The conservation treatment of the latest volume sponsored by Gasan Mamo Insurance Limited, under the ‘Adopt a Notary’ scheme, has been finalised.
The insurance firm has donated €15,340 over three years, contributing to the conservation of three invaluable volumes of Notary Placido Abela, spanning from 1557 to 1595. This sponsorship scheme and collaboration between Gasan Mamo Insurance Limited and the Notarial Archives Foundation (NAF) has played an important role in ensuring the preservation of the nation’s paper heritage.
Gasan Mamo’s ‘adopted notary’ is one of the earliest and most interesting notaries at the Notarial Archives. Although his acts cover 1557 to 1595, which means he should have over 100 volumes in his collection, unfortunately only four volumes have survived.
Few capital cities in the world have the fortune and privilege to have documented so clearly their foundation and construction as Valletta. Abela’s third volume does precisely this, as the entire 240-leaf manuscript records the selling of plots of lands on the peninsula of Xebb ir-Ras (commonly known as Sceberras peninsula), later named Valletta.
In Abela’s volumes, the commissarius fabricae huius civitatis Vallettae (commissioner of the building of the city of Valletta) is appearing on behalf of the Order of St John to sell land situm et positum in hac civitate Valletta (placed in this city of Valletta), such as in the contract with Fra Petrus de Maire on October 8, 1577.
Through this deed, Petrus bought a plot in the 10th district of the city, with the deed even specifying who the owners of the adjacent plots were. Such deeds allow one to analyse how the peninsula was physically carved up and provide an invaluable model for the study of urban development.
The conservation treatment required for the preservation of the third volume of Notary Abela involved several interventions, including extensive paper repairs and infills, the strengthening of corroded leaves and sewing, as well as the replacement of the current acidic 20th century binding with an appropriate parchment cover. Finally, a protective enclosure was created to house and protect the manuscript. All treatments were carried out using the highest quality conservation grade materials.
The conservation work on the last volume of the notary was carried out by paper conservator Alejandra Molano Contreras and under the supervision of book and paper conservator Theresa Zammit Lupi.