Literary gem

When I was asked to review a book, I was already about to answer, "Sorry; too busy!", but when I heard the name Giovanni Bonello, I immediately accepted with enthusiasm. There are several good reasons for this but in a nutshell it all boils down to the simple fact that I thoroughly enjoy reading Dr Bonello's writings. He communicates with readers in such a direct, smooth and unpretentious manner that readers forget they are actually enjoying sailing through original researched history with which other writers could bore them to death.

What impresses me is Dr Bonello's continuous healthy production. You would think he is a retired man who has nothing to do except bury himself in dry moth-eaten manuscripts. Nothing can be further from the truth!

This is his eighth volume in the most successful series Histories of Malta and I hope there will be more... and more! Dr Bonello includes 16 articles in this volume but problems of space allow me only to skim over a few of them.

The first article, Thefts by Knights of Malta in the 16th century - 1530-1600, contains a long string of different cases, some graver than others. One is to keep in mind that the Order's statutes did not contemplate the death penalty; so in cases deserving death, the Order merely defrocked the offender and referred the issue to the civil courts. These would in turn deliver the death sentence.

In Unpublished Documents from Ragusa about the Great Siege in 1565, the author relates how the small republic of Ragusa (today's Dubrovnik) suffered a serious shortage of provisions in 1564. Cargo ships were sent to load wheat from Negroponte. Unfortunately, when they were leaving the loading wharf in March 1565, part of Suleyman's armada anchored at Negroponte en route to Malta. The three fully laden vessels were so inviting that the Ottomans requisitioned and towed them to Malta as provision during their attack on the island.

Lest one be misled, Ragusa did not side with us but with the Turks and even provided Constantinople with important sensitive military information on the Maltese forces. When matters finally favoured the Christian side, Ragusa fawned the victorious and wrote to Don Garcia, the Spanish viceroy in Sicily, pleading compensation. Man has not changed!

Leonardo Abela, "a linguistic freak and all-rounder", would have practically been forgotten if Dr Bonello had not re-exhumed this gentleman in Leonardo Abela ‒ A Forgotten Intellectual of the Cinquecento. Believe it or not, this Maltese gentleman who was bishop of Sidon and died in Rome in 1605, played a fundamental role in saving the Coptic language. He was fluent in Hebrew, Chaldean, Syrian, Coptic, Arabic, Latin, Italian and Maltese.

During the rule of Grand Master Verdalle, the statutes of the Order were published and updated. Exceptionally, the publication contained a number of engraved plates, which have been attributed to Philippe Thomassin. In The Cavalier D'Arpino and the Statutes of Grand Master Verdalle, Dr Bonello informs us that though the portrait plates are correctly attributed to Thomassin, the other engravings are by Giuseppe Cesari, also known as Il Cavalier D'Arpino.

Copies of this book are scarce to come by perhaps because these engravings are of high quality and so have been dismembered and sold or collected separately. D'Arpino was commissioned to prepare the drawings to serve as a basis for the engravings during 1584-1587. Dr Bonello believes it was Cardinal Santorio who had recommended D'Arpino to Grand Master Verdalle. Probably Verdalle did so during his stay in Rome when he travelled to the Eternal City to be graced with the cardinal's hat.

Dr Bonello has traced one of the original D'Arpino drawings in the collection of St John's Gate Museum of the Order of St John in London. Unfortunately, the name of the engraver has not been traced by Dr Bonello... at least not yet!

In the vein of medics, the author offers us a chapter titled French Surgeons in Malta 1645, 1674 and 1690. Before anesthesia entered the scene, surgeons had to act as fast as they could to lessen their patient's suffering. Speed was the name of the game! We are informed that Michelangelo Grima, the doyen of Maltese surgery, completed a lithotomy (don't search your dictionary: it's cutting for stone in the bladder) in two minutes thirty seconds!

Every decent collector of Melitensia would possess at least a facsimile copy of Vertot's History of the Order. Dr Bonello offers some interesting information and comments on this publication.

Vertot's text is pleasant to read (unlike Bosio) but unfortunately is quite sketchy and is known to include mistakes.

Though it is said that Rene Aubert de Vertot was commissioned by the Grand Master in 1715 to write this history, Dr Bonello just could not trace this commission and incisively comments that this commission was unlikely because it would have imposed a prior censorship. And this was certainly not the case! Indeed there existed a ban on publishing any history of the Order without prior licence of the Grand Master.

Not only did Vertot have no commission from the Order but his work was studied by a specially appointed commission who found therein four serious failings, including use of disrespectful language with regard to some Popes and the Holy See. The Council, therefore, ordered that no copy should be brought into Malta and the book was then placed on the Index Librorum Prohibtorum where it remained at least until 1828.

Besides being a myriad of other things, Dr Bonello is also an established authority on Maltese postcards and possesses a treasure of a collection. In this regard he offers us a short but informed article Umberto Adinolfi. A 'Maltese' postcard publisher, Adinolfi hailed from Senglea. His postcards describe him as a photographer and publisher. His output was small but the author suspects him to be the unnamed publisher of other sets of popular cards. Dr Bonello describes Adinolfi as a "remarkable postcard editor". The article is accompanied with about half a dozen illustrations of Adinolfi's work. But information is still quite scant and I am sure it would not be long before Dr Bonello would be in a position to publish a postscript with further unearthed information.

Nostalgias of Gozo touched a soft spot. I am great lover of Gozo so you can understand me when I admit I clapped heartily when I read Dr Bonello's statement that: "Malta is the more disagreeable part of Gozo". The author lists several damages inflicted on this small sister island by destroying some unique buildings and by building some hideous architecture.

"I have always campaigned for the right to bad taste to be recognised as a fundamental human right and for wise governments to reserve building areas for citizens aesthetically challenged and with a compulsion to show off the extent of their handicap." Bull's eye Dr Bonello!

The last article actually hit home. (Dr Herbert Ganado was my uncle; Dr Vincent sive Ċensu Tabone is my father-in-law.) In Failed Mediation in the Borg Olivier-Ganado Split, 1948-1961, Dr Bonello uses as basis two yet untapped sources. One is the diary of Dr Albert Ganado and the other source is minutes of meetings held by Dr Alberto Magri concerning attempts to solve the issues which created a split between George Borg Olivier and Herbert Ganado.

What can I say about this book in general? Hand on heart, I find this book another gem to read; another feather in Dr Bonello's already well-feathered hat and another occasion to sweetly sip tons of information in a most delightful way.

• Dr Farrugia Randon is a practising lawyer and author of 19 books on law and art.

• A review copy of this book was supplied by Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti.