Models of migration from the past : Maltese settlement in Italy : 16th-19th centuries

Abstract

The aim of this article is to bring highlight those aspects of Maltese history relating to the: Mediterranean Sea as a basin of massive movement of people: aspects which many people today, in the face of current debate over immigration, tend to ignore or forget. Migration to Europe is, of course, not a new phenomenon; it is old as history itself. The island of Malta has always been caught up in this movement - indeed, it could be argued that its history is formed by it - and I shall therefore be using Malta as an example of both a source and a destination of immigration. I shall be concentrating on emigration in the early modem period, and my short study will focus on the three centuries spanning the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century.