MALTA. —
I. Geography
The Maltese archipelago, which rises from a submarine platform connected to Sicily, from which it is 90 km distant, consists of the main island (246 sq. km) and those of Gozo (67 sq. km), Comino, Cominotto and Filfola, as well as a certain number of islets; in total, 316 sq. km.It has a limestone structure and, although of very modest height (maximum elevation 258 m. on Malta), the terrain is rather rugged, with valley incisions and depressions that give the eastern coast of Malta a course marked by inlets and promontories. Owing to the ruggedness of the soil and the climate (almost absolute drought from May to September), the islands are fertile in cereals, vines and citrus fruits, but production is insufficient for internal consumption, since the population, which has almost tripled in the last century (307,000 inhabitants in 1948), reaches an exceptionally high density (971 per sq. km). Thus, for centuries the archipelago has sustained emigration, particularly to Mediterranean coasts (where over 150,000 Maltese are now counted). The British number little more than 5,000, and foreigners about a thousand (including Italians). The official languages are English and Maltese (the latter, a mixed dialect with Italian elements, introduced in 1934 to replace Italian). The only notable urban centre is the capital Valletta (64,000 inhabitants including suburbs).
The archipelago lies midway between Gibraltar and Suez and possesses a vast and secure natural harbour: hence its military importance and the long British occupation (since 1798). Malta is a colony governed by a governor, assisted by a council and an elective assembly of 40 members.
II. CIVIL HISTORY
Definitively wrested from the Carthaginians by the Romans in 218 BC, Malta was annexed to the province of Sicily. In the 4th century it passed to the Eastern Empire, was for brief periods held by the Vandals and Goths, and returned to the Empire in 533. In the 9th century it was conquered by the Arabs, who held it until 1091, when it was taken by the Norman Roger. Arab domination left notable traces in the language, toponymy and art, and strong Muslim communities remained on the island until expelled by Frederick II. In 1266 Malta, together with Sicily, became Angevin territory, but after Roger of Lauria’s victory over the Neapolitan fleet in Maltese waters, it passed to the Aragonese. In the 13th century a strong influx of Italian elements profoundly modified the Maltese dialect. During Norman and Swabian rule Malta was often granted as a fief to Sicilian families; the Aragonese, however, incorporated it into the royal demesne and in 1428 granted its community the same privileges enjoyed by Palermo, Messina and Catania. The municipal organization favoured a flourishing development of all civil institutions.In 1530 Charles V ceded Malta to the Order of St John, which since 1522 had lost Rhodes. The cession was made in full sovereignty, save for the symbolic annual tribute of a falcon. The Knights embellished and fortified the island, transforming it into a powerful naval base capable of withstanding the incessant onslaught of Turkish and Barbary fleets.
In 1565 Malta was besieged by the Turks: the steadfast resistance of the Knights and the entire population enabled a fleet sent from Sicily, Naples and Tuscany to arrive in time to relieve the island, and the Turks were forced to raise the siege. Relations between the Order and Sicily, despite occasional disputes, remained cordial. But in the 17th century, and even more in the following one, the Order gradually suppressed municipal institutions, centralizing all power in itself, and the loss of traditional privileges aroused growing discontent among the population, leading to conspiracies and revolts that were harshly suppressed.
Towards the end of the 18th century, as the Mediterranean became a battleground among states aspiring to continental hegemony, the great powers turned their gaze to Malta, whose geographical position and military importance could make it a valuable asset for its possessor. In 1798 the island was conquered by Bonaparte. The ostensible pretext for the attack was the fact that in December 1797 Paul I of Russia had proclaimed his protectorate over the Order (in November 1798 a Russian was elected Grand Master). The French, initially favoured by part of the population weary of the Knights’ authoritarian regime, soon alienated all sympathy with policies aimed at subverting local traditions and customs and offending religious sentiment. Thus, when news of French defeats in 1799 reached Malta, discontent erupted into open revolt. The Maltese sought help from Naples, Portugal and England. British troops landed on the island and, with the aid of the population, which fought valiantly alongside them, forced the French to capitulate on 4 September 1800. Although the capitulation made no mention of Maltese rights or the sovereignty of the King of Naples, Admiral Nelson had confirmed that the island belonged to the King of Naples, and in the King’s name the commander of the British militia, Alexander Ball, assumed its government. Ball immediately began, with every kind of promise and enticement, a skilful and tenacious campaign of penetration. The Treaty of Amiens, which had sanctioned the return of Malta to the Order and its neutrality, was never implemented; the British remained on the island, and in May 1814, by the Treaty of Paris, they obtained full sovereignty. From this point, while the British claimed possession of Malta by right of conquest, the Maltese asserted that they had voluntarily placed themselves under British protection. For over a century Malta struggled to secure its constitutional freedoms and the official teaching and use of the Italian language. Regarding the constitution, after the government-appointed council of 1835, there followed the Constitution of 1849 and the more liberal one of 1887, which made the majority of the governing council elective. As for language, from 1880 the British government began to uphold the principle of parity between the two languages, excluding any privilege for Italian. Against the restrictive laws inspired by Gerald Strickland, the Maltese Nationalist Party, led by Fortunato Mizzi, fought strenuously. The removal of Strickland from the island did not alter the direction of British policy. First, the Constitution of 1887 was repealed and that of 1849, more restrictive, was reinstated. The Nationalists’ electoral successes forced Britain to grant a new Constitution with elective institutions in 1921. But in 1933 the Constitution was suspended; the governor assumed full administration and enacted increasingly strict laws aimed at abolishing the Italian language.
