Knights, memory and the siege of 1565 : an exhibition on the 450th anniversary of the Great Siege of Malta [Introduction]

Abstract

Malta of the late 1620s left a powerful impression upon the Spaniard Inigo. It was an impression mediated through the still living legends surrounding the Ottoman Siege of Malta of 1565. Inigo is the junior companion to, and co-protagonist in, The Adventures of Captain Alatriste, the swash-buckling series penned by Arturo Perez-Reverte. The characters are fictitious and some details imprecise, but the feeling of wonder at setting foot on the “Island of the Knights” is very much reflected in contemporary travelogues (Freller 1999, 9-50, 605-19). “Wonder” is here used in its late medieval / early modern meaning of “a passion [registering] the line between the known and the unknown” (Daston-Park 1998, 13). As a story, the Siege of Malta of 1565 has always fascinated people and seems set to remain a source of wonder with its disproportionate number of combatants, the romantic fascination with one of the so-called last struggles of the Crusades and one of the last great clashes between Christian and Muslim forces in the Mediterranean, as well as its seemingly inexplicable outcome.