Msgr Prof. Vincent Borg in less than a year and a half since he had published the First Volume in this new series which was entitled The Maltese Diocese and the Sicilian Environment from the Norman Period till 1500 AD, will be publishing in a few days time this second volume in the said Series. The Contents of this volume follow, to a great extent, the method and pattern adopted in the previous volume. The author stated that, way back to the late 1970s originally, he had planned to prepare a Biographical Dictionary of the Maltese Diocesan Clergy. With the passing of years, he realised that it was most essential to give a background to the social and cultural milieu that formed the environment where these individuals lived. It is all too evident, that many of them were involved in moulding this environment. However, the reconstruction of this background helps to appreciate each individual contribution, if any, as well as the development of important historical, financial and devotional aspects that permeated this background.

This conceptual approach has induced the method being adopted in this series. The Biographical details of each member of the Diocesan Clergy of the Maltese Islands, including the Bishops and some foreign ecclesiastics, form the main bulk of this work included in Chapter Two which provide an extensive informative data, being the fruit of patient research work conducted both locally and abroad. It is worth noting that these details concern all priests who had been ordained till the last decade of the sixteenth century. This implies that this volume, in this respect, presents biographical accounts which prolong themselves even during the first half of the seventeenth century.

The socio-cultural background has three Chapters dedicated to it. The First Chapter presents a historical background involving the reconstruction of various problems the local Clergy had to face. These involved financial, doctrinal, educational and intellectual problems all of which had their direct important impact on the formation of the Diocesan Clergy. To help this reconstruction, the author has also delved deeply on how similar problems influenced other sectors of the local population. The Third Chapter is dedicated to two important aspects. One involved the pastoral environment that developed in Malta particularly with the establishing of new parishes and the other, on par with what had been already attempted in Melita Sacra I, presents a detailed survey of ecclesiastical entities of benefices founded throughout this century whereby the local Laity tried to help the financial needs of its Clergy.

The fourth and last Chapter is entirely dedicated to devotional development in the Maltese Islands. Apart from portraying the increase or decrease in cult-items that had already been detected during the previous centuries, new information based on a chronological and topographical sequence, presents the introduction of new such items within the Maltese milieu. These three Chapters, which together form almost half of this volume, present a global view of the more important developments that constitute the local ecclesiastical environment in which the Maltese and Gozitan Diocesan Clergy managed to live and give a substantial contribution to these islands.

The author included also five appendices, four of which present a transcription of important Apostolic Letters which had been dealt with in the text of this work. Moreover, three analytical indexes are also present.

Further information is contained in a leaflet which will be forwarded to all interested in this publication on application to the following address: Melita Sacra II, 134, St Francis Street, Balzan, Malta.