The Winged Lion and the Eight-Pointed Cross: Venice, Hospitaller Malta, and the Mediterranean in Early Modern Times

Victor Mallia-Milanes

Sep 2023 · Taylor & Francis

About this ebook

The papers reprinted in this volume focus on the extraordinary and multifaceted relationship between two Christian States: the Republic of Venice and the Island Order State on Hospitaller Malta between 1530 and the late 1790s. It was marked by three distinct phenomena – military cooperation along with other Western allies against the Ottoman Empire; direct mutual confrontation, at times even leading to war; and commercial cooperation. A fourth phenomenon, this time involving the wider Mediterranean context within which the two interacted, concerns the idea of decline. Some of the papers that follow question the validity of the traditional view that the Mediterranean and Venice were in decline by the sixteenth century and that the Hospitaller Order, claimed to be in decline by the eighteenth, had given up Malta to the French as a result.

This book will appeal to all those interested in Crusading Orders and the history of the Crusades, as well as the history of Venice, Malta, and the Mediterranean in the early modern period.

About the author

Victor Mallia-Milanes is Professor of History, former Head of the Department of History and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Malta. His special research interests include Venice, the Hospitaller Order of St John, Malta, and the Mediterranean in the early modern period, on which he has published extensively. His publications include Venice and Hospitaller Malta 1530–1798: Aspects of a Relationship; Hospitaller Malta 1530–1798; In the Service of the Venetian Republic; Lo Stato dell’Ordine di Malta, 1630; and Valletta: Malta’s Hospitaller City, and Other Essays.