Towns and Villages

in

Malta and Gozo

a four-part series

by Charles Fiott

(EXCERPTS)

Book One:

The Twin Harbour Area
Table of Contents

  1. Foreword by Alexander Bonnici
  2. Valletta
  3. Furjana (Floriana)
  4. Sliema
  5. Gzira
  6. Ta'Xbiex
  7. Msida
  8. Pjetà
  9. Hamrun
  10. Marsa
  11. Rahal Gdid (Paola)
  12. Bormla (Cospicua)
  13. Isla (Senglea)
  14. Birgu (Vittoriosa)
  15. Kalkara

Forward by Alexander Bonnici

This four-part series by Charles Fiott - three on Malta and one on Gozo -will shed an unusual light on the towns and villages of the Maltese Islands. This first part deals with the localities that align the two main harbours of Malta. Some of these are cities with a long, lustrous history, others with archives that aren't as copious, and a few so new that little has yet been written about them (...)

What this book gives us is not a tourist guide. This is rather a comprehensive idea - a glance at the history and at the way in which these localities have been transformed (...)

This book introduces us to the history and the arts and invites us to get to know this little island better. The sketches that go with the articles help the reader follow the author's references to various sites (...)

Although the books written recently about Malta have been numerous, this one by Charles Fiott has something that differentiates it from all others. One may be surprised at what can be written about a town like Ta' Xbiex. The author overcomes this hurdle superbly, presenting this and other towns of short history in a very interesting fashion.

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1. VALLETTA

(...) Malta owes its architectural lustre to ir-Reli jon (The Religion), as the Order of St. John (Knights of Malta) was called. The eight-pointed cross carried by the knights on their black vestments stands for the eight beatitudes, by whose principles they vowed to live, and for the eight langues, or nations, which comprised the Order - an early prototype of the United Nations. Established in 1113, the Order of St. John the Baptist is the oldest surviving order of chivalry. (...) Each langue (rhymes with tongue) had its own auberge (hostel), church, and duties. (...)

Running the half-mile distance from one harbour to the other is the Great Ditch, a 50-foot-deep, 30-foot-wide chasm hewn out of solid rock by Turkish slaves.(...)

And then there is the auberge of all auberges. The Palace of the Grand Masters was built in 1574 on land acquired from the noble Xiberras (She-bear-rahs) family, which gave its name to the steep xebb-ir-ras peninsula on which Valletta stands. (...) Common people, however, were denied access to "The Palace". (...)

Not strangers to the world of chivalry, the British instituted the Order of St. Michael and St. George with ceremonial grounds in Malta and Corfu. In Malta, one of the Palace's halls was renamed for St. Michael and St. George. In Corfu, a namesake was built by Maltese masons using Maltese stone.

The British governors took pride in the Palace, which they inherited. (...)

Carnival has been celebrated since at least the middle of the 15th century. (...) In 1639, Lascaris tried to forbid women from wearing masks, under penalty of the lash, but buckled under strong dissent. Unforgiving, Maltese women still use the phrase wi Laskri (face of Lascaris) to describe a contemptuous man. In 1846, Governor Stuart's attempt to prohibit Sunday masquerading was also short-lived. In an effective, Maltese-style protest, horses and goats were donned with carnival costumes and led into the streets of Valletta. A large crowd, humorous even in the heated rage, maintained that the governor's proclamation did not apply to animals. Shortly after this incident, Stuart, a Scottish puritan and strict sabbatarian, was replaced with O'Ferrall, a Roman Catholic Irishman...

...Valletta is tiny, its two coasts but ten short blocks apart, and the steepness is all too obvious. As if to invoke heavenly help, some of the stepped streets are named after saints. A not-so-pious Maltese saying - ghan-nizla kull qaddis jghin (all saints rush to help as long as the going is downhill or where are the saints when you need them?) - fits Triq San Gwann, Triq Santa Lucija, and the other stepped streets well. Lord Byron echoed such sentiments in his unflattering Farewell to Malta:

Adieu, ye cursed streets of stairs!

(How surely he who mounts you swears.)

After clearing customs and quarantine, visitors had to climb the "cursed streets" under the watchful eye of a round sentry box. They were harassed by mendicants crying nix mangiare ("nothing to eat" in German-Italian slang). Early 20th century writers referred to the first stepped street as the Nix Mangiare Steps.

... One date that still exhumes public indignation is June 7, 1919. One of five state holidays, this is remembered as Sette Giugno, Italian being the prevailing language at the time. The language question is crucial to the understanding of the British era in Malta. The failure to make English the predominant language in Malta was one of the reasons why England disbanded the Maltese Council, why London delayed Malta's political emancipation, why British soldiers fired into a crowd demonstrating for self-government and cheaper bread, killing four.

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We would like to thank Mr. Charles Fiott for granting us permission to publish the above excerpts.

Copyright © 1994 Charles Fiott - All Rights Reserved -
Towns and Villages in Malta and Gozo
Part 1: The Twin Harbour Area

Published by the Conventual Franciscans of Rabat (Religjon u Hajja), Malta - 1994
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Copyright © 1998 Michael Riccioli All Rights Reserved
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