The British Gaze on Malta in the Nineteenth Century. An historical reconstruction of the sites and the Knights’Order.

Abstract

My dissertation deals with the Great Voyages of the English painter Joseph Mallord William Turner and some Romantic writers to the Knights of St.John of Jerusalem’s archaeological sites in the ancient capital Valletta and the Maltese Citadel of Mdina,during the nineteenth century. I have carried out an investigation from the castles of the United Kingdom to the catacombs of the Mediterranean,in order to find out if the watercolour “Grand Harbour, Malta”, presumably painted by Turner on the island, was really made there by the artist. I have also focused on the historical overview of the Orders of the Grand Masters who ruled in Malta and the Hospitallers,outlining the naval activities of the Military Monks. I have examined the ways in which various authors and historians have tackled some peculiar aspects of the Templars during the last decades. Underlining William Makepeace Thackeray’s cruising towards Cairo,Sir Walter Scott’s and Samuel Coleridge’s inspiration in Malta’s landscape and reporting the adventurous travel of Lord Byron visiting Valletta,the Manoel Theatre and St.John’s Cathedral,which hosts Caravaggio’s paintings.