https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/134577 2026-04-04T21:35:26Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/126312 Title: Bibliography Abstract: A list of bibliographical sources used in the articles that were published in the Journal of Maltese Studies volume 29. 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/126311 Title: Buonamico, the Botanist Authors: Stevens, Darrin T.; Lanfranco, Edwin Abstract: Due to their geographical position, their geomorphology and numerous microhabitats, the Maltese Islands have a relatively rich flora as well as interesting fertile ground for botanical research. Despite this fact, detailed studies on Maltese botany are relatively recent, dating from the early nineteenth century. Very few publications or manuscripts on the Maltese flora predate the nineteenth century, and for the most part these have not been critically assessed. The first works directly referring to the Maltese flora belong to three seventeenth-century scholars, namely, and in chronological order, the manuscripts of Giovan Francesco Buonamico (c. 1670) and the published works of Paolo Boccone (1674, 1697) and Filippo Cavallini (1689). The works of these three authors are somewhat interlinked, as will be indicated below. 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/126310 Title: Giovanni Francesco Buonamico’s Gaudia Melitensia Authors: Azzopardi, John Abstract: Giovanni Francesco Buonamico’s Gaudia Melitensia is a collection of epigrams in Latin extolling Malta’s Pauline cult and traditions. Its title and contents reveal the author’s belief in the fundamental role of these traditions in our religious, cultural and national identity. This study will be commenting on three manuscript versions of this work, pointing out some interesting variants. In all probability, more copies are to be found in religious and private collections, as the work was often quoted by earlier and more recent authors who discussed the Pauline cult, centred mainly round the St Paul’s Grotto complex in Rabat, Malta. The three versions are: one, presumably the original, in the private collection of Dr Giovanni Bonello; a second version in the Cathedral Archives (ACM) at Mdina; and a third version in the National Library of Malta (NLM). A preliminary examination of the texts will readily show that the copies in ACM and NLM are not completely identical to the Bonello version, but copied from another exemplar: the Epigrams are given a different enumeration, and the text in both includes an initial hymn in honour of St Paul which is omitted in Bonello. 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/126173 Title: Buonamico, the Latinist Authors: Vella, Horatio Caesar R. Abstract: Buonamico, a contemporary of Grand Master Brother Nicholas Cottoner (1663-1680), has left us a good number of Latin poems which I shall have the honour of discussing in this welcome collection of articles in honour of our writer. My interests shall fall on some of the Latin poems, prose and inscriptions Buonamico composed, with a view to illustrating the quality of the Latin he used and the prosody he employed in the poems. The poems under discussion can be broadly divided into three parts: 1. Those which belong to the Gaudia Melitensia sive Divi Pauli Apostoli gesta in Melita Insula totidem epigrammatis celebrata; 2. the Kalendae Maiae dedicated to Grand Master Nicholas Cottoner; and 3. the shorter poems and inscriptions dedicated to various individuals or referring to other decorative objects. 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z