Fr Emmanuel Magri’s approaching centenary has added impetus to the search for further information on his life and work.

Fr Magri was a pioneer in several fields: as an ethnographer (recording and studying Maltese folk tales and lore), as an archaeologist (working on several sites, including the Hypogeum), as an educator, both through publications and the setting up Catholic lending libraries.

In the last few months, two collections of new material have come to light: a small number of manuscripts in the Jesuit Archives of the former Sicilian Province in Palermo, and a set of letters in Rome.

The manuscripts in Palermo consist of one of Magri’s unpublished lectures to the Malta Archaeological and Scientific Society entitled “The Temple (of Proserpina) at Mtarfa”, an article on the “The Ancient Autonomous Coins of Malta”, and manuscripts of his writing on Maltese folktales (belonging to the cycle on the months), as well as his article Ghan-nies tas-sengha u n-Nisa tal-Gabra.

Fr Magri’s letters to Fr Alfred Louis Delattre, a Missionary of Africa (White Fathers), who was also an archaeologist conducting excavations in Carthage, have been traced in the General Archive of the Missionaries of Africa in Rome. Magri’s correspondence with Fr Delattre continues to shed light on his work in Malta and Gozo, including the excavation of the Hypogeum in Saflieni.

These documents, discovered by Br Josef Mario Briffa SJ, a Jesuit student and archaeologist, have been added to previous research on Fr Magri.

Salv. Mallia researched a biography published in 1977. In the early 1980s, Salv Mallia discovered Magri’s official correspondence with the government formerly held in the Palace Archives, and now in the National Archives, Rabat. A notebook of Magri’s notes on folktales and lore, discovered at the National Museum of Archaeology, was published by Gu¿è Cassar Pullicino in 1991. The folktales collected by Magri were analysed by Gorg Mifsud Chircop, who published a critical edition in 1994. Josef Briffa traced a further set of correspondence with Dr E.A. Wallis Budge at the British Museum, in 2003.

The centenary of Fr Magri’s death is being commemorated with a number of events, including an exhibition organised by Heritage Malta and the Maltese Jesuit Province, lectures and other events.

For further information visit: http://magri.jesuit.org.mt/

Profile on Fr Emmanuel Magri: http://magri.jesuit.org.mt/magri.html

Public lecture by Josef Mario Briffa SJ: http://magri.jesuit.org.mt/210307Lecture-EN.pdf