A Harbour for Nations

Compagnia San Michele is proud to present A Harbour for Nations, a multinational event that celebrates the Maltese Islands as a young emporium of intercultural character in the central Mediterranean.

This event is part of the Hands On History Project co-funded by the European Union under the European Soldiery Corps.

Talks and demonstrations

Friday 20th October 2023

Fort St Elmo
14:00 - 15:00 Demonstration of military unit maneuvers in the Spanish Tercios, in a multinational context

15:20 - 16:00 “Get ready with me” - 16th-century women’s fashion

Saturday 21st October 2023

Inquisitor’s Palace
09:30 - 12:30 Interpreting the criminal acts committed and heard during the time of the Magna Curia Castellania Melitensis

10:45 - 11:30 Talk and demonstration on 16th-century women’s fashion and camp followers

11:30 - 13:00 16th century scene of historical food and dining

Fort St Angelo
14:00 - 17:00 Reanimating the fort

14:30 - 15:00 Military movements and Skirmish

What it’s all about?

How it Started…

This Multinational event is part of an informal alliance between groups interpreting the Early Modern Period, more specifically the years between 1565 and 1571. As Compagnia San Michele has been invited to events organised by other countries, we are hosting an event that interprets some of the most eventful years of the island. Having experienced the wide open spaces other member groups can offer in their respective countries, we would like to promote a local experience.

The Concept

‘A Harbour for Nations’ aims to recreate a cosmopolitan environment synonymous with the mid-16th century Grand Harbour of Malta. Valletta and Birgu will serve as backdrops to an interpretation of an island experiencing change between the years 1565 and 1571. Spanish soldiers, European mercenaries and Italian aventurieri, Maltese militias and citizenry and Knights of Saint John will breathe a different air into the Grand Harbour, highlighting a truly intercultural atmosphere.

The perpetual clash of faith in the Mediterranean that reached its zenith in the mid-16th century was a deadlock of punitive expeditions carried out against coastal settlements. Inevitably, various Mediterranean Christian and Muslim communities suffered. The Ottoman and Maghrebi raid on Malta and Gozo in 1551, effectively depopulating the latter, is often seen as a black moment in Malta’s development; but it was, in fact, a retaliatory response to similar depredations effected by the Order of Saint John in North Africa. The siege of Malta in 1565 was nothing short of a resolute attempt by the Ottoman Empire to dislodge this threat, rendering safe the North African coast and exercising control over the Central Mediterranean Sea lane. Defending the island was not only a necessity for the Order, which had by then become increasingly inclined to call the island its permanent home, but also for Spain and its territories, which without Malta, would have been at the mercy of continued attacks. Thus Spain was the major contributor to the Christian defence of the island, and with its regiments followed many Italian nobles and adventurers from Italy and Sicily. These troops, together with the local militia, constituted the bulk of the Christian forces on Malta in 1565. An unintuitive source of relief came from the civilians who remained in Malta. Far from being a mere strain on the island’s limited provisions for a siege, the women and children present during the 1565 onslaught were lauded by the later histories of the Order for their direct role behind the walls and entrenchments, at times flinging rubble at the Ottoman and North African troops.

In 1551, Nicolas de Nicolay claimed that the town of Birgu was ‘not defensible against a great siege, being surrounded by large hills, which command it from all sides’. Fifteen years later, the stalwart Christian defence proved de Nicolay wrong, but only just. The Order and its followers had stretched the confines of the town to its absolute limits. Even with a demographic shift to the adjacent peninsula on Isla, a living space crisis did not truly abate until a fortress city that many had dreamt of became realised. The congratulatory funds that entered the Order’s coffers after the siege of 1565 allowed the Master of the Order, the man of the hour Jean de Valette, to lay the first stone of Humilissima Civitas Valletta, a harbour city built from the ground up to domesticate its surrounding harbour enclaves and accommodate the entire apparatus of the Order: within a few decades this included a Magisterial Palace, auberges, law courts, a Conventual Church, a hospital, a bakery, a slave prison, mint and foundry. But as the city flourished, all the more did the Grand Harbour itself become the centrepiece. Its various reaches all experienced some development. The new city’s limitations meant that ultimately, the maritime towns across the harbour remained the mariner’s enclave. There the Order continued to shelter its ships in their arsenals, and there is where many of the seagoing people of Malta, and many foreigners seeking a profitable adventure at sea, chose to settle.

The siege of Malta was not the day of reckoning celebrated throughout Christian Europe. Indeed, it simply marked a stage when Ottoman expansion appeared checked. Christian defeats still followed. Between 1570 and 1571, Venice, which occasionally let go of its pragmatic policy for commerce to align itself with other Christian states, lost the large island of Cyprus to an Ottoman invasion. That same year, the Order also suffered a serious defeat. Several galleys were lost to a numerically superior flotilla under the Calabrian renegade Uluj Ali. It managed to muster three galleys in time to join a newly-formed Lega Santa (Holy League) led by Spain, Venice and the Papal States. Originally meant to relieve Cyprus, the assembled 212 ships redeemed their obsolete task by hunting for the Ottoman fleet across the Ionian sea. A showdown of 490 galleys and galiots carrying some 132,000 men ensued in the Gulf of Patras, near Lepanto. It was the last true large-scale galley engagement, entering the annals of history alongside the mythical naval engagements of antiquity. By sundown, following several hours of terrible melee, the Christian force presided over a glorious bloodbath. To boot, the Battle of Lepanto was a morale victory dwarfing the clamour for the successful defence of Malta six years earlier. But there was little else that the Holy League could achieve with so much booty, so many casualties and in the month of October. The League was disbanded, and a third of the men who left Grand Harbour in the name of God never returned to Malta.

The Participants

Asociación para el Estudio de la Cultura del Siglo de Oro (AECCSO) "La Camarada" (ES)

This event is part of the Hands On History Project. The Hands On History project is co funded by the European Commission. For more information on the project please click here

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