Grand Masters in the Cinquecento : their persona & death

Abstract

The manuscript records of the Order of Malta understandably turn out to be rather stingy with information about the health and psychological profile of individuals. Unless illness, (e.g. insanity), hampered the proper discharge of their official functions, health remained a matter of eminently private domain. Similarly, the printed histories, foremost among all Giacomo Bosio's truly monumental and detailed chronicle of the Order from its foundation in Palestine to the year 1571, have very little about the medical problems and the passing away of dignitaries, including Grand Masters. Of course, this reticence or restraint were not peculiarities of `Maltese' recorders and historians. A `non-subjective' approach to chronicle responded closely to the ethos of the age. Why write history? The scope was to teach, in a manner faithful to truth and to theology, and to mould the spirit through learning, abstracting from personal interpolation and researches that pandered to purely subjective curiosity. One could say that, to this limited extent, history then respected privacy more than it does today.