MALTA & THE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS OF SAINT JOHN (I)

Today, The Grandma wants to talk about one of the oldest European orders: The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem whose history in Malta has left lots of footprints in these islands. It's an amazing part of our history that The Grandma wants to share in a two-parts story.

The Order of Malta maintains a unique status in international law: it is a sovereign state without territory. It has diplomatic relations with 115 states and is a permanent observer at the UN. This allows its members to act with complete neutrality, impartiality and political independence, facilitating the delivery of aid to anyone, regardless of their ethnicity or religion (whether Christian, Muslim or Jewish). 

The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, also known as the Order of Saint John, Order of Hospitallers, Knights Hospitaller, Knights Hospitalier or Hospitallers, was a medieval Catholic military order that became the modern Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which remains a sovereign subject of international law, as well as the Protestant members of the Alliance of the Orders of Saint John of Jerusalem. It was headquartered variously in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, on the island of Rhodes, and in Malta, and it is now headquartered in Rome.

The Hospitallers arose in the early 11th century, at the time of the great monastic reformation, as a group of individuals associated with an Amalfitan hospital in the Muristan district of Jerusalem, dedicated to John the Baptist and founded around 1023 by Gerard Thom to provide care for sick, poor or injured pilgrims coming to the Holy Land. 

Some scholars, however, consider that the Amalfitan order and hospital were different from Gerard Thom's order and its hospital. 

After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade, the organisation became a religious and military order under its own Papal charter, charged with the care and defence of the Holy Land.

 

More information: Order of Malta

Following the conquest of the Holy Land by Islamic forces, the knights operated from Rhodes, over which they were sovereign, and later from Malta, where they administered a vassal state under the Spanish viceroy of Sicily. The Hospitallers were the smallest group to colonise parts of the Americas; at one point in the mid-17th century, they acquired four Caribbean islands, which they turned over to the French in the 1660s.

The knights were weakened in the Protestant Reformation, when rich commanderies of the order in northern Germany and the Netherlands became Protestant and largely separated from the Roman Catholic main stem, remaining separate to this day, although ecumenical relations between the descendant chivalric orders are amicable. 

The order was disestablished in England, Denmark, Sweden and elsewhere in northern Europe, and it was further damaged by Napoleon's capture of Malta in 1798, following which it became dispersed throughout Europe and Russia. 

It regained strength during the early 19th century as it redirected itself toward religious and humanitarian causes. In 1834, the order, by this time known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, acquired new headquarters in Rome, where it has since been based.

In 603, Pope Gregory I commissioned the Ravennate Abbot Probus, who was previously Gregory's emissary at the Lombard court, to build a hospital in Jerusalem to treat and care for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. 

In 800, Emperor Charlemagne enlarged Probus' hospital and added a library to it. About 200 years later, in 1005, Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah destroyed the hospital and three thousand other buildings in Jerusalem. 

In 1023, merchants from Amalfi and Salerno in Italy were given permission by the Caliph Ali az-Zahir of Egypt to rebuild the hospital in Jerusalem. The hospital, which was built on the site of the monastery of Saint John the Baptist, took in Christian pilgrims traveling to visit the Christian holy sites. It was served by the Order of Saint Benedict.

The monastic hospitaller order was founded following the First Crusade by Gerard Thom, whose role as founder was confirmed by the papal bull Pie Postulatio Voluntatis issued by Pope Paschal II in 1113. 

After centuries from place to place in Europe, the knights gained fixed quarters in 1530 when Charles I of Spain, as King of Sicily, gave them Malta, Gozo and the North African port of Tripoli in perpetual fiefdom in exchange for an annual fee of a single Maltese falcon, the Tribute of the Maltese Falcon, which they were to send on All Souls' Day to the King's representative, the Viceroy of Sicily.

The Hospitallers continued their actions against the Muslims and especially the Barbary pirates. Although they had only a few ships they quickly drew the ire of the Ottomans, who were unhappy to see the order resettled. In 1565 Suleiman sent an invasion force of about 40,000 men to besiege the 700 knights and 8,000 soldiers and expel them from Malta and gain a new base from which to possibly launch another assault on Europe. This is known as the Great Siege of Malta.

