Ask any Maltese to associate Gozo with one particular date, and the answer will almost inevitably be Santa Marija, August 15th. That is a date which, on a religious plane, celebrates the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven, but which, over the centuries has also acquired some purely secular dimensions. It is the calendar signpost for the contract of rural leases, and also for the official (and unofficial) visitations of Gozo from Malta.

To this day the law presumes that the duration of all rural leases (qbejjel) expires on Santa Marija. I had no doubt this legal presumption was an old one, but had not quite realised how old. Dr Joan Abela took loving care of my ignorance when she pointed out to me medieval Maltese contracts of rural leases that, exactly like today, start and end on Santa Marija.

And, equally like today, if the Maltese over the centuries thought of travelling to Gozo, for leisure or for protocol, August 15 would be the date of choice. Few Grand Masters are recorded as having visited Gozo at the time of the rule of the Order of St John. But when they did, they made it a point to have that trip coincide with the feast day of Santa Marija, which has been celebrated in Gozo at least since 1398. Grand Master Ramon Perellos, for one, visited Gozo with great pageantry on the festa of Santa Marija in 1704. Were there other Grand Masters’ visits to Gozo before or after?

A unique and intriguing painting housed in a private collection in Malta, never studied or published before, revives the memory of another high-powered ceremonial visit from Malta to Gozo on Santa Marija. It records a generally unknown story well worth sharing.

The eight langues of the Order of St John, before and after the Knights settled in Malta in 1530, vied with each other for prerogatives and pre-eminences. The langue of Germany, strong and active, but never a large or populous one, eventually succeeded in obtaining a special privilege: that of ‘visitation’ over the fortresses of the Order held outside its sovereign territory – fortified enclaves on enemy territories far from the Knights’ centre of jurisdiction. When the Order ruled Rhodes, the Grand Bailiff of Germany had acquired the privilege of visiting with great pomp the castle of St Peter in Bodrum, built by the Knights on the foreshore of mainland Turkey.

Bodrum is the Turkish medieval name for the old Hellenic city of Halicarnassus, renowned in the classical world for its enormous and splendid mausoleum, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. That mausoleum had a double connection with Malta, both rather shameful: in the 14th century, the Knights of St John ransacked it for building material to construct their huge castle of St Peter. What was left of the mausoleum – after the British took every surviving piece of sculpture and decoration – was then shipped to Malta in 1858 by the admiralty in order to face with hardstone the sides of Number One dock in the naval dockyard. Quite a fall from being the breathtaking wonder of the classical world.

The German visitation pre-eminence had been recognised by the Chapter-General of 1428, during the rule of Grand Master Antoine de Fluvian. The Order had been strengthening and rebuilding its mighty Bodrum fortress of St Peter over the years. It still stands today in good state of repair as a major tourist attraction in modern Turkey. The official yearly German visitation, though an occasion for ceremony and ostentation, also had the practical purpose of assessing the military strength and the needs of the fortress.

When in 1523 the Order surrendered Rhodes to the Ottomans, the Knights also accepted to relinquish their Bodrum outpost to the victors. Seven years later, the Hospitallers settled in Malta and the Grand Bailiff of Germany found himself without visitation rights and must have been none too happy about it.

For 36 years the knights of the German langue in Malta smarted under the humiliation of having been deprived of their traditional prerogative of visitation. This was finally put right during the chapter-general of 1578 by the 16 Capitolanti Compromissarji (including Sir Oliver Starkey) under Grand Master Jean de la Cassière. They revived Germany’s visitation rights and decreed these were henceforth to be exercised over the fortresses of Gozo and of Mdina.

Written records of these visitations by the Grand Bailiff of Germany to the Citadel of Gozo are, to my knowledge, very scarce, and graphic imaging non-existent. The painting I am here publishing shows the only known visual of this great highlight in the political and social calendar of Gozo. The picture very helpfully carries on its lower rim an inscription: Prospettiva della Cattedrale Madre Chiesa dell’ Isola del Gozo in occasione della Festa Titolare dell’Assunta li 15 Agosto 1783. (Image of the matrix Cathedral church of the island of Gozo on the occasion of the titular feast of the Assumption on August 15, 1783.)

The date 1783 identifies who the Grand Bailiff in the painting is: Count Joseph Benedict von Reinach de Foussemange (Fuchsmanningen and mano other different spellings) who presided over the German langue from May 1, 1779, to his death in 1796. Only one Reinach knight is known, and, what he was known for, at least in his younger days, had best be forgotten. Born in 1710 (or 1720?) to a noble family based in north Switzerland and Badensia, he joined as a Knight of Malta in the German Langue when still a minor, on August 14, 1724.

