emulate his father, the Emperor, who [140/137r], when the Turks wanted to secure their mastery of Barbary, chased them out of Tunis, Africa, and many other places, as it is well known to everyone. We hope that the Pope, the King of France, and the other Christian princes would also be supportive. As I have already said, I think that the most serene Signoria of Venice would not fail to assist us as well, because it would be of a great disadvantage to her if that city were to remain in the hands of the Turks due to the ease with which the corsairs would assail her vessels and impede her commerce. Giustiniano: You can rest assured that there is no other nation as opposed to the Turks as mine nor is anyone more desirous of their destruction than we are. If we make peace or truce with them, do not think it is for any other reason but the preservation of the islands and subjects that we have in the Levant and for the salvation of the poor souls that are already subjected to their [140/137v] tyranny and deprived of our help and protection. We will most gladly do anything, provided it does not disadvantage our state, to assist and support Christendom and the Order. But it is time to retire now, and we better put an end to our conversation, which ran longer than expected. Still, if there is anything else you would like to say, pray say it on the way back, because there is hardly another thing I would be more pleased to hear about.

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Index

Acre 69–71 Admiral (one of the Order’s officials) 66, 90, 102 n.80 Africa 2, 8, 9, 10, 12, 42, 54, 58, 94, 108, 113 Al-Ashraf, Sultan of Egypt 70 Alexander VI, Pope 78–79 Alexius II, Byzantine Emperor 71 Algiers 8, 11 Almeria 54, 107 Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy 76 n.44 Antoine Geoffroy (Antonio Giuffre) 1, 16, 62 n.3 Aquila 67 Aragon 18–20, 65–67 Archipelago, Aegean island group 29, 80 Armenia 16, 21, 62, 68 Arsuf 22, 70 Audienza, court 42, 47, 95 and n.78 Auvergne 18, 19, 37, 65, 67, 89, 99 Barbary 17, 42, 50, 58, 63, 95, 103, 104, 112, 113 Barletta 21, 24–25, 67, 72 n.34, 73 and n.35, 74 Basilicata 3, 106 Battista Orsini, Grand Master 21, 68 and n.14 Bayezid I, Ottoman Sultan 27–28, 77–78 Bernardo Giustiniani 4, 17, 63 Bernardo Salviati, Prior of Rome 49, 102 and n.80 Birgu/Borgo, Malta 55, 57, 109, 111 Bohemia 21–22, 67–68 Bologna 17, 63 Brandenburg 21, 23, 67–68, 70, 105 bredonii, Order’s officials 41, 93

Brittany 20, 67 Burgundy 20, 67 Calabria 53, 56, 106, 109 Candia 25, 53, 72 n.34, 74, 106 Capua 21, 41, 67, 74 n.39, 93 Castel Nuovo, Naples 56, 110 Castile 18–20, 24, 25, 65–67, 73–74 Catalonia 19–20, 66–67 Champagne 20, 67 Charles I, Duke of Savoy 2 n.2, 25, 75 Charles V, Emperor 8, 11, 12, 14, 25, 56, 60, 74, 110 Charles VIII, King of France 28, 78 Cilicia 27, 77 Claude de la Sengle, Grand Master i, 1, 38, 90 and n.70, 110 Clement V, Pope 22, 70 Clement VII, Pope 14, 25, 60, 74 Conrad of Bamberg 51, 105 Coron 42, 94 Corre, Commendator of 21, 68 Crete 4 Cyprus 4, 12, 22–23, 70–71 Dacia 21–22, 67–68 Delphinate 20, 67 Didier de Saint-Jaille, Grand Masterelect 56, 110 Diego de Toledo 24–25, 73–74 Djem Sultan 15, 27–29, 61 and n.2, 77–79 Edward I, King of England 22, 70 Egypt 4, 15, 21, 27, 61, 68, 69, 77 Emery d’Amboise, Grand Master 30, 80 Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy 2, 25, 75 England 18–22, 25, 65–68, 70, 75

Index Fabrizio Moncada Pignatelli 73 n.35 Fernando de Heredia, Grand Master 29, 80 Ferrante Gonzaga, mercenary leader 38, 51, 89, 104 Flanders 20, 67 Foulques de Villaret, Grand Master 23, 71 France 2, 9, 18–22, 24–25, 28, 41–42, 51–54, 56–58, 65–70, 72, 74, 78, 90 n.70, 93–94, 104, 106, 108, 110, 112–13 Francis I, King of France 25, 74 Frederic II, Emperor 21–22, 69 Gabriele Martinengo 24–25, 72–73 Galicia 52, 105 Gascony 20, 67 Gerard, founder of the Order 17, 64 Germany 2, 23, 51, 65–68, 70, 104 Giacomo Pontano 25, 27, 73, 77 Girolamo Querini 3, 15, 17, 26, 61, 63, 75 Giurgenti 52, 106 Goletta 42, 56, 94, 110 Gottfried, King of Jerusalem 17, 64 Gozo 9, 38, 90 Granada 54, 67, 108 Grand Bailiff 19, 66 Grand Chancellor 19, 66 Grand Commendator 19–20, 65–66 Grand Conservator 19, 66 Grand Cross, knights of 2, 3, 20, 31, 33, 41, 46, 57, 66–68, 82, 85, 93, 95, 111 Greece 54, 108 Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem 21, 68 Gypsies 55, 109 Hadrian VI, Pope 24, 73 Henry VI, King of England 9, 25, 75 Holy Land 16–18, 22, 61–62, 64, 70, 75, 77 Hungary 17, 20, 63, 67 Ibrahim Pasha, Ottoman Commander 23, 72 infermiere, Order’s official 41, 93 Innocent VIII, Pope 28, 78 Ireland 21, 67 Italy 18–22, 34, 42, 47,50, 58, 65–67, 70, 85, 94, 99, 103, 112

