The Morisco and Hispano-Arabic culture and Malta : some highlights on late medieval and early modern links

Abstract

In general it is believed that it was the impact of the Great Siege (1565) ..:oupled with the 'gloire' of the regime of the Knights of St John and the so-called economic desicilianismo policies of French Grand Masters La Cassiere and Loubenx de Verdalle in the 1570s and the 1580s that put the Maltese islands on the European map. If one views the hundreds of historical, geographical, political or theological works and the innumerable travelogues of the late 16th, 17th and 18th centuries which deal with Malta and the Order's state, one grasps the meaning of this perspective. Central and North European travellers who visited Malta before the Great Siege and wrote in greater detail about its culture and social situation, were Andre Thevet (1549), Nicolas de Nicolay (1551) or Fuerer von Haimendorf (1564), who may be regarded as exceptions.