 

More information: Sovereign Order of Saint John of Malta 

  

 Take this sword:

In Brightness Stands for Faith

Its point for hope,

Its guard for Charity,

Use it well...

Hospitaller Rite of Profession

At first the battle went as badly for the Hospitallers as Rhodes had: most of the cities were destroyed and about half the knights killed. On 18 August the position of the besieged was becoming desperate: dwindling daily in numbers, they were becoming too feeble to hold the long line of fortifications. But when his council suggested the abandonment of Birgu and Senglea and withdrawal to Fort St. Angelo, Grand Master Jean Parisot de Valette refused.

The Viceroy of Sicily had not sent help; possibly the Viceroy's orders from Philip II of Spain were so obscurely worded as to put on his own shoulders the burden of the decision whether to help the Order at the expense of his own defences. 

A wrong decision could mean defeat and exposing Sicily and Naples to the Ottomans. He had left his own son with La Valette, so he could hardly be indifferent to the fate of the fortress. 

Whatever may have been the cause of his delay, the Viceroy hesitated until the battle had almost been decided by the unaided efforts of the knights, before being forced to move by the indignation of his own officers.

On 23 August came yet another grand assault, the last serious effort, as it proved, of the besiegers. It was thrown back with the greatest difficulty, even the wounded taking part in the defence. The plight of the Turkish forces, however, was now desperate. With the exception of Fort Saint Elmo, the fortifications were still intact. 

More information: Medieval Warfare

Working night and day the garrison had repaired the breaches, and the capture of Malta seemed more and more impossible. Many of the Ottoman troops in crowded quarters had fallen ill over the terrible summer months. Ammunition and food were beginning to run short, and the Ottoman troops were becoming increasingly dispirited by the failure of their attacks and their losses.

The death on 23 June of skilled commander Dragut, a corsair and admiral of the Ottoman fleet, was a serious blow. 

The Turkish commanders, Piali Pasha and Lala Mustafa Pasha, were careless. They had a huge fleet which they used with effect on only one occasion. They neglected their communications with the African coast and made no attempt to watch and intercept Sicilian reinforcements.

On 1 September they made their last effort, but the morale of the Ottoman troops had deteriorated seriously and the attack was feeble, to the great encouragement of the besieged, who now began to see hopes of deliverance.

More information: St John's Co-Cathedral

The perplexed and indecisive Ottomans heard of the arrival of Sicilian reinforcements in Mellieħa Bay. Unaware that the force was very small, they broke off the siege and left on 8 September. The Great Siege of Malta may have been the last action in which a force of knights won a decisive victory.

When the Ottomans departed, the Hospitallers had but 600 men able to bear arms. The most reliable estimate puts the number of the Ottoman army at its height at some 40,000 men, of whom 15,000 eventually returned to Constantinople. 

After the siege a new city had to be built: the present capital city of Malta, named Valletta in memory of the Grand Master who had withstood the siege. In 1607, the Grand Master of the Hospitallers was granted the status of Reichsfürst, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, even though the Order's territory was always south of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1630, he was awarded ecclesiastic equality with cardinals, and the unique hybrid style His Most Eminent Highness, reflecting both qualities qualifying him as a true Prince of the Church.

Having gained Malta, the knights stayed for 268 years, transforming what they called merely a rock of soft sandstone into a flourishing island with mighty defences and a capital city, Valletta, known as Superbissima, Most Proud, amongst the great powers of Europe. However, the indigenous islanders had not particularly enjoyed the rule of the Knights of St John. Most Knights were French and excluded the native islanders from important positions. They were especially loathed for the way they took advantage of the native women.

More information: Malta Uncovered

 

 

 In Malta, the Wars of Religion reached their climax. 

If both sides believed that they saw Paradise 

in the bright sky above them, 

they had a close and very intimate knowledge of Hell.

Ernle Bradford

NERO DIES ENDING THE JULIO-CLAUDIAN DYNASTY IN 68

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Nero, the Roman emperor, who  died on a day like today in 1596.

Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37-9 June AD 68) was a Roman emperor and the final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 until his death in AD 68.

Nero was born at Antium in AD 37, the son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina the Younger, great-granddaughter of the emperor Augustus. Nero was three when his father died.

