Being on Malta is to share the experience with a coterie of sinners, saints and scoundrels. The island has been a refuge, a life saver and a place for respite.
An intrepid traveller on the island can trace the reminders of these sinners, saints and scoundrels who both influenced Malta and were influenced by Malta.
Saint Paul the Apostle
The shipwrecked saint
Paul found his way to Malta by chance. Paul was being transported to Rome to be tried as a political rebel by the Romans. The Roman ship, he was sailing in along with 240 other people, had set sail from the Levant, and after encountering a storm was shipwrecked off the coast of Mellieħa in 60 AD. With others, he swam to shore where they were welcomed and cared for by the locals. Saint Luke who was travelling with Paul wrote, ‘we found that the island was called Melita.’
Paul is credited with introducing Christianity to the local peoples and Malta is thought to have been one of the first Roman colonies to have completely converted to Christianity. A yearly feast is commemorated on 10 February.
Follow the trail
Two of Malta’s cathedrals are dedicated to St. Paul. Services are held at the church of St Paul’s Shipwreck, which is among the oldest churches in Valletta, dating back to the 1570s. In the church itself are many significant works of art, including the altarpiece, paintings, and a wooden, carved statue of St Paul.
The Basilica of St Paul can be found at Rabat, and its grotto is rumoured to be the location where Paul stayed and preached during his three month stay on the island.
Of course there is St Paul’s Bay and Triq San Pawl.
Photo: Triq San Pawl, Sean Richardson
A statute can be found on St Paul’s Island, at the mouth of St Paul’s Bay.
Photo: St Paul Statue, Sean Richardson
Caravaggio
The story of a flawed genius
He is reputed to have brawled constantly, argued with his patrons and fled from Italy to Malta to escape justice after being accused of killing a man. All the while he revolutionised painting.
Caravaggio travelled to Malta, in 1607, to escape the murder accusation and is rumoured to have entertained the idea of joining the Knights of St. John, in the hope that dedicating himself to the order would absolve his mortal sin.
Wignacourt, the incumbent grand master, recognised Caravaggio’s talent and saw the benefit of having him beholden to the Knights. Grand Master Wignacourt successfully lobbied the Pope on the painter’s behalf, and the painter was granted immunity if he agreed to paint for the State. Caravaggio returned the favour by painting several famous works in the 18 months he spent in Malta. These included The Beheading of John the Baptist, Saint Jerome Writing and Sleeping Cupid.
He fled the island in 1609, after escaping from goal for again becoming embroiled in a fight, but not before having his masterpiece, The Beheading of John the Baptist, unveiled in St John’s Co-Cathedral.
Picture: Caravaggio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Follow the trail
At the co-cathedral look for the signature by focusing on the drops of blood dripping from the Baptist’s severed neck, which form the words Fra Michelangelo (Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio). Apart from the revolutionary style, this painting is unique because it is the only one of all Caravaggio’s works to be signed by the Master himself.
Lord George Byron
A brilliant literary scoundrel
Lord George Gordon Byron, was a rebellious and fiery person, constantly seeking affection through his amorous relationships. Known for his platonic or physical relationships, with single as well as with married women, and with many others of his own gender.
Byron visited Malta twice. The first time in 1809, on his way through the Mediterranean during the initial stages of his Grand Tour, then a customary part of the education of young noblemen. He again visited it on his return journey from the same adventure in 1811, while on his way back to England.
Byron was famous for his literary skills, being regarded among the greatest of English poets, including his work Don Juan, and he was a major figure of the Romantic movement.
On his second visit to Malta Byron penned his 56 verses, A Farewell to Malta, the poem recalling his first visit to the island where his physical ailments meant he found difficulty walking the streets of Valletta.
‘Adieu, ye cursed streets of stairs!’
Having left cholera ravaged Greece, Byron spent eighteen days in quarantine confinement at the Lazzaretto on Manoel Island, where he wrote the poem during his stay.
Follow the trail
Byron took up residence in Valletta at a house known as Casa di Saint Poix, situated at the top of Old Bakery Street, formerly known as Strada Forni (Triq Forni) and close to Strada Mezzodi (Triq Nofsinhar). Incidentally, Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived in this same house.
Photo: Old Bakery Street, Sean Richardson
The Romanovs
Royal Refugees and Rasputin’s Assassin
In 1918 HMS Marlborough, without fanfare, delivered 17 royal visitors to Malta who sought refuge from the Bolshevik Revolution.
The 17 Romanovs were amongst 30 refugees fleeing from Russia who stopped at Malta, on their way to exile in Britain. The visitors included the Dowager Empress Marie, mother of the executed Tsar Nicholas II.
Also on board was Prince Yousoupoff, who was married to the daughter of Grand Duchess Xenia and had been involved in, and by some reports led, the killing of the notorious Rasputin in 1916.
For nine days the Dowager Empress resided at San Anton. She referred to San Anton as “a beautiful palace” and planted a tree in the private gardens.
Follow the trail
The stay of the Dowager Empress is commemorated by a marble tablet in the private gardens of San Anton palace.
The marble tablet in the private gardens of San Anton Palace. Courtesy of the President of Malta; Photo by Louis F. Tortell
The Russians were reported to have swum beneath the Sliema Tower. The area eventually came to be known as “Tas-Exiles”, as it still is today.
From Google Maps
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Malta’s first documented case of drug addiction
The English poet was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and became famous for his poems, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan.
Addicted to opium which was prescribed to address other physical ailments, Coleridge went to Malta because of the better climate in the hope he could try to cure himself of his addiction. Before leaving for Malta he was given a small book of unpublished works from his friend William Wordsworth, The Malta Notebook. The Malta Notebook is the most comprehensive record of Wordsworth’s unpublished poems in early 1804.
Coleridge first visited Malta in 1804, working for two years as Acting Public Secretary of Malta. He arrived, trusting to find “tranquillity and a climate congenial to my ailments and find gainful occupation”. He left Malta for England in 1806.
After his return to England his addiction grew stronger alarming his family to the extent that he again travelled to Malta in 1808, as Private Secretary to the then Governor of Malta, Admiral Alexander Ball. Again, Coleridge was hopeful of curing his addiction.
Coleridge has been noted in academic papers as Malta’s first documented case of drug addiction.
Follow the trail
A plaque exists outside of the Casino Maltese in Valletta, commemorating his time in Valletta.
Photo: Kritzolina, CC BY-SA 4.0,via Wikimedia Commons
Reminders of Coleridge’s visit can also be found at Triq Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in Gzira and Hotel Coleridge, Old Bakery Street, in Valletta
Scoundrels have visited Malta in real life and in fiction, by the way Humphrey Bogart of The Maltese Falcon fame is not one of them. Find out about an Australian scoundrel who found their way to Malta in my novel The Maltese Web.
The Maltese Web; One Investigator; One Island; Countless secrets, is available on Amazon in kindle and paperback.
