Seventeenth and eighteenth century seaside estates in the Grand Harbour region, Malta

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to explore the amount of inspiration from Renaissance and Baroque Roman villas and the extent of influence derived from Architectural treatises in three villas situated in Malta's Grand Harbour dating to the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. The phenomenon of building seaside villas in the Grand Harbour region during the prosperous years of the government of the Order of St. John has been overlooked by Maltese architectural scholars; the artistic, ideological, and practical significance of the seaside villa being almost totally forgotten. Most of the information that researchers have gathered on the villa subject in Malta has been re-cycled, mostly quoting from Abela-Ciantar and Achille Ferres. The extent of lack of knowledge on the subject has led various scholars to believe that the famed Abela residence on Jesuits Hill at Marsa was some kind of a villa residence. However, the features of this building as described in Abela-Ciantar and illustrated in old plans indicate that it was nothing more then a Casino, lacking the characteristics of a Renaissance or Baroque Roman villa, and a direct link to the Grand Harbour's waters. No proper in depth study has been attempted recently on Maltese villas of the period in question, apart from a thesis on Baroque palace building by Natasha Borg which touches some aspects of the subject under study. Perhaps, the most recently researched study on the subject was compiled by J.F. Darmanin in 1939 with reference to the Bichi and the Xeberras estates forming part of the Bighi Naval Hospital. On the contrary, in Italy the subject of villas, be they in the countryside or next to water sources, features regularly in periodicals and publications.