By the time Nero turned eleven, his mother married Emperor Claudius, who then adopted Nero as his heir. Upon Claudius' death in AD 54, Nero ascended to the throne with the backing of the Praetorian Guard and the Senate. In the early years of his reign, Nero was advised and guided by his mother Agrippina, his tutor Seneca the Younger, and his praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus, but sought to rule independently and rid himself of restraining influences. The power struggle between Nero and his mother reached its climax when he orchestrated her murder. Roman sources also implicate Nero in the deaths of both his wife Claudia Octavia -supposedly so he could marry Poppaea Sabina- and his stepbrother Britannicus.

Nero's practical contributions to Rome's governance focused on diplomacy, trade, and culture. He ordered the construction of amphitheaters, and promoted athletic games and contests. He made public appearances as an actor, poet, musician, and charioteer, which scandalized his aristocratic contemporaries as these occupations were usually the domain of slaves, public entertainers, and infamous persons. However, the provision of such entertainments made Nero popular among lower-class citizens. The costs involved were borne by local elites either directly or through taxation, and were much resented by the Roman aristocracy.

During Nero's reign, the general Corbulo fought the Roman-Parthian War of 58–63, and made peace with the hostile Parthian Empire. The Roman general Suetonius Paulinus quashed a major revolt in Britain led by queen Boudica. The Bosporan Kingdom was briefly annexed to the empire, and the First Jewish-Roman War began. When the Roman senator Vindex rebelled, with support from the eventual Roman emperor Galba, Nero was declared a public enemy and condemned to death in absentia. He fled Rome, and on 9 June AD 68 committed suicide. His death sparked a brief period of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors.

Most Roman sources offer overwhelmingly negative assessments of his personality and reign. Most contemporary sources describe him as tyrannical, self-indulgent, and debauched. The historian Tacitus claims the Roman people thought him compulsive and corrupt. Suetonius tells that many Romans believed the Great Fire of Rome was instigated by Nero to clear land for his planned Golden House. Tacitus claims Nero seized Christians as scapegoats for the fire and had them burned alive, seemingly motivated not by public justice, but personal cruelty. Some modern historians question the reliability of ancient sources on Nero's tyrannical acts, considering his popularity among the Roman commoners. In the eastern provinces of the Empire, a popular legend arose that Nero had not died and would return. After his death, at least three leaders of short-lived, failed rebellions presented themselves as Nero reborn to gain popular support.

More information: British Museum

Nero was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus on 15 December AD 37 in Antium (modern Anzio), eight months after the death of Tiberius. He was an only-child, the son of the politician Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina the Younger. His mother Agrippina was the sister of the third Roman emperor Caligula. Nero was also the great-great-grandson of former emperor Augustus, descended from Augustus' only daughter, Julia.

Nero became emperor in AD 54, aged 16. His tutor, Seneca, prepared Nero's first speech before the Senate.

The Great Fire of Rome began on the night of 18 to 19 July 64, probably in one of the merchant shops on the slope of the Aventine overlooking the Circus Maximus, or in the wooden outer seating of the Circus itself. Rome had always been vulnerable to fires, and this one was fanned to catastrophic proportions by the winds.

Tacitus, Cassius Dio, and modern archaeology describe the destruction of mansions, ordinary residences, public buildings, and temples on the Aventine, Palatine, and Caelian hills. The fire burned for over seven days before subsiding; it then started again and burned for three more. It destroyed three of Rome's 14 districts and severely damaged seven more.

Nero learned that the Senate had declared him a public enemy. Nero prepared himself for suicide, pacing up and down muttering Qualis artifex pereo (What an artist the world is losing!). Losing his nerve, he begged one of his companions to set an example by killing himself first. At last, the sound of approaching horsemen drove Nero to face the end. However, he still could not bring himself to take his own life, but instead forced his private secretary, Epaphroditus, to perform the task.

According to Suetonius and Cassius Dio, the people of Rome celebrated the death of Nero. Tacitus, though, describes a more complicated political environment. Tacitus mentions that Nero's death was welcomed by senators, nobility, and the upper class. The lower class, slaves, frequenters of the arena and the theater, and those who were supported by the famous excesses of Nero, on the other hand, were upset with the news. Members of the military were said to have mixed feelings, as they had allegiance to Nero but had been bribed to overthrow him.

