Libraries and research in Malta : an outline history

Abstract

The first major publication by a Maltese author based on a research library as well as on field-work was G.F. Abela's Della descrittione di Malta (1647). At the time there were no large institutional collections available to scholars, with the exception of the library in Valletta of the Franciscan Friars Minor and that at Floriana of the Capuchin Friars, both of which were largely theological and philosophical in nature. Abela, however, who was the Order of St John's Vice-Chancellor and Grand Prior, may have had access to the collection of books recovered from the estates of deceased Knights in terms of the Order's Rules, and which formed the core of the library established in the Conventual Church of St John in 1649. This library's collection was subsequently merged with that given to the Order by the Bailli de Tencin to form the Order's Biblioteca Tanseana (later Biblioteca Pubblica and now the National Library of Malta) in 1776, the first non-religious library in Malta accessible to all and furnished with a wide range of scholarly and general literature.