/library/oar/handle/123456789/26878 Sun, 21 Dec 2025 22:17:51 GMT 2025-12-21T22:17:51Z :443/library/oar/retrieve/40244cf3-8b39-4d8f-87ea-f233570307d6/ /library/oar/handle/123456789/26878 /library/oar/handle/123456789/25661 Title: Documentary sources for a study of the Maltese landscape Authors: Vella, Nicholas C.; Spiteri, Mevrick Abstract: Tangible objects form a challenging kind of historic record. They challenge us because we know that objects have meaning if only we know how to decipher it; moreover by their very presence, and refusing to go away, objects demand to be interpreted. To archaeologists no form of material artefact is perhaps more challenging - tantalizing and illuminating at one and the same time – than the vast disorderly collection of human artefacts that constitute the cultural landscape. By cultural landscape, archaeologists (but also geographers) mean the total assemblage of visible things that human beings have done to alter the face of the earth for economic, social, religious, or symbolic purposes: quarries for the extraction of building stone and clay; dams to control water, cisterns to store it and conduits to deliver it for irrigation purposes and to sustain human and animal life; the purposeful manipulation of the earth's vegetative cover in farms, woodland, orchards and terraces; tracks, paths and roads used to transport objects and ideas; walls erected to subdivide land into manageable units and to separate portions of the earth from one another. Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT /library/oar/handle/123456789/25661 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z /library/oar/handle/123456789/25655 Title: Emvin Cremona and Rome : a lasting influence Authors: Vella, Dennis Abstract: Emvin Cremona (1919-1987) was among the foremost Maltese painters of the twentieth century, soon becoming a formidable name in the fields of landscape, church decoration and, later, stamp-design and abstract painting. He developed extensively his initial encounters with Modernism in Rome in the light of his artistic development and also of subsequent dramatic circumstances in Malta. Following two decades of Impressionistic landscape painting and some of the first manifestations of abstraction in Malta, his art took a dramatic turn in 1960 in reaction to the grave politico-religious crisis that dominated events at the time. This artistic development will be the main subject of this paper. Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT /library/oar/handle/123456789/25655 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z /library/oar/handle/123456789/25654 Title: The Hospitaller activities of the Sisters of Charity of St Joan Antide in the Maltese islands Authors: Savona-Ventura, Charles Abstract: Christianity from its initiation looked at nursing of the sick and infirm as a Christian duty and several communities dedicated to the service of the sick and infirm were founded throughout the centuries. One such community of nursing sisters was founded in Paris in 1633 by St Vincent de Paule and St Louise de Marillac under the title of "Daughters of Charity, Servants of the Poor". This order was the first of the non-enclosed congregations of nuns whose charitable domains involved nursing, moral and social welfare, and teaching. It was to serve as a model to other non-enclosed congregations, which were founded in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One of these congregations was that of the Sisters of Charity founded in 1799 by St Joan Antide Thouret in France. St Antide was a French peasant girl who at the age of 22 years joined the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul. Shortly thereafter, the French Revolution broke out and all of the Sisters were disbanded and set back to their hometowns. St Antide was requested by the Vicar General of Besancon, France to begin work among the people of his diocese. On the 11 th April 1799, St Joan Antide Thouret opened a free school for the education of girls and organised a soup kitchen for the poor. From its humble beginnings in 1799, the community eventually spread from France to other European countries and ultimately to America and Asia. In 1810, Jeanne Antide was asked to begin the same works in Savoy, Switzerland and Naples, Italy. In 1868 they were asked to come to Malta to care for orphans and later to nurse the sick in government hospitals and hospices. In 1932 the Sisters of Charity of St Joan Antida extended their works to the United States where they ministered to the Italian immigrants in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the height of the depression. The Order has continued to branch out across 25 countries. Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT /library/oar/handle/123456789/25654 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z /library/oar/handle/123456789/25653 Title: Social relationships in mid-sixteenth-century Malta : an analysis through notary Juliano Muscat's register R376/11 Authors: Buttigieg, Emanuel Abstract: The themes to be discussed in this paper transpire from the notarial deeds of Notary Juliano Muscat, and in particular register R376/11. This was compiled by Notary Muscat between February and August 1545, although it also includes a number of entries from 1546. In all, 330 separate acts were analysed. The volume, held at the Notarial Archives in Valletta (NAV), is written in Medieval Latin, although some Italian, Sicilian and Maltese words were used as well. Social relations in mid-sixteenth-century Malta were extensive, variable, and constantly changing. Even in a small island like Malta people lived their lives within different social settings which were nonetheless concurrent and overlapping. The nature of the source at hand, that is, the notarial register R376/11, determined the subdivision of this paper into five parts. The first part sets out a framework within which to place the lives and actions of the people who appear in the acts of Notary Muscat. The next part outlines and discusses the merits and limits of notarial acts for historical research, while providing a short biographical sketch of Notary Muscat himself. The discussion then examines social relationships in terms of two dichotomies: Employers and Employees, Masters and Slaves. The final part is concerned with gender issues, and in particular with women's lives, in the belief that notarial records can help to redress the almost complete silence that shrouds women's history in the sixteenth century. Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT /library/oar/handle/123456789/25653 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z