Quintinus and the location of the temple of Hercules at Marsaxlokk

Abstract

The Jesuit Girolamo Manduca (1573-1643) and the father of Maltese historiography, Fra Giovanni Francesco Abela (1582-1655) have been found to be the creators or propagators of a significant number of 'traditions' which have become deeply rooted in the history of these islands. Some of these 'traditions' now appear to be groundless, others founded on very flimsy, mostly extrapolated evidence or on dubious sources. A group of others owe their origin to the wrong reading or interpretation of ancient texts. Besides Manduca and Abela, however, another writer who wrote before them and was not Maltese is the source of a stream of similar historical traditions. This is the Frenchman Jean Quintin (1500-1561) who resided in Malta between the years 1530 and 1536 when he served the Order of the Knights of St. John as chaplain of the French Knights and auditor of the Grand Master. He is better known by the latinized version of his name, Quintinus, due to the fact that his brief description of Malta was written in Latin. The traditions to which he gave origin - so far no text is known before him dealing with the same material - are mostly concerned with the ancient history of Malta. An important tradition started by Quintinus, which has had a great impact on archaeological research and which is the main concern of this paper, is the one locating the ancient temple of Hercules in the region of Marsaxlokk. After reporting what Cicero had to say on the highly esteemed temple of Juno on Malta, the 16th century writer goes on to describe the equally venerated temple of Hercules.