Text: Godwin Vella
Photographs and design: Daniel Cilia
Publisher: Heritage Malta / 2015
Extent: 24pp

In July 2008, the National Collection became enriched with a priceless hoard of 19 manuscript maps and 431 printed maps produced between 1507 and 1899.

The corpus, this slight but interesting book tells us, is considered to be the largest and most complete collection of antique maps of Malta worldwide and was painstakingly put together over a period of five decades by Albert Ganado, an acknowledged authority on cartography and an avid contributor to prestigious academic journals on the topic.

Cartography has a notable advantage over written documentary sources because of its ability to convey in a vivid manner a rich abundance of information that would otherwise prove too laborious to describe.

Of particular significance are the Great Siege maps that were printed while the siege was still in progress to bring to the populations of Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands and other European states what was taking place in far-away Malta.

In the extremely interesting text, Godwin Vella tells us that at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the socio-economic fabric of the Maltese islands had evolved into two distinct and also contradictory realities: On the one hand the closely-knit urban environments around the Grand Harbour, sheltered behind an extended system of defensive lines; cosmopolitan, living on the proceeds from corsairing and an evolved trade; and on the other hand, out in the countryside people still tended to their sparse land and lived according to a time-honoured tradition producing cotton, olives, wine and wheat.

Although available independently, this publication has been conceived as an accompaniment to a facsimile of an eighteenth century manuscript from the Albert Ganado Map Collection treasured at the National Museum of Fine Arts.

The map is divided into three sections with the bottom one subdivided into two smaller diagrams.

At the top, we get a landscape view of Valletta, a landscape that we can still enjoy today, though marred by later unfortunate accretions, showing a unity made up of the surrounding fortifications, the Order's palaces and of course the St John's Conventual Church.

The lower tier of this panoramic view across the Grand Port shows Coradin (Kordin), L'Isle (L-Isla), St Ange (Fort St Angelo), Bichi (Bighi) and Ricasoli plus La Renelle (Rinella) together with some English and Swedish vessels at anchor.

The middle tier is a map of the Maltese islands. It is estimated that there were some 22 casali on mainland Malta which were a mere 30% of the known late medieval rural settlements. Many may have disappeared because the population in them was attracted to join the bigger settlements but another reason could be that due to the intensification of corsairing in that period, people migrated to the more populated centres.

A good number of hamlets fused with each other such as at Zeitun (Rahal Bisqallin, Rahal Guann, Rahal Bisbut) and Seboug (Rahal Dwin, Rahal Mula and Rahal Muxi).

The compiler of this map uses the romance Casal instead of the still-prevalent Rahal. No settlement merited the denomination Casale unless they became parishes.

Of great significance, the author tells us, is the name of the settlement. Many times these are the forename or nickname of a prominent person such as the Arabo-Berber names like Attard and Balzan, dating back to the Arab occupation of Malta, Lia a variant of Elias traceable to the Jewish presence until 1492, while Kirkop (a variant of Procopio) and Louca are typically Christian and suggest a post-Norman conquest origin. Seboug and Zeitun refer to olives and oil respectively, a prime product since time immemorial.

Gozo does not have any Hal place names, since the colonization of the countryside was a rather late development after the 1551 razzia and the construction of a series of watch towers around the coast.

The map also traces in green the Wignacourt acqueduct (Conduite de la Fontaine) that brought water from Rabato and Dingli to the parched Valletta.

The last strata of the map shows, on one side, Valletta, Floriana and the Three Cities in great detail especially with regards to the fortifications while on the other side we get a view of Rabbato and the Chateau du Goze. The view, taken from the Tac-Cawla area is still remarkably the one we get today although the church on the hill has been changed to Lorenzo Gafa's Collegiale after the 1693 earthquake.