Albert GanadoAlbert Ganado

The Faculty of Laws at the University of Malta yesterday held its sixth foundation day commemoration. It conferred its Award for Academic Excellence on Albert Ganado who is considered one of Malta’s most eminent scholars and collectors of Melitensia.

Ganado was born in Valletta on March 9, 1924, the son of Judge Robert Ganado and Mary Vassallo.

He belongs to a dynasty of lawyers on both sides of his parents. His paternal family arrived in Malta from Spain at the beginning of the 18th century. Marc’ Antonio Ganado, the first of the family to come to Malta for the reason that he was engaged as a Tamburo Maggiore with the Order of St John, together with an official would lead 12 bombardiers with muskets in funeral processions of important persons.

Marc’Antonio Ganado was from Cantarapiedra, Spain, son of Giuseppe and Isabella, who married Beatrice Mifsud in the parish church of St Dominic vulgo Porto Salvo, Valletta, on February 20, 1721. The Ganado surname managed to survive by virtue of the second marriage of Luigi, son of Marc’Antonio and Beatrice.

Luigi and Caterina Grech had one male person ‒ Gaetano ‒ who survived the plague of 1813 and married Benedetta Baldacchino on September 25, 1832, at Qormi. The present-day Ganados and Leone Ganados descended from this marriage.

Albert Ganado’s maternal Vassallo family is one of the two oldest households of advocates in Malta and had at least a member of the legal profession uninterruptedly for six generations beginning with Cesare Vassallo.

Albert studied at the Lyceum (1933-1939) and the Royal University of Malta (1939-1943) from where he graduated BA in 1943 and LL.D. in 1946. He was already very active in extra-curricular activities when he was a student. He won first prize in table tennis and was finalist in a snooker competition which the Royal University of Malta organised at its Union Club just opposite its building along St Paul’s Street, Valletta.

He was called to the Bar in 1947 and practised in the civil, commercial and criminal courts. He established the legal firm Ganado-Sammut. He was appointed acting magistrate of judicial police in 1954. He also served as examiner in the constitutional history of Malta from 1960 to 1963. He is a multi-faceted person of unbounded culture and knowledge.

Ganado immersed himself in politics between 1955 and 1966. He was an active member within the executive committee of the Nationalist Party (1955-58), assistant secretary within the same party (1957-58) and president of the Nationalist Youth Movement (1955-59).

He was founder-member of the Democratic Nationalist Party (1959-66) after the “split” within the Nationalist Party. He was a delegate to the Malta Round Table Conference on Integration in London (1955) as well as constitutional advisor to the DNP delegation Malta Independence Conference in London in 1963.

For several years he was a committee member of the Malta Chamber of Advocates and served on the editorial board of its journal Rostrum. He was president, Malta Guild of Graduates (1962-63) at the University of Malta and lecturer in constitutional law at the same Alma Mater.

Between 1954 and 2006, Dr Ganado was appointed by the Ministry of Education and the University of Malta to examine students in law and legal theses. He was one of the leaders of the Social Action Movement, founder-member of the Malta Historical Society (1950), treasurer (1951) and president of the same society (1988 and 1994) and co-founder of the Philatelic Society of Malta (1966) and its Secretary for 21 whole years (1966-1987).

He was founder member and president of the Malta Map Society (2009). Between 1990 and 2002 he was chairman of the National Archives Advisory Committee and was president of the Malta Historical Society. From 1994 to 2013 he was member, later chairman, of the Heritage Advisory Committee of the Planning Authority. He was founder member and first president of the Malta Bridge Association (1994). He won the national championship competition twice in pairs and teams. He is a committee member of the Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti.

He is a multi-faceted person of unbounded culture and knowledge

Ganado has been a contributor to Encyclopaedia Britannica on Maltese history (since 1954), to the Britannica Book of the Year on current events (since 1957), and to Children’s Britannica on the history of Malta in 1960. He contributes articles in learned journals in Malta and abroad on the history and cartography of Malta.

He is intimately associated with Maltese cartography and is considered one of the leading historians on cartography in the world. However, admittedly, his important contributions have covered not only cartography but also Maltese postal history, history of legislation, and art history.

In 1994, on his 70th birthday, a group of friends published a Liber Amicorum in his honour.

In July 2008 he officially handed his unique collection of antique maps of Malta known as ‘The Albert Ganado Malta Map Collection’ to Heritage Malta. His collection consisted of 431 printed maps and 19 rare manuscripts made between 1507 and 1899. He transferred such a priceless collection to the State in an agreement with the government in return for the house where Ganado’s family lived since 1861 and which was public property.

Parliament unanimously approved the acquisition on July 14, 2008. Indeed, the State has made such most important acquisition since the Antonio Sciortino bequest in 1947. The State housed the collection of maps at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Valletta and is a worldwide jewel.

Dr Ganado was made knight of Magistral Grace of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (1987), and decorated with the Croce di Commendatore dell’Ordine al Merito Melitense (1996). He was appointed member of the National Order of Merit, M.O.M. (1998) and promoted to the Knight Grand Cross (2012).

On June 10, 2011, he was presented with the Helen Wallis Award by the International Map Collectors’ Society at the East India Club in London during the IMCoS annual dinner in honour for his contribution to cartography.

On October 22, 2013, Ganado was conferred the degree of Doctor of Literature (Honoris Causa) by the University of Malta.

On September 11, 2017, he was appointed by the Central Bank of Malta as honorary member of the new Numismatic and Historical Publications Advisory Board, and president of the Association of Friends of the Central Bank of Malta Numismatics Collection.

Ganado wrote over 200 articles, soon to be on line, on various aspects of Maltese history, including art, legislation, philately and cartography, which were published in London, Rome, Leipzig, Amsterdam and Vienna, placing the name of Malta on the world map. His legal publications include the history of the criminal code and the history of Maltese legislation.

He has so far published 13 books and another three are actually in print, one of which is a bibliographical index by subject of Maltese laws and their sources and studies compiled in 1950.

He is an eminent collector of Melitensia, including books and manuscripts, autographs, maps and prints, portraits, postcards, philatelic items and ephemera. Ganado’s list of publications is endless and priceless and spans over the incredible period of 70 years.

Albert Ganado married Muriel Antoinette Orr in the presence of Monsignor Sir Michael Gonzi, Archbishop of Malta, in the chapel of the Archbishop’s Palace, Mdina, on November 2, 1949. They had two daughters, Berta who married Brian Sullivan, and Rita who married Austin Sammut.

Ray Mangion is Head of Department, Legal History & Methodology, Faculty of Laws, University of Malta.

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