An elegantly carved flintlock gun which purportedly belonged to one of Malta’s most beloved Grand Masters, Emanuel de Rohan, went under the hammer for €35,000 at an Italian auction house in Genoa.

The San Giorgio Auction House gave the 1776 musket a pre-sale estimate of between €15,000 and €18,000. Heritage Malta was also bidding for the gun but lost out to the steep price tag offered by other bidders, sources told this newspaper.

The gun, which is 131cm long, is carved and signed with the words Nicola a Malta, the probable Neapolitan gunsmith.

The damascened barrel is embellished by gold swirl motifs. The walnut buttstock bears de Rohan’s coat-of-arms inlaid in gold. It also bears delicate silver filigree lace edging decorated with birds and boars heads. Lawyer and historian Robert Attard described the fine flintlock musket as an “extremely interesting historical piece deserving further research”.

The musket, he surmised, must have belonged to a group of muskets that were kept in a specialised section at the Palace Armoury Museum. Nineteenth century visitors to the Armoury speak of a cabinet with the Grand Masters’ hunting muskets.

In 2013, the same gun had been noticed at a French Bourse Aux Armes (a collector’s fair) in Paris.

“San Giorgio’s charge a buyer’s premium amounting to 25 per cent of the hammer price. I doubt that anyone in Malta could afford to buy such a pricey piece. I fear that the gun has been ‘lost’ to discerning foreign collectors with very deep pockets.”

On a positive note, he added, high resolution images of the gun have been published online for further study and therefore the musket’s existence has been recorded for posterity’s sake.

“Muskets belonging to Grand Masters are unique rather than rare and this musket tells us how a Grand Master’s musket should look like. It confirms Victorian travellers’ accounts relating to a collection of Grand Masters’ weapons previously kept at the Palace Armoury.

“The presence of the quartered arms is interesting too. Archival researchers could research records relating to a donation of a presentation gun to Grand Master de Rohan.”

De Rohan succeeded the unpopular Francisco Ximenes de Texada in 1775 and died in 1797. He was a French aristocrat and did his best to revive the principles and the tenets of the Order which were in fast decline.

His first act upon being appointed Grand Master was to remove the three heads of the rebels who had been executed after the uprising of the priests.

He liberated all political prisoners and distributed sums of money to the poor.

He made legal history in 1784, when he published a code of laws, the provisions of which are mostly still in use to this day. Under his leadership, he built Fort Tigné and the Biblioteca in Valletta.

He elevated the small village of Żebbuġ to the status of a town, changing the name to Città Rohan. To commemorate this event, the population of Żebbuġ built a triumphal arch.

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