When the Marina Grande in Vittoriosa recently housed the prestigious international Classic Yachts regatta, the manager of this historic location, Ben Stuart, proudly remarked that this waterfront, “with Malta’s medieval bastions as a natural backdrop, is the ideal berthing place for these amazing boats”.
These flattering, but true, remarks vindicate Prof. Peter Serracino Inglott’s prophetic vision expressed in the epilogue to the two-volume publication Birgu – A Maltese Maritime City, issued 20 years ago to coincide with the inauguration of the Maritime Museum on the very site of the ancient slipway of Birgu (or Vittoriosa).
The learned professor clearly declared that the regeneration of Cottonera would start on the Vittoriosa waterfront.
On my part, Stuart’s pronouncement jogged my collective memory regarding the tides of history that have flowed over this historic creek. With apologies to the great Elizabethan dramatist Christopher Marlowe, whose 16th century tragic drama The Jew of Malta has great affinity with Porto delle Galere, this is “the creek that launched a thousand ships” from its various ancient slipways and shipyards, sprawled along the shores of this inland sea.
As the renowned medievalist Godfrey Wettinger points out, the facilities of a galley-repair slipway near the Castrum Maris (Fort St Angelo) were first mentioned in a document at the Archivio di Stato in Palermo dated 1374, referring to the ‘tarsenale’ of Malta.
Even before the coming of the Arabs to Malta in 870 AD, there are strong indications that under the Byzantines, Malta was an important naval base.
Undoubtedly for the new Arab masters, corsairing against Christian vessels in the Mediterranean was a lucrative business as Christian slaves were bought and sold in the local market as well as in the notorious slave-market of Algiers.
One can deduce the extent of this highly profitable trade from the throngs of Greek Christian slaves, waving palm fronds and olive branches who welcomed Count Roger the Norman to Malta in 1091.
The Maltese medieval period, so rich in its dramatic maritime traditions and daring episodes about the fierce Maltese corsairs and adventurers, has been kept under wraps for a considerable time only to resurface in the past decades with the highly acclaimed research work by Malta’s erudite medievalists.
Stanley Fiorini, in his study about corsairs/captains and crews in vessels armed ad cursum/ piraticam extracted from notarial deeds, reveals the collaboration of rich and influential Rhodiots with reputable Maltese families in the early Knights period.
These included Nicolaus Farrugia, pilot of a bireme of 15 benches belonging to Correo Manoli. This vessel was purchased from Isolda Burlò of Birgu; the Burlò brothers and the Calamias owned a fusta of 16 benches called Sta Caterina; and Didacus Habela was captain of a brigantine of 12 benches.
One can visualise the innumerable vessels moored in this narrow creek, sheltered from the cruel sea and strong winds under the protection provided by the impregnable Castrum Maris.
The enviable reputation of the Birgu corsairs with their knowledge of navigation and savage courage in armed combat, coupled with the provision of a reputable arsenale with highly skilled craftsmen, compelled the mighty Order of St John to opt for the medieval city of Birgu as their marauding base of operations and residence in 1530. It is pertinent to point out that the exceptional skills of the Maltese in boat-building were clearly displayed when the galley Sta Caterina was launched in 1536.
With the coming of the Knights, corsairing and privateering increased in intensity as all sections of society, including the Knights themselves, invested heavily in this trade which offered high-ranking pirates and sea captains potential wealth, an enviable reputation and a high standing in society.
These intrepid corsairs, emanating in huge numbers from the Inner Harbour area, as official records attest, were the scourge of the central Mediterranean, spreading fear and destruction even against the notorious Barbary Coast pirates.
Unlike Tom Dooley, they did not hang their head in shame; on the contrary, if the prize was substantial, these corsairs, armed with a ‘letter of marque’ authorising them to take enemy ships, were feted like returning heroes, and occasionally prayers of thanksgiving were intoned.
In fact, the traditional Maltese corsair was a formidable figure even when he confined himself to the role of a virtuous and law-abiding citizen in the thriving community around Porto delle Galere (Dockyard Creek).
As he proudly strolled down the streets of his native Cospicua, Vittoriosa or Senglea, where sea captains who ventured far and wide on their marauding expeditions were numerous, the corsair was an honourable gentleman who contributed substantially to the common coffers to raise his profile and that of his beloved city, church or convent in his community.
This blaze of glory was truly infectious and the navigational skills and enterprise of corsairing had been very often passed on from father to son for generations. Notwithstanding all this, in the imaginary rogue-gallery of the guilty men of piracy at the turn of the 18th century, the portrait of the Maltese corsair, particularly in the eyes of established French and Italian authors, easily appears as the most savage and repelling.
The case of the Maltese admiral Vincenzo Barbara, who hailed from Cottonera, springs to mind.
