https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/147401 Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:13:06 GMT 2026-07-07T15:13:06Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/147474 Title: The Pian bulls of the Order of Saint Lazarus : history and significance Abstract: The Papal Bulls Inter Assiduas Domenici of Pius IV (1565) and Sicut Bonus Agricola of Pius V (1567) are, along with the Bulls Pontifex Romanus (1607) and Militantium Ordinum (1608), both of Paul V, specified as the defining bulls of the Order in the Bull of Cardinal de Vendôme uniting the Orders of Saint Lazarus and Our Lady of Mount Carmel (1668, under the authority of Clement IX). Subsequently, the last Papal Bull published on the United Orders, Militantium Ordinum Instituto of Clement XIV (1772) also references these bulls. Sun, 01 Nov 2015 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/147474 2015-11-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/147471 Title: Three centuries of chivalric tradition and Lazarite presence in Louisiana Abstract: While embracing mainstream American lifestyles and culture, the citizens of the State of Louisiana perpetuate the chivalric and charitable traditions instilled by their ancestors – the administrators and colonists who hailed from Mother France during the early 18th century. Spaniards under Hernando de Soto explored what is now Louisiana in the 1540s, but it was the French who claimed the country and named it La Louisiane in honour of King Louis XIV during the expedition of Rene Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle in 1682. The province of La Louisiane was a major part of La Nouvelle France or France’s Western Hemisphere holdings and constituted much of the present United States, centering upon the drainage basin of the great Mississippi River and its tributary streams.1 Settlers from France, including military officers and troops, governmental officials and craftsmen, established La Nouvelle Orleans (New Orleans) and subsequent communities, and the province thrived due to its agricultural fecundity. Descendants of the colonial French families have traditionally been referred to as Creole, signifying Old World ethnicity and culture transplanted in the New World. Sun, 01 Nov 2015 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/147471 2015-11-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/47382 Title: Battling the variola : Charles Marie de La Condamine Chevalier de l’Ordre de Saint Lazare Abstract: Variola or smallpox is an infectious disease caused by two Variola virus variants. The infection probably reached significance in human communities soon after 10,000 BCE when the cultivation of land required permanent settlements bringing mankind closer to a growing pool of animal pathogens. Smallpox is believed to have most likely evolved from a rodent virus between 68,000 and 16,000 years ago. The disease was certainly extant in Egypt during the second millennium BCE. Skin rashes on Egyptian mummies, including the Pharaoh Ramses V (died 1145 BCE), suggest that ancient Egypt may have been the earliest smallpox endemic region; though it may have been imported from the eastern lands since the earliest medical literature describing smallpox-like disease comes from ancient China (1122 BCE) and India (as early as 1500 BCE). Smallpox is an acute highly infectious specific fever characterized by a peripherally distributed deep-seated disfiguring eruption associated with very severe systemic manifestations. The Variola virus major infection was associated with a high mortality reaching 25-50% in adults and over 80% in children. Sun, 01 Nov 2015 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/47382 2015-11-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/47380 Title: Torri ta’ Lanzun : from farmhouse to Grand Chancellery of the Military & Hospitaller Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem Abstract: In 1973, the Torri ta’ Lanzun was acquired by the Order of Saint Lazarus and formally opened by the then Grand Master of the Order, His Excellency Don Francisco de Borbón y Borbón, as the official Worldwide Headquarters of the Order of St Lazarus. The building is sited in the outskirts of the village of San Ġwann in the region known as Tal-Minsija [translated as ‘the forgotten’] in the island of Malta overlooking Wied Għomor between Għargħar and present-day St Julian’s. Situated about 1000 metres from the eastern coast of Malta leading to St. Julian’s Bay, the area is today a very urbanized locality with the Torri ta’ Lanzun being surrounded by a number of maisonettes and villas. It is, therefore, difficult to fully appreciate its original role as a protective farmhouse in the area in bygone days. In the fifteenth century, when Torri ta’ Lanzun was built, the geographical situation was significantly different from what it is today. The region, then known as Il-Ħofra ta’ Xagħret il-Għar [translated as ‘the cave opening’] was a completely isolated rural locality within the parish of Birkirkara inhabited only by local farmers who were subject to attacks from pirates who landed on the shore to replenish their food and water stores, and of course capture anyone whom they could sell into slavery. Sun, 01 Nov 2015 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/47380 2015-11-01T00:00:00Z