The Knights Hospitaller
in Malta:
In the 1520s, Rhodes finally fell to the Turks, and the Order relocated to
Malta in the Western Mediterranean. Here they withstood a famous Turkish
assault which nearly destroyed them, but thereafter increasingly resembled
any other small feudal state of the region. The arts flourished, but military
preparedness and religious zeal declined; so, eventually, did the Order's
famous Hospital, once the finest in Europe.
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Virtual Malta, Homepage by
Grazio Falzon
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Maltalinks (Logix
Communications) Large compilation of Malta-related links.
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History of Malta
Striking page by Wilfred Camilleri.
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Malta: The Age of Chivalry,
by Joe Vella
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The Knights
Hospitaller on Malta, by Guy Stair Sainty.
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Archives
of Mdina Cathedral, Malta (Malta Study Center, Hill Monastic Library)
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Bormla
MedUrbs Project: An urban renewal project in Malta supported by the EU,
which is intended "to identify the heritage left by the Sovereign Order,
assess its condition, valourize it, and capitalise on such a legacy."
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Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Century
uniforms of the Order. Date of picture, etc., not given. (Hello Italy
Tours)
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Valletta,
by the San Andrea School Cyberfair Project (Includes excellent "guided
tours" of the Grand Master's Palace and St. John's Co-Cathedral; page created
by teachers and schoolchildren in Malta.)
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Siege of Malta, from
The Maltese Islands by Charles Owen (1969): (San Narciso Community
College).
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The Siege of Malta:
A Novel, by S. Fowler Wright (1942). Apparently based on an unfinished
romance begun by Sir Walter Scott.
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Great
Siege of Malta: Seventeenth century print showing imaginary aerial view.
(Swedish Re-Enactment Group)
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Warship
of the Order: Apparently a seventeenth or eighteenth century print.
(Swedish Re-Enactment Group)
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Pirate Utopias:
Moorish Corsairs and English Renagadoes, by Peter Lamborn Wilson: An
interesting account of the "Sally Rovers" faction of Barbary Corsairs. The
Barbary Pirates were the main enemy of the Order in its Maltese phase;
theoretically at least more than just bandits, they were in many cases members
of Sufi religious orders, fighting for Islam as the Knights did for Christendom.
Wilson's article stresses the curious fact that many of them were European
converts.
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St. Barthélemy
Part of the Order's Caribbean empire.
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The
Dwejra Area, by Caroline Gatt: Gozo, one of the Maltese Islands,
is notable as the site of the General's Rock, on which grew the Fungus
Gaulitanus. This "fungus" is actually a strange flowering plant, Cynomorium
coccineum, which possesses no chlorophyll. It was considered one of the
treasures of the Order, and was thought to have remarkable curative properties.
Indeed, the nearby
Tower
of Dwejra is said to have been built partly to guard the Fungus Gaulitanus.
( Cynomorium, incidentally, is also used as an emergency survival
food by Middle Eastern nomads, and is mentioned as such in Job 30:4.) (San
Anton School, Malta)
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Gasparo
Berti, by The Galileo Project Renaissance scientist who received
grant-support from the Order.
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The
Painter Jean Raoux, (Direction des Musées de France)
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Athanasius
Kircher, from Sparks of Genius, (a biographical dictionary of scientists).
Included because of the following paragraph: "1638: Kircher wrote
and dedicated to Paul Lascaris, the Grand Master of the Order of the Knights
of St. John (the Johanniterordens), a book for the use of knights designed
to help them solve "the most important mathematical and physical problems."
This involved, as I understand it, a mathematical instrument, which I believe
was called Kircher's pantometer."
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Opera Houses
in Malta, by C. Z. Haber: Including some information on the operatic
activities of the later knights.
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View
of Valletta in the Eighteenth Century (National Library of Medicine)
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Knight,
Page, and Grand Master, Eighteenth Century: Apparently Eighteenth Century
prints. (British Orthodox Hospitallers Page)
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History on the Hudson,
by John Berger. News story from Catholic New York about Maltese
emigré architect Daniel Vella and his strange house, L'Auberge des
Chevaliers, in Piermont, New York, a sort of monument to the Order.
The editor of this page welcomes further information. Please
contact Hospitaller,
hospitaller@webpages.free-online.co.uk