I wish to dedicate my last blog of this year and even in this series to a book that Carmel Vassallo and I have edited about the port of Malta. It is not the job of authors, editors or co-editors to review
their own work. Therefore, what follows should not be taken as a review per se but a presentation of a book on the history of Malta’s grand harbour. This book is made up of highly scientific and academic
papers, all written by experts in their own field.

On a personal note, there is always a sense of satisfaction seeing a book being published, which is the product of a number of years of work and labour.  In our case, this book took more than two years of
hard work, during which I had to endure the death of both my parents. The final product is now out. Some of the papers presented in this book were presented in the 4th Mediterranean Maritime History Network Conference held in Barcelona (Spain), on 7, 8 & 9 May 2014.

Besides the preface, which accompanies and serves as an introduction to this publication, the book has a number of papers ranging from medieval to modern times. The topics touched can be categorized as those dealing with the physical state of our harbour. Other topics focus more on the sea, with the emphasis being on shipping.

Stanley Fiorini wrote an extremely interesting and ground breaking paper about the Maltese harbour during late medieval times. His paper is extremely revealing and offers a number of points that can be the
basis of specific studies.  I have found this paper extremely interesting, as it gives new information about places and place names, together with the description of buildings that dotted the coastline of the Grand Harbour, which are no longer in existence. The urban morphology that is discussed in this paper was completely transformed after the arrival of the knights in 1530. The last medieval vestiges
disappeared after the arrival of the British. Incidentally, one of the papers in this book, that of Simone Azzopardi,  discusses one of the last major transformations that  obliterated what may be termed as the last vestiges of medieval morphology  within the harbour.

The story of our port during the Order of St. John is at the centre of a very interesting study by Joan Abela and Emanuel Buttigieg. As to be expected by all those who know the works of these two authors, their research is based on the untapped notarial archives, in particular, acts from the second half of the sixteenth century. The main argument of this paper is that our harbour had an important and  decisive role to play behind the formation of the concept of Malta as a sovereign state.

The time of the Knights of St. John is also at the centre of two other papers. The first one is by Ivan Grech, wherein he deals with shortages of manpower for the Hospitaller’s fleet throughout, what in history is known as the long seventeenth century. Thomas Freller focuses on quarantine procedures and how they were perceived by travellers arriving or leaving Malta during the Early Modern Times.

Michela d’Angelo is one of the world’s leading experts on maritime trade in the Mediterranean for the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In this paper, she taps a unique source, known as the Sound Toll Registers. These registers contain information about trade between Malta and  Northern European countries, primarily, Denmark and Sweden. D’Angelo focused on the period between 1743 and 1856.  She took the opportunity of the uploading of these important registers on an on-line database to expand on the history of trade between Malta and these Northern countries. This on-line database is the result of an international project that was started in 2009. It goes to show the new opportunities that digital technology is offering to the study of our history. Mostly thanks to volunteers, historical material is being made available for researchers. On-line technology is broadening Malta’s historical relevance. In this case, it shows that our harbour was on trade routes   that went beyond the Mediterranean shores, up to the Baltic.

Maritime trade is the subject of two other papers. The first one is by Frank Theuma. Theuma  uses documentation preserved at the National archives, in particular the Consolato di Mare to account for the hardships encountered by Greek and other mariners in the transportation of goods from the Eastern part of the Mediterranean to Malta. Perhaps, despite the idea that we may have of the existence of a perennial war with the crescent and the cross, trade infringed confessional barriers and even at the time of the Order of St. John, the Levant was offering opportunities to Maltese businessmen. Greek merchants, who were under Ottoman rule, are found trading with Malta. The Ottomans took opportunity of the presence of Christian subjects in their Empire to effect trade with the rest of the Christian world. This means that when Malta and the Ottoman world were officially at war against each other, trade was still taking place. The religious divide did not hinder trade. Trade with the East increased after Malta was taken over by the British in 1800.

Greek or better, Ionian shipping calling at the Maltese harbour is the subject of a paper by Gerassimo D. Pagratis. Pagratis does not need any introduction among those studying the history of Greek  maritime
trade in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Like Theuma, Pagratis too researched the trade routes of Greek captains and even gives the origins of some of the Greek ship captains that transported merchandise to our islands.

The last two papers are dedicated exclusively to the nineteenth century. The first paper is by Simone Azzopardi. She discussed at length the British project to extend the grand harbour between 1858-1870s, going at length to assess both its political and economic implications. As stated at the start of this blog, this project wouldstart to change the geomorphological area of Marsa, which had one of
Malta’s most beautiful and unique bays forever. It should be pointed out that Azzopardi’s search took her to the British National Archives at Kew. This is another archive that has been barely tapped for the study of Maltese history, in particular, during the period normally classified as that of colonial rule.

The last paper is mine. It is about eight ex-votos that belong to theparish church of Bormla. Perhaps, the idea that Bormla was one of the leading harbour towns escapes  historical memory. But after Valletta,
the town of Bormla was the most important for its sheer number of sailors that hailed from this locality over the centuries. Yet, very few today would associate its parish church with maritime history.
Bormla’s church of the Immaculate Conception was an important sanctuary that attracted devotion from seafarers from the locality and other places. This is attested by references to its many maritime paintings of ex-votos which were offered to Our Lady. What has survived are just a handful. In this paper, I attempt to give the story behind each one of these ex-votos that has survived the test of time and reconstruct the story of the painting from the maritime scenes and captions.

I would like to end my blog to thank, also on behalf of Carmelo Vassallo, all the contributors for their wonderful papers and ground breaking work about the history of our Maltese harbour.  I wish also to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Happy New Year and thank them for reacting to my writings.