Gozo 1695: when hunting penalties were a real deterrent

If you think that penalties for breaking hunting laws are excessive, you may wish to compare them with an edict by Grand Master Adrien de Wignacourt for Gozo in 1695.

On September 30 of that year, the Grand Master declared a stretch of land which included Lunzjata valley out of bounds for hunting. No one could enter this area to hunt with shotguns, dogs, ferrets, nets or other hunting or trapping devices.

The penalty for breaking this order was three years at the oars on a ship without salary for common people; and a penalty of 40 ounces of silver for anyone else that could pay.

Underage culprits were to be exiled from these islands for a period of time as decreed by the Grand Master, who was the sovereign ruler.

This and a whole treasure trove of other details were painstakingly gathered by Giovanni Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis, whose compilation of documents was turned into a manuscript called Gozo: Antico-moderno sacro-profano (Gozo: Ancient and modern sacred and profane).

The book, considered by academics as the earliest written history of Gozo, deals with legends, folklore, the medicinal value of the Gozo fungus, coral fishing, St Paul in Gozo, the tomb of a Maltese hermit, old burial customs, wine growing, the development of parishes, weights and measures and currency used in Gozo among other themes.

Agius de Soldanis (1712-1770) was a member of various academies in Italy and at 17 became canon of the Church in Gozo. In 1763, he was appointed first librarian of the National Library in Valletta.

His monumental work in Italian consists of thousands of documents contained in two handwritten volumes.

The wealth of intriguing detail in his book was first brought to light through the intervention of governor Sir Harry Luke who had asked Mgr Giuseppe Farrugia, librarian of the Gozo Library, to translate the book into Maltese.

The translation of volume one was published in 1936 and volume two in 1953.

Agius de Soldanis's fascinating book could not fail to come to the notice of other scholars and the Maltese version was translated into English by Mgr Anthony Mercieca to bring the history of Gozo to a much wider audience, among them first and second generation Maltese and Gozitan migrants.

Mgr Mercieca was ordained in Brazil where he spent 10 years as a pastor and teacher of English and Latin and then moved on to Miami where he spent 37 years before retiring in December last year.

The English version was edited by Anton Spiteri and Anne Monserrat and has an introduction by Alexander Bonnici OFM Conv.

The first edition of the English translation printed in 1999 by the Media Centre was sold out in no time. Now the Media Centre is in the process of re-printing the English version which is expected to be at bookshops in August.

In case you are wondering what happened to the bird population after de Wignacourt passed away, Agius de Soldanis records that in 1712 almost all game was destroyed through hunting.

In 1738 and 1742, two knights of the Order of St John, by the names of de Marbeuf and de Remeking, started to raise game birds and other native wild animals. But the Gozitans destroyed everything again and today nothing wild is left in the Gozitan countryside except for a few rabbits, Agius de Soldanis noted.