Imago Melitae 2021: MMS first Show & Tell
The first Malta Map Society Show & Tell event was held on the 19th October 2021.
Krystle Attard Trevisan, our Honorary Secretary, managed the screen while Bernadine Scicluna chaired the proceedings.
There were five presentations and each talk was 10 mins long. The speakers and the talks were:
Daniel Gullo who spoke about Printed Maps at HMML’s Malta Study Center.
(Dr. Daniel Gullo is the Joseph S. Micallef Director of the Malta Study Center at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (HMML). As director of the Center, Dr. Gullo works to digitally preserve the early modern and medieval heritage of Malta and the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem and create online access to these digital collections in vHMML.org.
The Malta Study Center contains a small collection of important maps, both separated from their original publications, but also bound in in the original printed works. This short discussion focused on a small selection of the more significant maps found in the collection. Though common to most major collectors, these maps represent an important addition to the growing knowledge of repositories holding rare exemplars around the world.)
Lino Chetcuti who spoke about a Map of Malta by Nicolas Sanson.
(Emanuel Chetcuti is a retired chartered-certified accountant and certified public accountant. He retired from employment in the capacity of auditor and tax consultant in 2004. Following his retirement, he started compiling a collection of replica maps of Malta which today totals almost 1300 replica maps from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries accompanied with carto-bibliographical details. He is an independent researcher with a keen interest in travel narratives concerning Malta published prior the 20th century. He has written articles for Treasures of Malta, the Malta Map Society Journal and Melita Historica.
Nicolas Sanson (1600-1667), and his descendants, were the most influential French cartographers of the 17th century. He started his career as a historian and resorted to cartography as a means of illustrating his historical studies. Sanson prepared a series of maps which came to the attention of King Louis XIII who, impressed by the quality of his work, appointed him Geographe Ordinaire du Roi. Sanson published an enormous quantity of maps which initiated the golden age of French mapmaking earning him the title of ‘The Father of French Cartography’. Sanson’s map of Malta was first published in 1656. His map featured in at least 11 publications without noticeable variations except for the title shown in the cartouche.)
Ivan Fsadni who spoke about A set of five 19th century folded printed maps of Malta.
(Dr Ivan Fsadni is a lawyer specialised in Public International Law and a former career diplomat, Dr Ivan Fsadni, is a founder-member of the Malta Map Society and has served as its Vice-President since the society was established in 2009.
The set of five 19th century folded printed maps of Malta in a contemporary slip case. From the military-related manuscript markings on the maps, and the owner’s signature on the outside cover of three of the five maps, one presumes that these maps were the personal working maps of Colonel Edmund Gilling Hallewell, who served in Malta from October 1849 to March 1854, and from November 1856 to April 1864 when he left Malta to take up the post of Commandant of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.)
Mario Brincat who spoke about A recently-acquired map of the battle of Lepanto.
(Mario Brincat is a sociologist with a special interest in economic development and works for the national development agency. He is an eclectic collector of Melitensia and other categories, hoarding anything from press cuttings to photographs, postcards, books and antique maps.
The presentation looked at the map itself, its subject as a historical event, the maps treatment of the subject, and the links to the history of Malta and of the Order.)
Joseph Schirò who spoke about Love, sex and mapping.
(Joseph Schirò is a paper conservator by profession. He is the President of the Malta Map Society and editor of the Malta Map Society Journal. He has written several articles on conservation and on cartography with particular reference to Malta.
Joseph Schirò had acquired 2 rare and very elusive maps by Giammaria Furlanetto published in Venice. The maps were commissioned by Andrea Memmo whose coat of arms appear on the maps.
Andrea Memmo had a steamy and secret love affair with the Anglo-Venetian beauty Giustiniana Wynne notwithstanding the tight vigilance of her mother who wanted her daughter to marry a richer family. In the end she ended up pregnant and she turned to Andrea’s friend, the ribald sexual adventurer Giacomo Casanova, who promised to help her but ended up raping her.)
The Show & Tell was well-attended and questions were fielded at the end of the presentations.
See the proceedings on Utube, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF630aopvjA.