If you grew up assuming Malta only got an archbishop in the 20th century, you’re basically right, but also not. On 3 March 1797, Pope Pius VI issued a papal brief that gave the Bishop of Malta archiepiscopal dignity by attaching to the Maltese see a prestigious titular title, Archbishop of Rhodes. The first man to carry it was Vincenzo Labini, who from that point could be styled Archbishop of Rhodes and Bishop of Malta. That wording matters because it wasn’t the same thing as

By late February 1676, Malta was no longer dealing with a rumour, a “bad fever”, or a handful of suspicious deaths. It was dealing with a full-blown public health disaster, and the island’s administration under the Order of St John was being forced into decisions that were both brutally practical and politically explosive. They restricted movement, isolated the sick, policed the population, and kept a port economy functioning while the disease tore through the Grand Harbour t

On 23 February 1721, Malta had just started its Carnival season under the rule of Grand Master Marc’Antonio Zondadari. This is the period most historians link to the introduction of the kukkanja into Maltese Carnival. Sources are clear on the year 1721 and on Zondadari’s role, but they do not give a clean, documented “first performance” date for the Kukkanja tradition. What we do know is that the kukkanja was introduced in 1721 and that it was a Neapolitan tradition. The kukk

On 20 February 1578, St John’s in Valletta was consecrated, a major milestone in the making of Malta’s new capital after the Great Siege. At the time, it was not yet a “co-cathedral” in the modern sense, but the conventual church of the Order of St John: the spiritual heart of the Knights inside the new fortified city they were building. The church had been commissioned by Grand Master Jean de la Cassière and designed by Girolamo Cassar, the same architect behind several of V