The documents depict Reinach as a turbulent delinquent. He is first mentioned quite harmlessly, as the smart young lieutenant in charge of a guard of honour which saluted Grand Master Manuel Pinto on October 24, 1741, on St George’s Square, when he left Valletta with great ostentation to make his solemn entry into Notabile.

The painting shows the only known visual of this great highlight in the political and social calendar of Gozo

In his older age, the Grand Master had to suffer a different Reinach, in the words of Pinto’s biographer: “A veritable troublemaker. Whilst in prison in Malta he was allowed to be taken to the Order’s hospital, pretending that he was ill. While there he managed to elude the wardens and, dressed as a priest, sought sanctuary in a nearby church. Rome was soon receiving a request for lifting sanctuary to apprehend the fugitive, who, in the meantime had renounced by solemn deed his membership of the Order.”

Reinach, one of the political adversaries of the Grand Master, had been arrested for opposing Pinto and he was hardly a first-time visitor to jail. Pinto explained this in some detail to the Pope: “Reinach was so vice-ridden that his own father had kept him in prison in Alsace, and it was only at the intercession of his uncle, the knight Trusches, that he was freed and was allowed to accompany his uncle to Malta in the hope that he would lead a better life.” Vain hope. “During the voyage he had robbed and even tried to poison his uncle, and so, on arrival, he was imprisoned in Fort St Angelo after his uncle had warned the Maestro Scudiere (chief of police) to take an armed guard to apprehend his nephew.”

If the Grand Master is to be taken at his word, Count Reinach was “vice-ridden” (read: an incontinent lecher, a gambler, a blasphemer and a drunk). To these Pinto adds: a conspirator, a thief, and a person who found poisons not unhelpful when it came to settle scores. A knight who had known prison from the inside in Alsace, and at least twice in Malta.

So how did he advance to become top man in the langue of Germany?

That should come as no surprise. Throughout the Order’s stay in Malta, the ethical rule seemed to have been quite different from what it would become today. Once a knight had paid his debt to criminal justice and undergone the penalty inflicted, his misdemeanour was deemed to have been erased and was not held against him in future career promotions. Numerous examples clog the records of knights imprisoned for serious crimes, later becoming Grand Masters or other high-ranking dignitaries. Reinach was only living up to an old tradition.

I have found few direct references to Reinach in the archives. The Documents Consulaires mention him once in a letter from Strasbourg dated February 20, 1768, when he was Commandeur of Herrenstrüden/Herenstronden in connection with a visit to the commandery of Schönau.

This painting is not noteworthy for any high artistic quality – competently executed, but with no aspirations to virtuoso draughtsmanship or high creative inspiration. Just the serviceable minor art required to produce a pleasant and lasting record of an event, dedicated to satisfy a patron’s commission before photography took over. I find it difficult to put a name to the artist, possibly Francesco Zimelli or Vincenzo Fenech. He certainly took great pains with the details of the textiles: see the damask arabesques in the green drapery and in the silver silk altar-front, not less finicky and time-consuming than the complex weave of the two oriental carpets.

But, to compensate, the painting is then uniquely eloquent for its narrative content. As the only figure painted with some authentic portrait sensibility is that of Reinach, and all the others look more or less like stereotyped cut-outs, it would be reasonable to assume that the picture was commissioned by old Reinach himself, shown resplendent in his red overcoat, his Grand Cross sash, his decorations, his gold-knobbed staff of office, his gold-braided tricorne hat within reach and with his page or aide-de-camp, in crimson velvet, two steps behind. Dr Thomas Freller has kindly traced for me, buried in the Archives of the Alsace Region, an engraved portrait of the Grand Bailiff Reinach.

Almost, but not quite as prominent as the Grand Bailiff himself are four elegantly attired gentlemen facing him – with all the political and hierarchical distances duly underscored. The guest of honour is sitting, and all the trappings around him are red – the highest colour on the scale of honour, barring gold. The cathedral provided Reinach with a throne chair upholstered in red velvet – by the 17th century it would have been dishonourable to sit an important guest on leather and disregard of this rule could on occasion give rise to serious protocol incidents.

The four gentlemen facing Reinach – the jurats of Gozo – all wear ceremonial black, but are standing up, not sitting, and are painted on a slightly smaller scale – the artist wanted to emphasise he knew who was boss there. They are positioned behind a bench with a kneeler draped in boldly-patterned damask, green in hue – an honourable colour, but somewhat inferior to red in status. Though the painter differentiated their features only minimally, he did make an effort to bring out some personal peculiarities, like wigs in at least three diverse styles.

We know who the four jurats for Gozo were in 1783: Francesco Gauci, Pasquale Borg, Antonio Mallia and Bartolomeo Busuttil, leading citizens from the more prominent families of Gozo. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only surviving painting in which Gozo jurats are depicted.

