2005 Histories of Malta – Ventures And Adventures Volume 6

In his long-awaited sixth instalment of Histories of Malta, Giovanni Bonello once again delights us with this excellent and well-researched collection of 16 articles. Social habits and past-times are featured in such articles about Maltese-made playing cards, gambling under the Knights, and Maltese inns and taverns. Tales of Knights like Fra Pietro Bembo, and his connection with Lucretia Borgia, and Fra Alonso de Contreras, who apart from being a Knight is also described as a corsair due to his picaresque adventures, are also included. This edition also includes an article about Francesco Potenzano and Matteo Perez d’Aleccio, and their works for St John’s Co-Cathedral, as well as another with new attributions to the oeuvre of the baroque architect Francesco Buonamici. Caravaggio is featured in an article about his friends and victims in Malta, as well as in the penultimate instalment, where Bonello discusses Philip Farrugia Randon’s book Caravaggio Knight of Malta. Robert Attard’s Malta: A Third Collection of Tales and Narratives is also reviewed.

Giovanni Bonello is a Judge of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. He writes extensively on human rights, art and history. He is also a frequent contributor to Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti’s Treasures of Malta.