Renowned for his exploits on the high seas in the service of Napoleon, Barbara was well known for his close affinity with the aims of the French Revolution and the tenets of the Enlightenment. He accompanied Napoleon on L’Orient and signed the capitulation of Mdina in 1798 on behalf of the French Republic.
In 1815, as admiral of the fleet of the ex-King of Naples, Gioacchino Murat, Barbara was branded as “un corsaro Maltese” and accused of betraying Murat at Pizzo Calabro by no less an authority than Alexander Dumas of Count of Monte Cristo fame, and other French and Italian historians.
On the other hand, in an outburst of patriotism, this multi-dimensional personality, featured as one of the protagonists in the series of historical novels by Ġużè Muscat Azzopardi (1853-1927) entitled Ċensu Barbara, published in 1893.
Almost a century after the Pizzo Calabro incident, Agostino Levanzin, who happens to be my mother’s uncle, well known for his novel Is-Saħħar Falzun and editor of various publications including the popular In-Naħla, in 1912 was invited to the US to attempt to establish a world record of prolonged fasting under the supervision of Prof. Francis Benedict of the Carnegie Institute of Roxbury, Massachusetts, US.
On May 12, 1912, while in America, Levanzin made the following autobiographical notes: “My mother Lorenza Borg, living and aged about 58, descends from pure and noble Maltese blood since 400 years.”
Her grandfather’s uncle was the famous Vincenzo Barbara, the daring sea-captain of one of the French warships who was falsely accused by Botta and other historians of having betrayed Murat when he landed him to take possession of Naples on behalf of Napoleon.
“Barbara was Napoleon’s right-hand man to plot and get rid Malta from the yoke of the Knights of St John, and he was also the first Grand Master of the Freemasons on the island. Her grand-father was Joseph Borg, another sea captain who came to America in the time of the Revolution, volunteered with the insurgents and fought for the American independence many battles…”.
Apart from a few inaccuracies, Levanzin’s autobiography sheds a lot of light on the exceptional number of sea captains in the Cottonera area in the early 19th century, a legacy from the intense maritime activities in the area. Many of these sea-captains, infused with a spirit of adventure, sailed as far afield as to the United States.
It is not surprising that in ‘The First Register of Schools’ during the first century of the British period, kept at the National Archives in Rabat, the first authorised School of Navigation was opened in Cospicua in 1857 by a certain Giovanni Matessich, who apparently had seen service on the Order’s galleys.
The first decades of the 19th century propelled Malta’s maritime profile to its zenith, peaking with the colourful figure and the daring naval exploits of the Senglea-born Admiral Juan Azzopardo (1772-1848) in the service of the Argentinian navy, earning him due recognition and an imposing statue in the Argentine town of San Nicolas.
Part of the Senglea Marina is named after this talented high-ranking mariner who had served his apprenticeship on the Order’s galleys and gained his expertise at the famous Toulon docks in France. The Argentine Navy still honours his name with a frigate launched in 1983 named Azzopardo.
Another outstanding sea-captain of the period is the dauntless Guglielmo Lorenzi (1734-1799) a Corsican who lived in Malta for 54 years. His fierce and fearless exploits in combat, as well as his exceptional seamanship, drew the attention of Catherine the Great of Russia. He was executed in January 1799 at Place de la Liberté in Valletta for his part in the uprising against the French.
The spirit of adventure and exploration of the youths living in the Inner Harbour area in that turbulent period is also manifest in its intrepid explorers, foremost of whom are Cospicua-born Andrea Debono and his nephew Amabile Musù (1842 - 1864), credited with the successful exploration of the White Nile from their base in Khartoum, Sudan.
Another important personality was Cospicua-born Louis Schickluna (1808-1880), who made a name for himself in Canada, settling in St Catharine’s (now known as Ontario). His brilliant reputation as a shipbuilder earned him the title of ‘Premier Shipbuilder of Canada’ in an official journal of the period.
The history of Malta in the early 19th century reads like an odyssey with its vessels tossing up and down the cruel waves. The Maltese populace, bemused and numbed after the traumatic experience of three successive occupations, could not fathom where their uncharted historical journey was now taking them.
The previous century had come to a close in disorder, without any obvious mechanism for either ending it or keeping it under control.
In this hiatus, while Great Britain was still unsure about Malta’s strategic importance to the British Empire, several factions in the form of pro-French, pro-British, pro-Knights, pro-Bourbon or pro-Russian emerged.
This situation resulted in a hot political melting-pot causing the inevitable departure of a substantial number of the local sea captains of the now-defunct corsairing fleet to the fold of the different contenders, mainly to the mighty British Navy victorious over the French at Aboukir.