Eighteenth-century music and its political configurations : a largely unknown chapter in Maltese history

Abstract

The period of the rule of the Knights of Saint John (1530-1798) is currently remembered and celebrated as Malta's golden age. The Knights are typically perceived as benign Christian and Catholic rulers, and the Grand Masters considered among Malta's most famous historical characters. The Order is rightly credited with having brought a cultural Renaissance to the Island. During its rule, a number of far-reaching historical events took place. Conveniently, only the victory of the Knights of Saint John at the Great Siege of 1565, when a large Ottoman force was repelled following fierce fighting, is commemorated on a national scale. The arrival of Napoleon's forces in 1798, by contrast, does not receive the same acknowledgement or coverage in popular history. Yet the Order's rule was not necessarily as golden as it is sometimes made out to be, and the Knights' administration is tarnished by various miscarriages of justice. They were despotic rulers following ancien regime principles. The artistic and architectural grandeur of the time and the cultural renaissance fostered by the Order interested the few. It has been suggested that only two per cent of a country's population was really concerned with cultural issues during the early modem period.! The arrival in Malta of Michelangelo Merisi di Caravaggio (the year 2007 marked the 400th anniversary of that event) and the engagement of other important artists, such as Mattia Preti together with the employment of important military engineers, provide proof of the Order's contribution to Malta's cultural history. This fact cannot be denied. There is no doubt that the Knights had cultural acumen, a rare quality amongst contemporary politicians, and had a firm discernment when it came to engaging leading artists and promising military engineers. The artistic output produced during the 268 years of Hospitaller rule brought about the misconception that this period qualified as Malta's baroque age, when in reality between 1530 and 1798, that is the period of the Hospitallers' rule on the island, Europe experienced many different movements of artistic expressions, varying from Mannerism, to Baroque, High Baroque, Roccoco, and the Classical expression. Then, towards the end of the eighteenth century, the Enlightenment began to leave its marks on Malta. However, despite the causative effects of all these movements, the artistic golden age has been pinned down to the Baroque period, that period which the age of reason, the Enlightenment, violently struggled to eliminate and obliterate.