The Maltese Dialogue

Giuseppe Cambiano, History, Institutions, and Politics of the Maltese Knights 1554–1556

Kiril Petkov

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000084764
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire du monde

The Maltese Dialogue is the first comprehensive treatise of the history, institutions, and political projects of the Order of the Knights of Saint John of the Hospital, commonly known as the Maltese Order. It was written during the tenure of Grand Master Fra Claude de la Sengle (1553-1557), although the conversation between Commendator Fra Giuseppe Cambiano, one of the Order's most prominent sixteenth-century functionaries, and three Venetian patricians, on which the Dialogue is based, may have taken place even earlier.

The contents of the Dialogue fall in three categories: the opening section is the first detailed precis of the Hospitallers' history; then comes the bulk of the treatise, presenting a concise summary of the Order's constitution, institutional and legal organization, election procedures, recruitment of knights, rituals of instalment, and financial matters. The remaining section is a polemical expose arguing for the benefit of the Order's abandoning of Malta and the recapturing of Tripoli.

The Dialogue offers a hitherto unexplored, first-rate source on the Maltese knights' self-projection as a unique transnational institution of early modern Europe in the era of nation-states, on the power plays of the major political agents in the sixteenth-century Mediterranean, and on Western Christian strategies of engagement of Ottoman imperialism at the peak of its expansion in the region. Those interested in the history of Christian-Muslim interaction, the evolution of crusading practices in the era of early modern predatory warfare, and the construction of historical memory on the case study of the longest-lasting, and still extant, knightly order, will find it to be a highly intriguing and informative reading.

Index of the Notable Affairs of the Order of Malta

[39/36r]

The founder of the Order of Malta and the reasons for its foundation.

Holding the brother of the Great Turk prisoner for annual tribute of forty-five thousand scudi.

Where, when, and under which Grand Master the Order undertook many of its endeavors and how knights were elected.

The infidels expulse the Order from Jerusalem.

The Order fortifies Rhodes.

The Order resists a six-months-long Turkish siege of Rhodes. The outcome and result of the siege.

The Order at Messina.

The Order in the times of Clement VII at Viterbo.

The Order in Nice in Provence and in Syracuse in Sicily.

Charles V, benefactor of the Order.

[39/36v]

The Grand Master requests succor from the Christian rulers.

How the most illustrious and most esteemed Grand Master is elected.

How someone is made a knight.

Their office and duties, in Malta and elsewhere. How a knight obtains a commandery or a position.

How the Order maintains its knights.

How the Order enacts impositions and levies depending on need.

How important seniority is.

Discourse on the installment of the Grand Master.

The general revenues of the Order.

Discourse on settling in Tripoli or Malta.

The Order’s military expenses on land and sea.

Notable exploits of the most illustrious Grand Masters and lord knights of the Order.

[40/37r-v] [blank]

[41/38r] Report on the institutions, privileges, and duties of the Order of the Knights of Rhodes, now at Malta, with certain characteristics of that island, and on many other things, in the form of a dialogue. Interlocutors: My lord Giustiniano, Commendator Cambiano, and my lord Girolamo Querini.

Giustiniano: I have always had a great desire to find out who the founder was of our Order of Saint John, how it originated, and the ways in which it had become so great and honored. Being one of [41/38v] its knights and members, it seems to me that I should know that, and if there were a certain book or record that discusses the matter, it would be a great pleasure and delight to peruse it.

Cambiano: My lord, I have seen neither a book nor a record specifically discussing or narrating that matter. Even if something did exist, it would consist of rather recent fragmentary handwritten notes, rather than full pages composed at the time of the events. Such would be the descriptions of the sieges of the City of Rhodes by the Sultan of Egypt and the Great Turk, especially at the time of the Grand Master Fra Pierre d’Aubusson.¹ In his time, the Order rose to great honor and reputation, as Djem, the brother of the Great Turk, fled and found refuge in Rhodes, and, to keep him away [42/39r], the Great Turk paid the Order forty-five thousand scudi every year.² Several authors who wrote about the wars of the Christians in the Levant speak highly of our Order, as they do of the Templars and of the Teutonic Knights, above all in the wars fought over Jerusalem and in the lands of Syria, since which, and to this very day, we have borne the name of Knights of Jerusalem. There are also some records of the first founder of our militia of the Hospitallers, in memory of which the Grand Master is called Master of the Hospitallers of Jerusalem. It would be a delightful undertaking to see these records collated in a volume, especially as we, the knights of the Order [42/39v], would enjoy learning about the virtuous feats that our predecessors performed in Jerusalem and in other parts of the Holy Land in past times.

Giustiniano: I am surprised that there had been no one among so many esteemed knights to undertake the task to write, or to have written, of our past and present exploits. For virtues that are not brought to light and duly narrated fade quickly and do not bear fruit, while if recorded they serve as examples and inspire those who come afterward to imitate their predecessors.