At least two of these jurats, Mallia and Busuttil, were later to assume leading roles in the revolt of the Gozitans against Napoleon’s French. Mallia (1763-1847), in February 1802, actually represented Gozo in a delegation that proceeded to London to place Malta and Gozo under British protection. A street is named in his honour on the west side of Victoria. Not everyone, in truth, waxed lyrical about Mallia. The exiled Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch dismissed him as “a certain Mallia from Gozo oppressed by debts”.

Gozo, like Mdina, had its own jurats at the time of the Knights, and they embodied the visible face of civil governance of the smaller island, the Università, during the rule of the Order. At first three in number, and later four, they held office for only one year, but could be re-elected indefinitely. They enjoyed the rank and privileges of a captain of the Militia.

The Università enacted laws and subsidiary regulations, and the Corte Giuratale had jurisdiction to see to the enforcement of its binding norms. Sittings were held at the Banca Giuratale at Rabat. The penal jurisdiction of the jurats could not exceed fines of 15 tari. When performing their judicial functions, the jurats wore the gowns of judges, with biretta and silk robes.

The jurats’ functions included the duty to attend daily at the Banca for the dispatch of their normal obligations, which comprised regular inspections of victualling stores and granaries in their charge, and they had to be present when corn and other crops were brought in by the farmers, to confirm the quality and quantity of the produce and to issue receipts to the suppliers.

Once a week the jurats took the roll call of the two foot-regiments, and visited the hospital for male patients outside the walls of the citadel (nowadays St Francis Square). Quarterly inspections of the coastal towers of Gozo and yearly check-ups of all the wells and cisterns of the Citadel formed part of the routine duties of the jurats. Regularly, they also saw to the inspection of the wells of the countryside, to ensure the quality and cleanliness of the water stored.

At the Banca the jurats kept standard sets of all weights and measures in use and the law prohibited vendors and traders from using weights and measures not stamped by the jurats. More importantly, the jurats had the function of calculating and enforcing the fair price of consumables from time to time. They were at their most powerful in their function of regulating market prices, before the discovery that supply and demand self-regulated.

In this painting, the far background of the apse shows the cathedral clergy in high vestments and fashionable wigs, with the three most senior priests officiating the liturgy. The central one would be the cathedral’s archpriest, Don Saverio Cassar, who was also the island’s pro-vicar representing the bishop of Malta in Gozo. He later distinguished himself in the uprising against Napoleon’s French garrisons.

Quite baffling in this 1783 painting is the altarpiece, obviously the lower part of an Assumption, as evidenced by the sarcophagus with its lid displaced. It had been presumed that before the present altarpiece had been put in place, the original seven-panelled late medieval polyptych (now in the Cathedral Museum) had presided over the Gozo cathedral. That ancient wooden altarpiece, painted on stucco, suffered severe damage by detachment and loss of the stucco underlay from the wooden panels. The painting in discussion indicates that the medieval polyptych may have been substituted by a second unknown altarpiece. The painting shows the lower part of the intermediary pala we know nothing about. The present (third?) altarpiece by Michele Busuttil was put in place in 1791.

Under the main altarpiece this picture shows an oval image of Our Lady in prayer, a good copy of a popular Sassoferrato original now in the National Gallery in London. It is known that during the month of May, Gozitan devotees placed flowers and lit candles at the foot of the high altar to venerate this holy image. In 1791, this Madonna was moved from the main altar and hung outside the chapter hall of the cathedral. Like the medieval altarpiece, this Madonna is now housed in the Cathedral Museum, but its shape was later altered from oval to rectangular.

Records of the yearly visitations to Gozo by German Grand Bailiffs tend to be very scarce in the archives. An early one we know about was in 1628, by Fra Jacob Cristoph ab Andlau, deputising on behalf of the Grand Bailiff Johann Friedrich Hund von Saulheim, head of the German langue from 1612 to 1635. That was, apparently, a quite uneventful visit. Not so a later one I know of.

The 1715 visitation proved to be a veritable protocol nightmare. The Grand Bailiff Philip Wilhelm von Nesselrode had in­structed Fra Franz Anton von Königsegg to carry out the German visitation to the castle of Gozo on his behalf. The Governor of Gozo, Fra Didaco Garzia de Mula, welcomed him with a brave salvo: five cannon shots, and five maskli.

Deplorable mistake: that was a salute reserved for knights of the Grand Cross, which Königsegg, very unhelpfully, was not. That salvo created a major scandal, which eventually ended up in the lap of Grand Master Ramon Perellos to solve. He used his sovereign prerogative to cut the bickering short. He ratified the misguided salute and actually commended Governor de Mula for the judicious calibration of his bangs. Question solved, matter closed.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Mgr Dr Joseph Bezzina, Prof. Alain Blondy, Fra John Critien, Dr Thomas Freller and Dr Henry Scicluna for their assistance.