Land and the Cross : Properties of the Order of St John Between Centre and Periphery (16th-18th Centuries)

‘As the sun sees everything, so should the eye’: this was the guiding principle expounded in the 1588 Statutes of the Order of St John concerning management and control over its extensive urban and rural properties. In a similar way, this book seeks to provide its readers with the eyes through which to navigate a variegated Hospitaller landscape from Portugal to Italy and from Germany to Malta in the early modern period.

Priories, bailiwicks, foundations, and commanderies formed the power base of the institution, and the Order acted with local leaders and communities in a series of overlapping jurisdictions which led to both fruitful alliances and power struggles. The contributions in this book, by scholars from across diverse disciplinary and geographical borders, shed light on the archival sources and legal procedures, politics and diplomacy, social and financial aspects, as well as the landscape and architectural features of the Hospitaller network of properties. In so doing, they help to recompose a fragmented and often forgotten history forged in multicultural environments.

The Land and the Cross establishes a foundation for future scholarship and stimulates interdisciplinary collaboration to recover and protect a heritage that is today neglected, hidden, or abandoned. The book challenges readers in the field of Hospitaller studies and beyond to explore a wider world through the unique and original lens of the Order of St John.

Valentina Burgassi is an assistant professor in the history of early modern architecture at Politecnico di Torino. She holds a joint PhD in Architectural and Landscape Heritage from Politecnico di Torino and in Histoire de l'Art from École Pratiques des Hautes Études. She holds a post-MA specialisation in Cultural Heritage and Landscape (2012). She worked as a teaching assistant at Politecnico di Milano (2014-2018) and as a fellow at the Palladio Museum (2020) and the École française de Rome (2018). She is part of the executive committee of the Construction History Group (Politecnico di Torino).

George Alexander Said-Zammit holds a PhD from the University of Leiden. He specialises in domestic space in the Maltese Islands and its development within a Mediterranean and European context between 1300 and 1970. He is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Said-Zammit lectures on domestic space and space syntax for the Faculty of the Built Environment of the University of Malta. He has authored various academic publications worldwide and has participated in conferences in Malta and abroad. He is an Ambassador of Malta.

Valeria Vanesio is a lecturer in the Department of Library, Information and Archive Sciences (University of Malta) and an international associate of the Malta Study Center. She holds a PhD from Sapienza University of Rome and two specialist degrees from the State Archives of Rome and the Archivio Apostolico Vaticano. She was a post-doc and an archivist of the Malta Study Center and was responsible for the first three-year project of reorganisation of the historical Magistral Archives of the Order of St John in Rome. Her most recent publication is ‘The Order of St John’s archival entanglements: cataloguing experiments at the Magistral Archives in Rome’ (2023).