The Maltese villa in the eighteenth-century : a comparative analysis of Villa Gourgion, Villa Francia and Villa Bologna

Abstract

The study concerning country villas in Malta presents an interesting aspect in an important period in the development of architecture of these islands. Leonard Mahoney in his ‘5000 Years of Architecture in Malta’ dedicates an entire chapter on the subject to stress its importance but surprisingly apart from the odd article in the news papers and in local periodicals and the unpublished dissertations by students within the Department of History of Art and the Institute of Baroque studies of the University of Malta, very little else has been written. It is important to view the subject within its proper historical context. This dissertation reviews an interesting niche in the history of architecture of the Maltese islands, the suburban villas for the leisured, which are an important phenomenon and a part of the architectural history, on which relatively little has been researched and written. The scope of this study is to add to the existing knowledge so that eighteenth century villas will be better appreciated and understood. Country villas have to be studied in the context of the environment that physically surrounds them, specifically parish churches, vernacular buildings and other imposing buildings in their neighbourhood, as their grandeur would always be relative to their immediate surroundings. The trend of building villas outside the walls of the fortified cities and eventually even close to the sea shore, was set by the knights of Saint John in Malta and followed by the upper classes of the society. The study focuses on three particular estates which were all developed during the eighteenth-century in the cluster of the Three Villages of Lija, Balzan and Attard, which can boast of a substantial concentration of these villas. Other villas and contemporary structures were visited. All three villas were surveyed so that architectural drawings could be drawn and included in this study which apart from describing the architecture of the individual villas, also briefly discusses them together while the history of each family is delved into. Each villa has a chapter dedicated to it while secondary issues as quarrying, which was part of the building process and the cultivation of oranges, which sustained the maintenance and upkeep of these villas of eighteenth-century Malta are also discussed.