The military and civil architecture of baroque Malta and the Chevalier de Malte Mederico de Blondel des Crosisettes

Abstract

Having located AOM 1185 at the National Library, and other documents at the National Library as mentioned previously, I set out to investigate the career and achievements of Mederico Blonde! as Resident Engineer to the Order of St. John. The Order established a bureaucratic system, headed by its Congregatione delle Fortificatione, or Board for Fortifications and War, formalized by a Decree whereby Mederico, who had to travel frequently owing to ill-health, and also participated in the Hospitaller State's corso, would share his post with other knight-officials. Fr Norbert Ellul-Vincenti, OFM of St. Mary of Jesus Church (Ta' Giezu), and Fr George Aquilina, Curate at the Franciscan Archives directed me to AOM 260, 262 487, 477, 1444, and 1445, and R 125, f. 1106, at the Notarial Archives. Leading secondary sources indicated that Mederico could be investigated as a practitioner in Baroque military and civil architecture. On the military side Dr Allison Hoppen's book The Fortification of Malta, 1530-1798, and her Annals of Science article 'Military Engineers in Malta, helped me to study the role, status, prospects and Mederico's relationship with the Order as Resident Engineer. Just to show what the French Knight was proposing to build in Floriana, a model has been constructed especially for the dissertation. There are several references to proposal models, therefore, it was only right that Mederico, like his brother Nicolas-Francois, should have his own model