https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/18099 Mon, 06 Apr 2026 12:58:10 GMT 2026-04-06T12:58:10Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/47821 Title: The Maltese Calesse : visitors’ impressions in nineteenth century travel narratives Abstract: The Calesse is the crude precursor to the Karrozzin used in Malta. It was the main source of public transport up to the nineteenth century. A writer in ‘Notes and Queries’ for 1864 says that the calesse was introduced in Malta by the Knights of the Spanish Langue ‘more than one hundred and fifty years ago’. This assertion presupposes that the calesse was extant in Malta from the late seventeenth century. There are indeed several references to the calesse in eighteenth century literature. A Venetian chronicler in his description of Malta during 1716 describes how calesses were used by prostitutes during carnival days. Michele Acciard in his narrative of the conspiracy of the slaves in 1749 mentions that when Mustafa Bassa di Rodi was discharged from quarantine, Grand Master Manuel Pinto da Fonseca sent to him a calesse to take up his lodgings at Fort St. Elmo. Giovanni Scarabelli writing about the Sacra Infermeria in the eighteenth century, mentions that ‘l’ospidale e dotato di un calesse, quindi di rimessa e di stalla per I cavalli.’ A treasury record relating to the obligations of the ‘Unita della Citta Notle., ed isola di Malta’ dated 1 January 1751 refers to the hire of calesses on Christmas days, Easter and the Feast of St. Gregory. Charles Nicolas Sigisbert Sonnini de Manoncourt, the French naturalist, in 1799 published the French edition of ‘Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt’. While in Malta during the year 1777, he noted that only ‘the officers of the order, and other inhabitants, had, for the same purpose, chaises drawn by a single mule, which a man led by a leathern thong.’ An early description written in 1777 by Le Comte De Borch compares the vehicle to a stretcher-cabriolet supported by a powerful mule, of a similar size of a Neapolitan horse, driven by a very agile Maltese rider. Patrick Brydone, the Scottish traveller, relates how on 7 June, 1770 he had toured the island ‘in coaches drawn by one mule each, the only kind of vehicle the place affords. When the historian, Johan Meerman, accompanied by his wife, visited Malta in 1792, he observed that the calesse was the only means of travelling although unsuitable to reach certain locations. The manuscript diary of the Norwegian clergyman, Peder Pavels, who journeyed on the frigate ‘Thetis’ during the years 1796 and 1797, makes reference to a tour from Valletta to Rabat on 26 December 1796 using the local calesse. Comte Francois Emmanuel Guidnard de Saint-Priest, writing in 1791, describes how calesses were allowed to drive in St. George’s Square, Valletta, on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of Carnival days which square was invariably closed with chains during the year to prevent intrusion. He also mentions that calesses were ornamented with tree leaves when being used and driven to the feast of ‘Mnaria’. When Carlo Castone della Torre di Rezzonico, an Italian polygraph and cousin of Pope Clement XIII, visited Malta in 1794, he complained to Grand Master Emmanuel de Rohan about the damaged state of the roads as a result of having been eroded by the wheels of carts and calesses. Thomas Freller writes that ‘The Russian Count Chernishev was among the distinguished visitors who toured Mdina and Rabat in a calesse in June 1782. Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/47821 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/47793 Title: Paying a visit to the memorials of the Japanese war dead in Malta Authors: Sato, Noriko Abstract: This paper deals with the Japanese Naval Memorial which is located at the Kalkara Naval Cemetery in Malta. It seeks to understand why Japanese coming to Malta are motivated to pay a visit to such a site, which has a symbiotic relationship with the memory of the First World War. This memorial is actually dedicated to the 68 war-dead, who belonged to His Imperial Japanese Majesty’s 2nd Detached Squadron which operated from Malta in 1917 and 1918. The squadron played an important role in protecting the Allied convoys in the Mediterranean. Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/47793 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/47791 Title: The Stevens family : consuls in Malta and the Levant Authors: Watkinson, Sarah Abstract: Englishman William Stevens arrived in Malta in 1803 and within a few years became an established notary public based in Valletta. In 1805, he married Giovanna Assenza, and together they had fifteen children, with only the first, a daughter, Maria, not surviving infancy. Of their seven sons, three left Malta for the Levant and subsequently they took up consular positions, while back in Malta, their father and eldest brother also became consuls. This paper will look at the careers of Richard White Stevens, Francis Illiff Stevens and George Alexander Stevens, and how as Anglo-Maltese men, they were able to establish themselves and their own families in the Levant. It also shows the family’s international mobility and connectivity as well as its resourcefulness and adaptability. Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/47791 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/47790 Title: Maritime areas, ports and sea routes: defining space and connectivity between Malta and the Eastern Mediterranean 1770-1820 Authors: Theuma, Frank Abstract: The numerous ships that arrived in Malta from eastern Mediterranean points of origin and were recorded systematically in the quarantine and arrival registers [henceforth QR] of Malta reveal an intense maritime traffic (1770-1815). They reveal a substantial connection between a large number of eastern Mediterranean commercial nodes and ports and the port of Malta. These ports and nodes were dotted over a wide geographical expanse, they differed widely in scale and importance, and presented different economic profiles, that changed and evolved along the years. Some rose from nothing, like the Black Sea port of Odessa. Some expanded in their operation, others contracted and declined. Some were massive trading hubs, like Smyrna, Salonica and Alexandria, with a wide range of far-flung sea and land connections, and from where hundreds of sailing voyages started, some of which found themselves sailing into the port of Malta. These hubs dealt with equally massive amounts of cargo consisting of a wide diversity of products that originated from proximal and distant locations in their extensive hinterlands. Others, like a number of locations that dotted the coasts of Epirus, the gulf of Arta, on the western coast of Greece, or the Gulf of Patras were mere beaches; landings that served as an outlet for a local product. At the latter, mariners anchored or beached their small vessels to take on board cargo that was limited in both variety and quantity. These places were often the source of single voyages. Some insight into a hierarchy of scale is necessary. It is the intention of the present paper to shed light on the nature, importance and size of this connection. Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/47790 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z