1 Pierre d’Aubusson, Grand Master (June 1476–July 1503); see Gilles Rossignol, Pierre d’Aubusson: Le bouclier de la chrétienté (Lyon: La Manufacture, 1991). On the siege of Rhodes, see Guillaume Caoursin, Obsidionis Rhodiae urbis descriptio (Löwen, 1480); see also the evaluation of this work in Theresa M. Vann and Donald J. Kagay, Hospitaller Piety and Crusading Propaganda: Guillaume Caoursin’s Description of the Ottoman Siege of Rhodes, 1480 (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2015). On the siege itself, see most recently Robert Douglas Smith and Kelly DeVries, Rhodes Besieged: A New History (Stroud, UK: History Press, 2011).

2 On Djem Sultan, see Nicolas Vatin, Sultan Djem: Un prince ottoman dans l’Europe du XVe siècle d’après deux sources contemporaines: Vâķı’ât-ı Sulţân Cem, Oeuvres de Guillaume Caoursin (Ankara: Imprimerie de la Société turque d’histoire, 1997); and John Freely, Jem Sultan: The Adventures of a Captive Turkish Prince in Renaissance Europe (London: Harper Perennial, 2005).

Cambiano: You speak the truth, but our predecessors were better at performing, than they were at describing, their good deeds. In fact, at present there is a knight, Fra Antoine Geoffroy [43/40r], called La Benadiera, who seeks most diligently to recover our predecessors’ past and thinks of rendering it in an entertaining and instructive chronicle.³ To that effect, he has researched, and keeps researching, old registers and manuscripts in the Roman archives. He has found many useful things in the Papal Library, above all many different privileges conceded by the Apostolic See, as well as deeds confirming the gaining of lands and cities in Syria and Armenia in the time when the Christians ruled the Holy Land and when our Order was so prosperous that it put in the field five or six thousand foot soldiers and more than a thousand mounted knights.

[43/40v] Giustiniano: It would be a great pleasure to see this endeavor accomplished, because I have heard that this knight, apart from being well-read, is also gifted with fine judgment and is a worthy and experienced man, and nothing but good can come out of him. When this work comes into my hands, I will likely have it printed. But apart from history, I would be very pleased if you expounded, specifically, on issues I would like to know more about, such as the procedures and rules that our Order observes, the “tongues” and “nations” into which it is divided, the election of the Grand Master, the ordinary responsibilities and offices of our priors, bailiffs, commendators, and knights, its military, as well as how it got established on the island [44/41r] of Malta, where, as I understand, barrenness and unbearable heat oppress you. If my health were better, I would not have been content to just learn about all this, but would have repaired there myself to participate in the good works of the Order. I have always favored it, as is testified by the fact that I have given up offices, which I could have received from this most serene Republic, and benefices, which I could have hoped to obtain from the Apostolic See. To the extent that I have sought them, it has been out of my commitment to serve our Order the best way I could. As it is, only my continuous ill health has prevented me from ever coming to Malta.

3 On the early histories of the Hospitallers, see Anthony Luttrell, “The Hospitallers’ Historical Activities: 1291–1400,” in Anthony Luttrell, The Hospitallers in Cyprus, Rhodes, Greece, and the West 1291–1440 (London: Variorum, 1978), Part 17, 1–10, “The Hospitallers’ Historical Activities: 1530–1630,” Annales de l’Ordre Souverein Militaire de Malte 26 (1968): 57–69, and “The Hospitallers’ Early Written Records,” in Anthony Luttrell, Studies on the Hospitallers after 1306: Rhodes and the West (London: Routledge, 2007), 135–154. Fra Antoine Geoffroy “la Vinadière” (after his commendatory), while a lieutenant of the Order’s turcopulier (see infra), participated in the redaction of the Order’s statutes; see Pierre de Boissat, Histoire des Chevaliers de l’Ordre de S. Iean de Hierusalem, vol. 1 (Paris: Jacques d’Allin, 1659), 351. On Geoffroy, see Luttrell, “Historical Activities 1530–1630,” 58–59. Geoffroy wrote a description of the Ottoman Empire based on his travels in the Levant—Antoine Geoffroy, Estat de la court du Grand Turc (Paris, 1542)—but his research does not seem to have resulted in a history of the Order.

[44/41v] Cambiano: I hope to satisfy this desire of yours, given that I have been with the Order for a period of twenty-seven or twenty-eight years, and I have come to know much. It would not be difficult to tell you all that I have seen and learned, but it would be a rather long discussion, and it seems to me that it would be better if we put it off for another, more convenient time.

Giustiniano: There is a place of ours five miles away from here, in Malamocco, and we can go there tomorrow in a gondola. We can stay in a house, which I have had built in that place, spend the day there in discussion, and you could take your time telling me about all these things. My lord Girolamo Querini will accompany us. [45/42r] He is a worthy gentleman, who has a great affection for our Order and has always socialized and conversed with our knights. He is very close to Cardinal Bembo, who was in his youth Prior of Hungary and Commendator of Bologna,⁴ and at present is often, and almost continuously, in my company.

