Re-imagining Hospitaller Valletta and the Mediterranean in four early modern maps from the Albert Ganado Malta Map Collection (MUŻA)

Abstract

The late seventeenth-century Adriatic and Ionian Seas saw the martialing of Venetian and Hospitaller forces to contest the Ottoman presence in the Balkans and Greece. General Francesco Morosini (1619-1694), commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force sent by Venice, and Fra Giovanni Battista Brancaccio (1611-1686), Captain General of the Hospitaller galley squadron, met at Corfu to prepare their advances against the Ottomans in early July 1684. The two military leaders, together with their advisors, pored over plans and maps of their intended targets: Santa Maura (Leukas) and Prevesa (Preveza). This subtle vignette describing the planning of military actions by the two generals and their staff reminds us of what Braudel called the «significance of anecdote», where such «apparently trivial details tell us more than any formal description about the life of Mediterranean man». Yet, while these maps and plans provided the Venetian and Hospitaller forces with essential information for their assault, they also provided an imaginative space to project their worldview on lands and peoples. For maps, with their place names, illustrations, and decoration, are more than an objective, one-dimensional representation of geographic space on paper: they are a window into a time, place, and mentality of their creators.