The Grand Harbour is an attractive location for all reasons and in all seasons, made to measure to meet the aspirations of the present Government, which has expressed its wish to revitalise maritime activities in the area.
On a recent visit to the splendid garden at the Senglea gardiola with its breathtaking panorama of the Grand Harbour, I immediately realised that even these maritime locations, where our forefathers tasted salt on the high seas throughout the centuries, have abandoned the call of the sea.
On that balmy June afternoon, the harbour was miserably empty – no boats, no canoes, no ferries, no sailing boats plied or crossed the calm waters of our marvellous harbour.
It seems our youngsters’ attraction to the sea, except for the national regatta, is on the wane and rapidly fizzling out. Personally, I felt the urge to echo John Masefield’s famous lines: “I must go down to the sea again/To the lonely sea and the sky.”
I recall during my studies in Britain ages ago, schools near rivers and lakes embarked on a systematic programme to encourage students ‘to paddle their own canoe’, both literally and metaphorically. Besides swimming lessons, students are urged to build their own canoes in the winter season, very often consulting DIY kits. These boats are then launched and enjoyed in the summer months. Students are also given sailing instructions involving the Sea Cadets and the Scout Movement in the area.
Since all towns around the Grand Harbour have well-organised regatta committees, a section should be devoted to stimulate youngsters to take up maritime activities of all kinds.
On its part, the national regatta council should reintroduce more canoe races for different ages. The Sports Council could also revive the boat races for different organisations as well as for schools and colleges, as in my student days, when the Malta Sports Association – made up of the University, the Malta Union of Teachers, the Civil Service, the Banks Association and the Floriana School Old Boys Association – had their rowing slot on National Regatta Day.
However, lately, there seems to be a reawakening to our maritime past, as the Marsa Regatta Club opened its doors and its boats to the public for a worthy cause, drawing crowds to promote rowing. Such a groundbreaking initiative is a breath of fresh air.
In recent years, Fort St Angelo, the citadel of the Grand Harbour, has hosted international conferences, concerts with the participation of our national orchestra, as well as musicals like Evita.
Surely, no drama lover will fail to attend a performance of The Jew of Malta by the great Elizabethan dramatist Christopher Marlowe, a play very much associated with nearby Vittoriosa, where the Jewish ghetto of the period is, till this very day, still referred to as It-Triq tal-Lhud (The Street of the Jews).
Throughout the ages, Castrum Maris (Fort St Angelo) has been Malta’s major fortification, its impregnable bastions providing adequate protection to the galleys that berthed in the sheltered waters of Galley Creek. Its origins are shrouded in the mists of history but it may have been founded by the Byzantines in the early ninth century in a desperate attempt to protect the island from Saracen marauders.
As you walk around the battlements of this citadel of our maritime patrimony, various layers of history emerge. It was definitely an Arab stronghold when the Muslim powers of Spain and North Africa dominated the central Mediterranean region, including Malta, Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia.
However, by 1204, the territorial picture in the western Mediterranean had changed dramatically, as Spain had been totally reconquered, with Aragon and Castille emerging as the strongest maritime powers, rivalling the might of the Anjevin fleet.
Our Grand Harbour was caught in the mighty struggle between the Anjevins and the Aragonese, both of whom left their indelible mark, particularly the latter, on the history of the maritime city of Vittoriosa; suffice it to mention a fierce naval battle in the centre of the Grand Harbour during which the Anjevins and Aragonese fleets locked horns on July 8, 1283. This ancient sea battle has been included in academic books on the history of outstanding naval battles.
The history of the Inner Harbour Area is intimately intermingled with the sea, in particular with the Grand Harbour, or more precisely, with the fortunes of Castrum Maris, whose keeper, the Castellan, enjoyed great prestige in the island, rivalling that of the Hakem, the head of the prestigious Università based in Mdina.
This situation was the cause of incessant friction over property rights, quarantine regulations and other obligations. As Castrum Maris, with its suburb, considered itself as a de facto distinct settlement completely outside the jurisdiction of Mdina, there was, at one time, in the late 15th century, a civil war, a tale of two cities in conflict over the non-observance of strict quarantine regulations and the jurisdiction of the Grand Harbour.
This incident is well recorded in the annals of the Università. The Mandati of the Università, recently analysed by Prof. Stanley Fiorini, describe in detail the outbreak of the plague in Vittoriosa, a common occurrence in a maritime city with frequent ties with plague-infested countries, particularly in North Africa. The votive painting of The Plague Saints in Vittoriosa’s parish church by Filippo Paladini and an artistic statue of St Roche are tangible testimonies of this dreaded disease.
Furthermore, it was from the Grand Harbour that new ideas, schisms and anti-clericalism reached Malta; and Vittoriosa, the only settlement facing the sea until 1571, was exposed to heresy in the early days of Lutheranism.
Malta’s history cannot be satisfactorily told without a thorough knowledge of what happened at sea, particularly the Mediterranean, in which Malta occupies a central position
In 1546, an Augustinian monk, Fra Francesco Gesualdo, was burnt at the stake in Vittoriosa’s main square for holding reformist tenets. Such exposure to liberal ideas necessitated an Inquisitor, who obviously had his permanent seat in Vittoriosa, the main port of call from mainland Europe.
Throughout the ages, the Inner Harbour area has remained the catalyst for political, social and cultural changes by the stimulus of a strong workers’ movement that shaped the social policies of 20th-century Malta.
Undoubtedly, the importance of the Grand Harbour (particularly Porto delle Galere), an enclave of European thought and practice, was the major cause of Malta’s incipient westernising influence in an island where the religious Greek rite was far more widespread than Latin Christianity, as evidenced in the dedication to Byzantine saints of the numerous wayside chapels scattered over our islands.
