De Rohan's Reggimento di Malta : a source of religious unorthodoxy in late eighteenth-century Malta

Abstract

As is indicated by its title, the objective of this paper is not the strictly military aspect of the Reggimellto di Malta, established during the first years of Grandmaster de Rohan's rule. This has, in fact, already been dealt with in some detail elsewhere. Much less explored has been the regiment’s role as an added foreign source of anti-Catholic ideas on the island during the last three decades of the eighteenth century. While the archive of the Order, together with a number of contemporary publications to which reference shall be made, provide a wealth of information pertaining to the organisational and administrative structures of the regiment, the archive of the Inquisition, both in Malta as well as in Rome, reflect the more human side, that is the character, beliefs and ideas of a number of members of the Reggimento di Malta; ideas which went contrary to Catholic precepts and which were often communicated amongst fellow recruits - Maltese and foreign - as well as to the wider contemporary audience. This paper is divided in three parts, namely an introductory background to the regiment, which is followed by an examination of the major unorthodox ideas expressed by a number of its recruits. Finally reference is made to some examples of little-known contemporary printed material relating to the Reggimento di Malta.