Vassalli, a man of ideas

Abstract

We take pride in being an independent nation but many do not seem to know what in fact independence and nationhood mean. To many these two words are no more than a slogan or claptrap. I wonder how many know that the first Maltese to think of his country under the heels of a despotic ruler in terms of a nation was a scholar from Mai-Zebbug, by name Mikiel Anton Vassalli. Lately the man in the limelight for political reasons has been Manwel Dimech, a comparatively minor figure, whose bronze statue faces the Auberge de Castille, but many years before him a better educated and learned man of untarnished reputation which rests on solid scholarship had already addressed his countrymen as the citizen of a Maltese nation in the preface to his dictionary when Bonaparte landed in Italy. That was in 1796.