The castellan’s soldiers and their families, who naturally took up residence in the nearby suburb, must surely have given a more cosmopolitan appearance to this maritime zone.
Besides bringing a measure of prosperity, these ethnic groups brought to this maritime zone customs, religious devotions and traditions that have lingered on to this very day.
The Grand Harbour contributed substantially to the ecclesiastical history of its hinterland. Spanish influence on the jurisdiction and administration of the harbour made its strong impact on the ancient parishes of Vittoriosa, Cospicua and Senglea.
In fact, Vittoriosa was the first parish on the islands to opt for a Latin saint – St Lawrence – a young martyr of the early Christian period from Aragon, home of the influential De Guevara and De Nava families, who once ruled over Castrum Maris.
The Vittoriosa church was given the official title of San Lorenzo a mare because of its prominent position on the waterfront near the arsenale, once considered among the best in Europe.
There is another imposing church in this ancient city, that of the Annunciation (Il-Lunzjata), which in 1445 was already administered by a Confraternity of the Virgin Mary.
The Grand Harbour connection is also evidenced here, because in 1528, the church of Il-Lunzjata, as it is known even today, was handed over to the Dominican community on the recommendation of the deputy Grand Harbour master Antonio de Armenia, whose son Leone was a Dominican friar based in Rabat.
Malta’s history cannot be satisfactorily told without a thorough knowledge of what happened at sea, particularly the Mediterranean, in which Malta occupies a central position. Its Porto di Malta has, since time immemorial, offered a sheltered and secure harbour in close proximity to the busiest trade routes in the world.
Although we tend to condemn and lament the inhuman and savage treatment meted out to our forefathers by the dreaded Barbary corsairs, the subject of our folklore and literature, as in Anton Caruana’s Ineż Farruġ and the legend L-Għarusa tal-Mosta, one should also remember that it was a time when savage cruelty was not a crime, as rapacious Maltese corsairs based in the Inner Grand Harbour were considered the scourge of the Mediterranean Sea and beyond.
Now we know that in the 14th and 15th centuries, Galley Creek enjoyed a wave of prosperity, as notable Maltese families, like the Habelas and Burlos, were deeply involved in corsairing.
It is recorded that in 1448, Bartolomeo Abela invested heavily in a corsairs’ galliotta, and that in 1494, an armoured vessel built in the Vittoriosa arsenale was commissioned for corsairing and piracy in the eastern and central Mediterranean, particularly in search of the lucrative slave trade for which the Malta market, on the shores of the Grand Harbour, together with that of Leghorn (Livorno), Tunis and Algiers, was well known.
After years of wanderings, the Knights of St John chose Vittoriosa as their new convent, and immediately on their arrival in October 1530 embarked on an intensive activity to strengthen the city’s fortifications, including Castrum Maris. They immediately built a state-of-the-art hospital, which now houses the cloistered nuns of Santa Scolastica, whose church is adorned by one of the masterpieces by Mattia Preti, The Holy Family and Saints.
They erected their magnificent auberges, and enhanced their conventual church with the most precious objets d’art brought from Rhodes and others commissioned from the best artists and craftsmen in Europe.
On the other side of Galley Creek, which initially was their hunting reserve where they built a chapel dedicated to St Julian, they later erected a strong fortification on the land front dominated by Fort St Michael overlooking the Inner Harbour area.
Grand Master Claude de Sengle (1553-1557) laid the foundation of a new city, named after him – one of the first European cities to be planned on the grid-iron style, embellished with a graceful marina and open spaces. It established itself along the years for its efficient and able explorers, adventurers and notable officials, one of whom, Admiral Azzopardo, was instrumental in the foundation of the Argentinian navy.
Corsairing and piracy were also rampant in this new city and various nicknames connected with the corso survive till today.
With their undoubted skills in galley building and repair, either for the corso or ceremonial galleys, together with the opportunity provided to demonstrate their artistic skills in the magnificent churches, palaces and auberges for the refined Knights, there emerged in the Inner Harbour Area a generation of exceptionally skilled craftsmen, as evidenced to this day in the exquisite objets d’art that adorn their churches. It finally developed into the birthplace of Maltese technological society.
The Knights of St John encouraged the lucrative corso, which was a source of revenue to the island. In the dying years of corsairing, one notorious Maltese corsair and intrepid captain stands out – Guglielmo Lorenzi – who commanded a squadron led by his own galley La Fama and three other vessels. The exploits and navigational skills of ‘Admiral’ Ċensu Barbara from Cottonera in the service of Murat are well recorded in world literature about piracy.
However, the death knell to this inhuman trafficking was not long in coming. On his way to Egypt, Napoleon captured Malta in 1798 and immediately abolished the Inquisition as well as the corso, with its attendant evil slavery. He released 2,000 Muslim slaves still in Malta.
By sheer coincidence, the great art connoisseur Lord Elgin, then Britain’s ambassador in Constantinople, freed hundreds of Maltese slaves. Bereft of the Grand Harbour’s role throughout the centuries, with its triumphs and disasters, Maltese history would be hollow and sterile indeed.
Before I end this feature on the Grand Harbour’s role in Malta’s maritime history, I would like to point out that with people of my generation, many of the above-mentioned events, particularly in the Late Middle Ages (circa 1000-1530), were relatively uncharted; however, I now realise it was a period that deserves to be dusted down, revalued and revered, even though at times it was a soulless era best forgotten.
I am indeed grateful to a new generation of erudite Maltese history scholars who have actively shown that the Middle Ages are ripe for reassessment through their scholarly books and academic papers on this obscure period of Maltese history.
Concluded.
Acknowledgement
The author gratefully acknowledges the use of the archives of the late Marquis Anthony Cassar de Sain.