Landscape of Birgu : a micro study of tangible and intangible landscape character

Abstract

Landscape affects one and all, and as such is a subject that warrants serious attention from the academic world. Indeed, the study of landscape, in one form or another, has been adopted by numerous mature disciplines in the arts and sciences and has become a topic so vast as to have several specialist niches within its reach. At the onset of the twenty-first century one speaks of landscape studies as a subject in its own right, and one that is increasing in popularity due to its direct effect on the lives of people. Evidence of this are the already numerous and growing number of publications on the subject, many branching off into topic-specific themes of great relevance to academia. A primary reason for the increase in interest in landscape studies is its relation to secular power, knowledge and history, thus its relevance to contemporary politics and the geography of authority. This study is about landscape, from a micro-perspective point of view, in the historic city of Birgu known also as Vittoriosa, in the Maltese Islands (Figure 1). A larger study of landscapes of the Maltese Islands has already been carried out by the national authority