In his article on the Grand Master Jean De la Valette (The Sunday Times of Malta, May 12, 2013), my friend Joe Zammit Ciantar wrote that, according to a note in his possession but without a reference to the source, the Grand Master was born on February 4, 1494 (1495 new-style calendar).

When I was compiling the book Valletta Città Nuova – A Map History (1566-1600), I was intrigued by doubts that had been cast at the time on the year of his birth. Both the diarist Francesco Balbi de Correggio and the Spanish soldier-writer H. Sans, contemporary authors, had stated in the 16th century that the Grand Master was 67 years old at the time of the Great Siege.

I had pointed out in my book (p77) that according to the epitaph on De Valette’s monument, erected at St John’s Co-Cathedral in 1591, he was born on February 4, 1495.

This date tallies almost exactly with what the historian Giacomo Bosio wrote on the history of the Order (first edition, 1602).

He recorded that when the Great Siege started in May 1565, the Grand Master had reached the age of 71.

For academic writings, one can never go wrong when sticking to that used consistently in the 16th and 17th centuries

I have been following the ongoing correspondence in these columns on whether the Grand Master should be referred to as De Valette or De La Valette and I have noted that, apparently, no one has mentioned his contemporary portraits, some of which I had published in my Valletta book.

So widespread and sensational was De Valette’s and Malta’s victory over the Turks that his portrait started appearing in various publications, not only in Italy but also in Germany and Switzerland.

One of the earliest showed the Grand Master being crowned with a laurel wreath with the inscription on the frame Ioanes D. Valeta and a legend at the base of the frame meaning: Behold, Hope, Love and Faith are now crowning my head, 1565. The portrait was engraved by Martino Rota (c.1520-1583) after Titian.

The same image was also engraved by Marcho M. and published in Venice by Ferrando Bertelli (fl. 1556-1574).

Another portrait with the Grand Master in profile to right was issued in Venice by Donato Bertelli (fl. 1558-1592) inscribed F. Io De Valleta.

In 1566, the German goldsmith Mathias Zündt (1498-1572) engraved a decorative portrait of the Grand Master in profile to left inscribed Ioannes de Valeta, with a view of the harbour site of the Great Siege in the background.

In 1567, Domenico Zenoi (fl. 1553-1574) published in Venice an oval portrait of the Grand Master in profile to left with his name in frame Ioanne De Valetta surrounded by elaborate strapwork and design.

In the same year, he illustrated the statutes of the Order of St John, published in Florence by Fra Paolo del Rosso.

He engraved a plan of the Valletta Laparelli fortifications and a rectangular portrait of the Grand Master in profile to right, surrounded by grotesque fe­male figures and elaborate design. The inscription along the foot reads: Vera effiggie dell’jllust. F. Giouanni de Valletta. The two illustrations were published once more in the 1570 edition of the del Rosso statutes.

Another simple portrait of the Grand Master was published in the text of an account of the Great Siege in a posthumous edition of Sebastian Munster’s Cosmographia, printed in Basel by Henric Petri. The miniature map of Malta was first published in the 1561 edition (and not in 1550, as one finds in local auction catalogues), but after the Great Siege, the portrait Joan. De Valetta in profile to right started appearing.

The beautiful statutes of Grand Master Cardinal Hugues Loubens de Verdale (of which various editions were published in Rome in the 1580s) are adorned with many excellent engravings, which include portraits of Grand Masters of the Order by Philippe Thomassin (1562-1622).

The oval portrait of Grand Master de Valette in profile to left is inscribed in the frame F. Ioannes De Valletta. It is flanked by that of F. Clavdivs De La Sengle.

There is no portrait of the Grand Master in Bosio’s monumental history, but he gives his full name as Fra Giovanni di Valletta, detto Parisot (after his father’s feudal estate).

But in the 1629 history and statutes of the Order by Jean Baudoin and Fra Anne De Naberat, re-issued in 1643 and 1659, there is an oval portrait of Ioannes De Valletta following that of Grand Master Claudius De La Sengle.

Bosio’s history, which ended in 1571, was continued by Fra Bortolameo dal Pozzo in 1703. In his text he referred to Fra Giovanni di Valletta. At some stage, the word La crept in.

Possibly, Abbé de Vertot was the first to use it in his history of the Order published in Paris in 1726, re-issued in English in London in 1728.

De Valette’s oval portrait, engraved by Laurent Cars (1699-1771), in profile to left, was inscribed in the frame Frere Jean La Valette, leaving out the word De.

In his marginal notes on the Grand Master, Vertot wrote Jean De La Valette both in the third and fourth volume. In the English edition the marginal notes become John De La Valette.

At some stage, the word La crept in. Possibly, Abbé de Vertot was the first to use it in his history of the Order published in Paris in 1726

It appears that from then on (if not before), the new version of the Grand Master’s name was popularised, as it was taken on for the illustration of his image.

Apart from one German engraving, there are two portraits probably of the 18th century, both French, with the Grand Master’s new name, except that one of them has the inscription J. D. La Valette.

Vertot’s name of the Grand Master was also used by three others of the 19th century, one by Landon, another by Girardet and the third by Gavard, inscribed respectively, J. De La Valette, Jean Parisot De La Valette (the Grand Master on horseback) and Jean Parisot de La Valette. These were followed by Lemaitre in the history of Lacroix.

Everyone is free to use either Valette’s contemporary name or the later popularised name, but for academic writings, one can never go wrong when sticking to that used consistently in the 16th and 17th centuries.

It is a good gesture that his contemporary name was used for Valette’s monument recently erected in Valletta.

One final remark: how is it that since 1921, no Maltese government has thought of honouring Francesco Laparelli and Girolamo Cassar?

When the world-renowned celebrity David Woodward (co-author of the first three volumes on the History of Cartography) visited Malta, he requested me to take him to see the monuments of Laparelli and Cassar in Valletta.

Blushingly, I simply said: they do not exist.

He then deplored this omission in his foreword to my book on Valletta in 2003. Is it too late to make amends by 2018?