More information: BBC

Cum meruero.

Wait until I deserve them.

MALTA & THE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS OF SAINT JOHN (I)

Today, The Grandma wants to talk about one of the oldest European orders: The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem whose history in Malta has left lots of footprints in these islands. It's an amazing part of our history that The Grandma wants to share with her family in a two-parts story.

The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, also known as the Order of Saint John, Order of Hospitallers, Knights Hospitaller, Knights Hospitalier or Hospitallers, was a medieval Catholic military order that became the modern Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which remains a sovereign subject of international law, as well as the Protestant members of the Alliance of the Orders of Saint John of Jerusalem. It was headquartered variously in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, on the island of Rhodes, and in Malta, and it is now headquartered in Rome.

The Hospitallers arose in the early 11th century, at the time of the great monastic reformation, as a group of individuals associated with an Amalfitan hospital in the Muristan district of Jerusalem, dedicated to John the Baptist and founded around 1023 by Gerard Thom to provide care for sick, poor or injured pilgrims coming to the Holy Land. 

Some scholars, however, consider that the Amalfitan order and hospital were different from Gerard Thom's order and its hospital. 

After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade, the organisation became a religious and military order under its own Papal charter, charged with the care and defence of the Holy Land.

 

More information: Order of Malta

Following the conquest of the Holy Land by Islamic forces, the knights operated from Rhodes, over which they were sovereign, and later from Malta, where they administered a vassal state under the Spanish viceroy of Sicily. The Hospitallers were the smallest group to colonise parts of the Americas; at one point in the mid-17th century, they acquired four Caribbean islands, which they turned over to the French in the 1660s.

The knights were weakened in the Protestant Reformation, when rich commanderies of the order in northern Germany and the Netherlands became Protestant and largely separated from the Roman Catholic main stem, remaining separate to this day, although ecumenical relations between the descendant chivalric orders are amicable. 

The order was disestablished in England, Denmark, Sweden and elsewhere in northern Europe, and it was further damaged by Napoleon's capture of Malta in 1798, following which it became dispersed throughout Europe and Russia. 

It regained strength during the early 19th century as it redirected itself toward religious and humanitarian causes. In 1834, the order, by this time known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, acquired new headquarters in Rome, where it has since been based.

More information: Sovereign Order of Saint John of Malta

In 603, Pope Gregory I commissioned the Ravennate Abbot Probus, who was previously Gregory's emissary at the Lombard court, to build a hospital in Jerusalem to treat and care for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. 

In 800, Emperor Charlemagne enlarged Probus' hospital and added a library to it. About 200 years later, in 1005, Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah destroyed the hospital and three thousand other buildings in Jerusalem. 

In 1023, merchants from Amalfi and Salerno in Italy were given permission by the Caliph Ali az-Zahir of Egypt to rebuild the hospital in Jerusalem. The hospital, which was built on the site of the monastery of Saint John the Baptist, took in Christian pilgrims traveling to visit the Christian holy sites. It was served by the Order of Saint Benedict.

The monastic hospitaller order was founded following the First Crusade by Gerard Thom, whose role as founder was confirmed by the papal bull Pie Postulatio Voluntatis issued by Pope Paschal II in 1113. 

After centuries from place to place in Europe, the knights gained fixed quarters in 1530 when Charles I of Spain, as King of Sicily, gave them Malta, Gozo and the North African port of Tripoli in perpetual fiefdom in exchange for an annual fee of a single Maltese falcon, the Tribute of the Maltese Falcon, which they were to send on All Souls' Day to the King's representative, the Viceroy of Sicily.

The Hospitallers continued their actions against the Muslims and especially the Barbary pirates. Although they had only a few ships they quickly drew the ire of the Ottomans, who were unhappy to see the order resettled. In 1565 Suleiman sent an invasion force of about 40,000 men to besiege the 700 knights and 8,000 soldiers and expel them from Malta and gain a new base from which to possibly launch another assault on Europe. This is known as the Great Siege of Malta.

 

 

Take this sword:

In Brightness Stands for Faith

Its point for hope,

Its guard for Charity,

Use it well...