Cambiano: I will be much pleased to do that. After we discuss everything you want to know, I will share with you an opinion of mine, namely that the Order could never and in any way prosper in Malta. It would be better to undertake to renovate the city of Tripoli in Barbary and settle there. I am quite certain that our Order could grow and thrive there. [45/42v] I will explain all the reasons that make me think so, and I trust that you will find them credible. If, in your judgment and opinion, my position deserves support, I will raise the subject with our most illustrious Grand Master, as I did with his predecessor, and perhaps our plan will be executed.

Giustiniano: I will not be displeased to hear you out. We will set out tomorrow then, early in the morning, and I hope that we will have a great day in Malamocco. Later today, I will send an invitation to Querini, and we will take with us my nephew, Messer Bernardo. It would be good to have him join us in the conversation, given that he too is a knight [of the Order].

[46/43r] Cambiano: My lord, Messer Girolamo Querini has arrived, the gondola is ready, and the waters are calm. We can set off whenever you please and get on our way.

Giustiniano: Let us go in the name of the Lord. You, my good knight, sit close to me, so I can hear you better, and let us bundle up, so the wind does not bother us. You can begin your discourse whenever you please.

Cambiano: Before I begin, please excuse me for not offering this discourse in the proper order and manner in which it should be narrated. I would say that I deserve to be excused, as I have never been a professional rhetorician.

4 Pietro Bembo (1470–1547) was a Venetian patrician, humanist, poet, literary and musical theorist, librarian of St. Mark’s and official historian of the Republic of Venice. He joined the Hospitallers in 1514, not exactly “in his youth” as Giustiniano states here, and became a cardinal deacon in 1539. He was granted the Priory of Hungary in 1517, but did not really enjoy its income. He appears to have obtained the valuable Commendatory of Bologna in 1530, and it was a major source of income for him. See Carol Kidwell, Pietro Bembo: Lover, Linguist, Cardinal (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004).

I have heard and read many times that our name of Hospitallers was first borne [46/43v] by someone called Gerard.⁵ He was in Jerusalem in 1099, in the time of King Gottfried, who took over the Holy Land. Seeing that there were many sick Christians and that there was no one to take care of them, and there were not any necessary materials, he thought that it would be a pious deed to refurbish an old hospital and dedicate himself and some companions to their service. He renovated the hospital that had been founded by the Maccabees for the needs of their army a long time ago.⁶ This is how Gerard, the promoter of this saintly deed, was called Master of the Hospital of Jerusalem.

His successor was a certain Raymond du Puy.⁷ Considering how meritorious and God-pleasing [47/44r] was the provision of medical care, he had Pope Pascal II⁸ confer to those who engaged in that service the status of clerics under the name of St. John the Baptist along with the obligation to carry the white eight-pointed cross in order to distinguish them from other laymen who went to war in the Holy Land carrying the red cross. It is thought that in the beginning they lived on alms from the Christians who came to these lands, as many princes, lords, nobles, commoners, and pilgrims frequently appeared there to visit the Holy Sepulcher. As the latter saw the brothers exert themselves in this holy service and their good works in taking care of the sick, in which they practiced all the aspects of mercy, they were moved by the [47/44v] zeal of devotion and began to grant them revenues and properties in different parts of Christendom, so that the Hospitallers would be able to persevere in their saintly labors. Little by little, their possessions grew and the income sufficed not only for serving the sick but for providing armed and naval escorts for pilgrims who arrived in Jerusalem as well, so that they would not be harassed by the enemies and infidels who raided the countryside. This is how the Hospitallers acquired the name “knights.” The Apostolic See took them under its protection and conceded them wide-ranging privileges, while the Christian princes and lords gave them ample estates [48/45r], which the Grand Masters and the Order handed over to the oldest brothers, which on account of their advanced age were not capable of service in arms, to administer and manage. These properties were called “commendatories” as something that has been commended to the commendators, who were obliged to account for their administration and who were entitled only to expenses for food and clothing. But as time went on and as the administrators’ involvement in the preservation and expansion of the properties grew, they were made usufructuaries.⁹ The Order reserved for itself the right to tax them and take back parts of the properties as it saw fit if need be, and those who possessed them had no right to object, according to the needs [48/45v] of the time. This arrangement is still valid, and the Order is at liberty to take back a quarter, a third, a half, or the entire estate at will, and those who possess it cannot object to this in any way.¹⁰

5 The Blessed Gerard (1040–1120), a lay brother in the Benedictine Order, and the founder of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. For Gerard, and the other early leaders of the Order discussed below, see Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Knights of St. John in Jerusalem and Cyprus 1050–1310 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 1967).

6 According to the deuterocanonical First and Second Books of the Maccabees, the Maccabees were a Jewish clan that rebelled against Seleucid rule and the impact of Hellenism in the Jewish homeland, seized Judea, and founded the Hasmonean dynasty (ruled 167–37 BCE).

7 Raymond du Puy de Provence (1121?–1160), the Order’s second recognized superior after one or two interim heads.

8 Pope Pas...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Indice delle cose Notabili della Religione di Malta
• Index of the Notable Affairs of the Order of Malta
• Bibliography
• Index