A historiography of Maltese catacomb study : from the sixteenth century to 1899

Abstract

My fascination with subterranean spaces, interest in rituals of death and admiration of the art and architecture of antiquity makes the catacombs one of my favourite archaeological monuments. The architectural and historical elements of the Maltese catacombs have been extensively researched, but a historiographic analysis into the history of Maltese catacomb study awaits proper attention. This dissertation thus adopts an analytical approach to Maltese catacomb study between the sixteenth century and 1899 from a historiographic perspective. It focuses upon the scholars providing significant textual contributions to the Maltese palaeochristian field of research during this period and delves into the socio-political, cultural as well as biographic factors that may have influenced these scholars in carrying out their studies. Evidently, external and personal aspects heavily determined the way scholars approached catacomb study, the motives behind their research and the interpretations they put forth. This dissertation looks into some of these aspects and underlines that it is impossible to conduct any research into the history of Maltese catacomb study without considering socio-political, cultural and biographic aspects. Chapter 1 provides an introduction outlining the aims, objectives and methodology of this research. This chapter also includes an overview of archaeological historiographies and a literature review pertaining to histories of Maltese catacomb study. Chapter 2 introduces catacomb study by briefing the reader on the discovery and investigation of the catacombs of Rome. This provides a contextual setting for Chapters 3 to 5, which tackle Maltese catacomb study between the sixteenth century and 1899 century-by-century, detailing the major scholars and their catacomb-related texts. A scholar-by-scholar approach is adopted throughout most of these chapters. Chapter 6 contains a discussion of the major themes that are highlighted in this dissertation. Finally, this is followed by a concluding chapter, in which the aims and objectives of the research are revisited and the main conclusions are stated.