119

Jacques de Milly, Grand Master 27, 76 Janissaries 27, 77 Jean de Lastic, Grand Master 27, 76 Jean Parisot de Valette, Grand Master 2, 111, 112 n.98 Jerusalem 14, 17–18, 21–22, 26, 31, 35, 51, 60–61, 64, 68–71, 75–76, 82, 86, 105 John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem 21, 68 n.19 Juan de Homedes y Coscon, Grand Master 52, 56, 105, 110 Lango, Bailiff of 21, 57, 68, 111 Languedoc 20, 67 Leone Strozzi, Prior of Capua 41, 93 Lions 20, 67 Livonia 23, 52, 70, 105 Lombardy 21, 67 Lorrain 21, 67 Macri 23, 71 Majorca 20, 67 Malamocco 17, 63 Malta 1–12, 14–17, 21, 25, 30, 32–34, 37–39, 41, 45, 49–53, 55–57, 60–63, 68, 71–75, 81, 83–85, 89, 90, 93, 94, 98, 101–104, 106, 108–110 Marsamxett 41, 93 Marseille 24, 53, 73, 106 Marshall, or Superintendent of Justice 19, 65 Maximilian, Emperor 28, 78 Mazana 52, 106 Messina 14, 21, 25, 60, 67, 74 Monaco 20, 67 Morea 20, 67 Mount Tabor 22, 70 Naples 1, 21, 22, 56, 58, 67, 69, 73, 78, 110, 112, 113 Navarra 8, 20, 22, 66, 67, 69, 110 Negroponte 21, 67 Nice 14, 25, 49, 55, 60, 74–75, 102, 108 Otto III, Emperor 26, 76 pallium 36, 87 Paolo Giovio 25, 73 Paris 9, 20, 67 Pascal II, pope 18, 64 Patras 29, 42, 80, 94

120

Index

Pedro de Navarra, mercenary leader 8, 56, 110 Philip, King of France 21, 69 Philip II, King of Spain 58, 112 Philippe de Villiers, Grand Master 24–25, 49, 56, 72, 74, 101, 110 Piero del Ponte, Grand Master 110 Pierre d’Aubusson, Grand Master 15, 27, 30, 52, 56 Pietro Bembo 3, 17, 63 and n.4, Pisa 21, 67 polezziero 18, 65 Portugal 20, 38, 67, 89 Prior of the Church 18, 43, 65, 68, 93, 95, 98 Provence 18–20, 25, 60, 65, 67, 74 Prussia 23, 52, 70, 104–105 Raymond du Puy 18, 64 Receiver, Order’s official 2, 33, 46, 48, 84, 99, 100 Rhodes 1, 4, 11, 14–15, 21, 23–30, 37, 41, 43, 49, 50, 55–57, 60–62, 68, 71–81, 88, 93, 96, 102, 106, 109–112 Rome 2, 25, 28, 67, 73–74, 78–79, 102 Saint Louis, King of France 22, 69 Saladin, Sultan of Egypt 21, 68 San Lorenzo of Rettania 22, 70 San Pietro, castle 29, 79 Santa Euphemia 21, 67 Santo Stefano 21, 67 Savoy 20, 25–27, 67, 75–76 Scotland 21, 67

Sguardio, court 42, 47, 95, 100 Sicily 1, 14, 24–25, 41, 49–53, 56, 58, 60, 73, 75, 93, 102–103, 105–107, 109, 112–113 soldea 37, 40, 88 Spain 1, 12, 20–21, 24, 25, 42, 50, 52–54, 58, 66–67, 73–74, 78, 94, 103, 106, 108, 112 Strasbourg 55, 108 Suleiman, Ottoman Sultan 23–25, 71–73 Syracuse 25, 49, 55, 60, 75, 102, 108 Syria 16, 21–22, 61–62, 68 Templars 16, 21–22, 61, 69–70 Teutonic Knights 10, 16, 22–23, 61, 69–70 Theobald I, King of Navarra 22, 69 Tossa 20, 67 Tripoli 6, 8–12, 14, 17, 39, 49, 50–58, 60, 63, 90, 101, 104–112 Turcopolier 19, 66 vacante mortuorum 39, 91 Valencia 20, 67 Velletri 29, 79 Venice 1–10, 30, 63, 67, 73, 80, 106, 109, 113 Venosa 21, 67 Viterbo 14, 25, 49, 60, 74, 102 Zante 54, 107