Roberto Palmarocchi
III. DIOCESE
The diocese has a population of 280,000, of whom 278,000 are Catholic; it comprises 50 parishes with 309 churches served by 402 diocesan priests and 384 regular clergy, one seminary, 45 male religious communities and 76 female (Ann. Pontif., 1951, p. 261).In the bay of this island, in AD 58, the ship in which St Paul was being taken to Rome as a prisoner, along with others, was wrecked (Acts 28:1). The inhabitants of the place, whom St Luke calls “barbarians” because they were ignorant of the Greek and Roman languages, welcomed the shipwrecked men with kindness and took Paul for a god, both because he had remained unharmed after the bite of a viper that had fastened on his hand, and because of the healing he had worked on the father of Publius, the chief of the island (Acts 28:6-9).
On the northern coast of the island of Malta, an inlet opens to the east (the direction from which the ship was coming), called the bay of St Paul; on the northern side of the bay lies the islet of Salmonetta, separated from the mainland by a channel where shallow sandy banks (the “double seas”: Acts 27:41) were easily formed, one of which the ship struck and was wrecked upon. A statue erected near the channel and a chapel commemorate the dramatic landing of St Paul, patron of the island, celebrated with a feast on 10 February.
Christianity in Malta is traced back to St Paul. But Ado confused the Publius of the Acts with the Publius, bishop of Athens, mentioned in Jerome’s *De viris illustribus*, and made him the first bishop of Malta (H. Quentin, *Le martyrologes historiques au moyen âge*, Paris 1908, pp. 416 and 599). Iulianus or Lucianus would have subscribed to the *constitutum* of the Three Chapters of Pope Vigilius in 553 (Hefele-Leclercq, III, II, p. 94).
The office was removed by Pope Gregory I in 598 (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 1196, 1549). He was succeeded by Traianus, formerly abbot of a monastery in Syracuse (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 1549, 1887).
The series was interrupted from 874 to 1095 owing to Saracen occupation. After the Norman conquest, the first bishop was Walter, consecrated by Urban II. The diocese was under the metropolitan jurisdiction of the Pope until 1154, when a bull of Adrian IV placed it under the archbishop of Palermo.
Pope Pius XII, with the apostolic constitution *Meltensem Ecclesiam* of 19 January 1944, raised the church of Malta to the rank and dignity of a metropolitan see, assigning the diocese of Gozo as its suffragan (AAS, 36 [1944], pp. 161-163). The same Pontiff, by an apostolic letter of 18 January 1950, raised the church of St Helena in Birchircara to the dignity of a minor basilica (AAS, 42 [1950], p. 716).
Among the bishops of Malta worthy of note are: Cardinal Corrado Caracciolo (appointed in 1408), Cardinal Pietro de Foix, nephew of Louis XI (appointed in 1489), and Cardinal Giovanni Borgia, nephew of Alexander VI (appointed in 1497). Later, Cardinals Raffaele Rario and Andrea della Valle were appointed but resigned the office.
When Malta was ceded to the Order of St John, Charles V reserved to himself the right to appoint the bishop, to be chosen from three names proposed by the Knights. c. 1574, when the Order protested because the bishop had been granted authority to conduct inquisitorial proceedings against the Knights, Gregory XIII established the tribunal of the Inquisition in Malta, which lasted until 1798. In 1584 the same Pope forbade Knights or brethren of the Order from holding the bishopric, which was henceforth to be reserved for chaplains of the Order. Relations between the bishops and the Knights were often disturbed by jurisdictional disputes. The most acute conflicts occurred during the episcopates of Tommaso Gargallo (17th century), Baldassare Cagliares (17th century), and Carmine G. Pellerano (17th century). In 1746 Benedict XIV regulated the competencies of the bishop and the Chapter in the administration of the diocese. In 1780 a bull of Pius VI united the archbishopric of Rhodes *in partibus* to the see of Malta, though confirming Malta as a suffragan of Palermo. In 1798 the bishop of Malta was Vincenzo Labini. When the French occupied the island, they declared that they would guarantee the free exercise of the Catholic religion; but they soon suppressed the religious Orders and confiscated their goods, abolished the tribunal of the Inquisition, and forbade ecclesiastics and the people from appealing to the Pope or the metropolitan in matters concerning the administration of worship. These decrees greatly contributed to arousing popular resentment against the conquerors. The English too promised full religious liberty. During their occupation, the Kingdom of Naples did not renounce its ecclesiastical patronage over the diocese. In 1807 the King appointed the Maltese Mattei as bishop, and London gave its consent; but after the Treaty of Paris, when in 1829, upon the death of Mattei, the King of Naples claimed the right to choose his successor, England refused. Yielding to British pressure, Gregory XVI abrogated the metropolitan rights of Palermo over Malta, placing it directly under the Holy See. In 1831 he appointed Francesco Saverio Caruana as bishop of Malta and archbishop of Rhodes. When the English demanded, as was customary in England for anyone holding civil or religious office, an oath recognising the Hanoverian dynasty and pledging not to act against the Anglican religion, the bishop refused, and the Holy See approved his action. The definitive severance of all ties with the Kingdom of Naples took place in 1834, when an exchange of properties was arranged between the bishopric of Malta, which owned lands in Lentini, and the Benedictines of Catania on the island. During the long conflict between the Maltese and the English, the Church of Malta sided with the former, who defended, along with constitutional liberties and the language, their religion which was continually threatened by the British rulers. The sharpest clash was provoked by Strickland’s anti-Catholic policy. The Holy See ordered an investigation, which in 1929 it entrusted to Monsignor Robinson, a British subject. The result was a clear condemnation of Strickland’s actions, which was publicised in pastoral letters by the bishops of Malta and Gozo (the see of Gozo had been established in 1864).
