Maltese antiquarians of early-modern age and the cave church of Mellieha

Abstract

This article aims at presenting some unpublished documents about historiographical research on Maltese Christian Middle Ages written by a Discalced Carmelite friar in the 17th century and recently discovered in the Archives of the Generalate of the Discalced Carmelites in Rome. This is the occasion to report some accounts of Maltese and European scholars regarding one of the most important Medieval sites of Malta (the Church of Our Lady of Mellieha) and to underline how scholars and missionaries of the 17th century related with the historical and archaeological affected by close contacts with Islam. The paper wants therefore to contribute on describing how scholars of the 17th century approached the multicultural and often turbulent aspects of the main Mediterranean areas and how they contributed in assessing the nascent study of Arabic language and culture in terms of historiographic structuring of Mediterranean identity.