Malta in 1565 : some recommendations

Abstract

The four hundreth centenary year of the Great Siege is possibly a good time to reconsider certain aspects of the story of events in the summer of 1565. It has long been commented that we know very little of the Moslem side of the story. This is, of course, hardly surprizing for Turkish sources are not easily available to Western European writers and there is a not inconsiderable language problem. But even allowing for this gap in our knowledge, and Turkish official sources may not prove to be very rich, we still lack a carefully documented and analytical account of the Siege based upon Western European source material. This short paper is not an effort to provide such an account but it is an attempt to ask whether certain assumptions made about the Siege have a reasoned and documented basis.