The Hospitallers’ historical activities : 1530-1630

Abstract

When the Hospitallers occupied Malta in 1530 there was still no proper general history of the Hospital from the time of its foundation onwards. In the mid-fifteenth century the Chancellor, Fr. Melchiore Bandini, had - . apparently - written some sort of account of the Order down to his own times, but it was never published and seems to have been lost. During their early years at Malta the brethren were primarily occupied with the practical problems of government and defence, and their historical activities remained in neglect. Descriptions of the sieges of Rhodes in 1480 and 1522, together with papal privileges and indulgences, speeches by the Order's orators and · editions of the statutes, continued to be printed and reprinted, while the great vogue for matters concerning the Turks brought the Hospitallers increasingly to the public notice. Fr. Jean Quintin's report on Malta, the Insulae Melitae Descriptio, appeared in 1536. Translations of Jacques Fontaine's history of the final siege of Rhodes and of Theodorico Adameo's Commentario dell'Isola di Rhodi e dell'ordine di Cavalieri di Quella were published at Venice in 1544 by Francesco Sansovino, who himself wrote a work on the military orders. In 1524 the adventurous Fr. Antonio Pigafetta dedicated his account of Magellan's circumnavigation of the world, in which he had participated, to the Master of the Hospital. Then in 1542 and 1553 Fr. Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon, who had studied at Orleans University, published accounts of the North African campaigns in which he had served; subsequently Villegaignon became a Protestant, attempted to colonize Brazil, and wrote theological works. More conventional Hospitallers like Fr. Bernardo Salviati, Fr. Giulio Cesare Falcone and Fr. Lodovico Melzo produced manuals on fortifications and other military and naval topics.