The Biblioteca Vallicelliana regole per la lingua maltese : the earliest extant grammar and dictionary of the Maltese language

Abstract

One of the many qualities of a scholar like Arnold Casso la is tenacity, that typical islander tenacity which makes his research so thorough and so unswerving. This is not, of course, his only attribute. The recovery of a work as important as the Regole is worthy of great praise and is a direct result of the intelligence, enthusiasm and capacity for hard work which are part and parcel of Cassola' s itinera as a scholar. On a more personal note, with eleven years of true friendship and solidarity behind us, and with a hint of prosopopeia that my age permits, I can add that I have seen him mature into an erudite scholar. I have observed his dedication, never dull, at times laced with irreverence, always total. I believe I know him, his scientific and his human worth. And so, I can confidently affirm that Cassola 's recovery of the Regole was no coincidence, no stroke of luck, but the just reward for years of painstaking work, and that the credit for the manuscript's publication is his, and his alone. [excerpt]