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Roberto Palmarocchi–Donato Baldi
IV. Archaeological
The first explorations of the Christian catacombs of Malta were those of G. F. Abela in 1647; then one must go forward to Caruana (1881–97), to A. Mayr (1901), to E. Becker (1909), and to Fr A. Ferrua (1949).The ancient Christian cemeteries of Malta are all excavated in the characteristic marbly limestone of the island, which was used as a building material and allowed the excavation of large spaces with typical tombs either in the form of a canopy or behind a window. The so-called canopy tomb consists of a large sarcophagus raised for two or more bodies, surrounded by four pillars on which an arch with a flat roof rises, all carved from the limestone. In the same space, up to four such tombs can be found; similar examples are sometimes found in Sicily, a few in Naples, and only one in the Roman cemetery *inter duas laureos* (q.v.). Sometimes, however, there are tombs for one or two bodies in an arcosolium located in a niche with a window opening in its vault, a type exclusive to Malta. In some cases, several window tombs are found in a space large enough to accommodate a characteristic raised area used for funeral banquets. Some hypogea were closed by massive single-leaf stone doors. Near some Christian hypogea, Jewish hypogea are also found; the largest Christian cemetery is the one called St Paul’s, beneath the church of St Agatha.
The epigraphy is sparse. In a hypogeum, near an arcosolium, an inscription in Latin was read: *«In nomine Domini Iesu Christi surge et ambulans, + Domine salbum me fac»* (A. Heron de Villefosse, *Inscription latine chrétienne de Malte*, in *Comptes rendus de l’Acad. des inscriptions et belles-lettres*, 1908, pp. 140–142); three other Latin Christian inscriptions are recorded in CIL, X, 7498–500. A Greek inscription uses the term *κουμητήριον* for a two-storey tomb (*Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum*, IV, Berlin 1877, no. 954); in another Greek inscription the deceased is called *σύμαθης*, *χριστός*, *καὶ λιγνίτης* (ibid., 9451). Recently, in the so-called St Paul’s cemetery, Fr A. Ferrua read the Greek sepulchral inscription of a Leonia, bearing the Christological monogram.
Art. — Art in Malta flourished especially in the buildings erected after the establishment of the Order of St John. The Order’s conventual church dedicated to St John was built by G. Cassar between 1573 and 1577. It is a single-nave church with side chapels for the various langues of the Order; it is sumptuous in its decorations, marbles and tapestries (designed by P. Rubens and N. Poussin). The vault and some chapels were painted by M. Preti; the Beheading and St Jerome are by Caravaggio. The crypt contains the tombs of the Grand Masters; that of Villiers de l’Isle-Adam (1530–1534) is the work of A. Gagini. The church of the Gesù is by F. Bonamici, with paintings by M. Preti, Caracciolo and Romanelli; the church of St James (1710), in Borrominesque style, is by G. Barbara; also the church of St Catherine of Italy (1576), of St Francis (1681) with paintings by M. Preti, and della Vittoria (1752). The palace of the Grand Masters, now the seat of the Governor, was built by G. Cassar (1572–81); the Auberge de Provence dates from 1575; the Palazzo dei Cavalieri d’Italia (now the National Museum); the Palazzo dei Cavalieri di Castiglia e Portogallo, by Cachia (1744); the Auberge d’Auvergne is now the Law Courts; the Treasury Palace of the Order has been converted into the Casino Maltese.
In the old city or Notabile, the Cathedral was rebuilt in 1697 by Lorenzo Gafa; it contains works by M. Preti, as does the church of St Paul and the Public Library; the church of St Mary of Jesus has works by A. Gagin