Two publications, Pre-Siege Maps of Malta, Second Century AD - 1564 and The Charting of Maltese Waters, offer an insight into the history of mapping around the Maltese islands, focusing onpre-Great Siege separate maps of Malta and on the historical development of the charting of Maltese waters respectively.
Pre-Siege Maps of Malta, Second Century AD – 1564, by Albert Ganado and Joseph Schiro, embraces all the pre-siege separate maps of Malta, whether manuscript or printed, as well as the appearance of Malta on the maps of the Mediterranean drawn by Ptolemy in the second century AD, by Al-Idrisi in 1157, and by practically all the cartographers that came after them up to 1564.
The first separate map of Malta goes back to the last quarter of the 15th century, which proves the importance of Malta at the centre of the inland sea, notwithstanding its extremely small size. It was a vital focal point for navigators and a seaward bridge between Sicily and the Barbary States.
However, it was only in the 16th century that Malta acquired the status of a pawn on the European chessboard. When it became the new seat of the Order of St John in 1530, after its eviction from Rhodes, the island was exposed to frequent raids by Ottoman forces and the Barbary corsairs of the fame of Barbarossa and Dragut.
Mostly full of historical information and graphically attractive
The Malta Map Society thought it fit to promote the publication of a book on all the pre-siege maps of Malta on the same pattern and detail more or less followed in 1994-95 in the opus regarding the Great Siege of 1565.
The Charting of Maltese Waters, by William Soler and Albert Ganado, traces the historical development of the charting of Maltese waters since the earliest surviving sailing directions that mention Malta, the peripli of the Greeks, to the accurate nautical representations of the Maltese islands found in 19th-century British Admiralty charts.
The early portolan charts and the later nautical charts always formed a key part of the lore of the sea. It was exciting for the mariner to plot his way across the Seven Seas. Before the discovery of the US in 1492, the Mediterranean Sea had been surveyed and charted by cartographers and hydrographers since Ptolomey’s time.
Portolan charts were the tools by which early navigators plotted their routes to the Maltese islands since the advent of the compass in the 12th and 13th centuries. Sea charts are beautiful, evocative, historically significant, intriguing and keenly collected. Both the manuscript and the printed nautical charts of Malta and Gozo are fascinating to study. They are mostly full of historical information and graphically attractive.
Today’s seamen always wonder how the early navigators managed to traverse the Mediterranean without the help of mariners’ tools of the scientific age.
Pre-Siege Maps of Malta, Second Century AD - 1564 and The Charting of Maltese Waters are published by BDL Ltd.