Hospitaller Rite of Profession

At first the battle went as badly for the Hospitallers as Rhodes had: most of the cities were destroyed and about half the knights killed. On 18 August the position of the besieged was becoming desperate: dwindling daily in numbers, they were becoming too feeble to hold the long line of fortifications. But when his council suggested the abandonment of Birgu and Senglea and withdrawal to Fort St. Angelo, Grand Master Jean Parisot de Valette refused.

The Viceroy of Sicily had not sent help; possibly the Viceroy's orders from Philip II of Spain were so obscurely worded as to put on his own shoulders the burden of the decision whether to help the Order at the expense of his own defences. 

A wrong decision could mean defeat and exposing Sicily and Naples to the Ottomans. He had left his own son with La Valette, so he could hardly be indifferent to the fate of the fortress. 

Whatever may have been the cause of his delay, the Viceroy hesitated until the battle had almost been decided by the unaided efforts of the knights, before being forced to move by the indignation of his own officers.

On 23 August came yet another grand assault, the last serious effort, as it proved, of the besiegers. It was thrown back with the greatest difficulty, even the wounded taking part in the defence. The plight of the Turkish forces, however, was now desperate. With the exception of Fort Saint Elmo, the fortifications were still intact. 

More information: Medieval Warfare

Working night and day the garrison had repaired the breaches, and the capture of Malta seemed more and more impossible. Many of the Ottoman troops in crowded quarters had fallen ill over the terrible summer months. Ammunition and food were beginning to run short, and the Ottoman troops were becoming increasingly dispirited by the failure of their attacks and their losses.

The death on 23 June of skilled commander Dragut, a corsair and admiral of the Ottoman fleet, was a serious blow. 

The Turkish commanders, Piali Pasha and Lala Mustafa Pasha, were careless. They had a huge fleet which they used with effect on only one occasion. They neglected their communications with the African coast and made no attempt to watch and intercept Sicilian reinforcements.

On 1 September they made their last effort, but the morale of the Ottoman troops had deteriorated seriously and the attack was feeble, to the great encouragement of the besieged, who now began to see hopes of deliverance.

More information: St John's Co Cathedral

The perplexed and indecisive Ottomans heard of the arrival of Sicilian reinforcements in Mellieħa Bay. Unaware that the force was very small, they broke off the siege and left on 8 September. The Great Siege of Malta may have been the last action in which a force of knights won a decisive victory.

When the Ottomans departed, the Hospitallers had but 600 men able to bear arms. The most reliable estimate puts the number of the Ottoman army at its height at some 40,000 men, of whom 15,000 eventually returned to Constantinople. 

After the siege a new city had to be built: the present capital city of Malta, named Valletta in memory of the Grand Master who had withstood the siege. In 1607, the Grand Master of the Hospitallers was granted the status of Reichsfürst, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, even though the Order's territory was always south of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1630, he was awarded ecclesiastic equality with cardinals, and the unique hybrid style His Most Eminent Highness, reflecting both qualities qualifying him as a true Prince of the Church.

More information: Malta Uncovered

Having gained Malta, the knights stayed for 268 years, transforming what they called merely a rock of soft sandstone into a flourishing island with mighty defences and a capital city, Valletta, known as Superbissima, Most Proud, amongst the great powers of Europe. However, the indigenous islanders had not particularly enjoyed the rule of the Knights of St John. Most Knights were French and excluded the native islanders from important positions. They were especially loathed for the way they took advantage of the native women.

To be continued... 

 

 

 In Malta, the Wars of Religion reached their climax. 

If both sides believed that they saw Paradise 

in the bright sky above them, 

they had a close and very intimate knowledge of Hell.

Ernle Bradford

NERO CLAUDIUS CAESAR AUGUSTUS GERMANICUS

Today, The Grandma has gone to the library to search more information about Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, the Roman emperor who was born on a day like today in 37 AD.

Nero (Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus; 15 December 37-9 June 68 AD) was the fifth emperor of Rome.

He was adopted by the Roman emperor Claudius at the age of thirteen, and succeeded him to the throne.

Nero seems to have been popular with his Praetorian guards, and with lower-class commoners in Rome and the provinces, but was deeply resented by the Roman aristocracy.

Most contemporary sources describe him as tyrannical, self-indulgent and debauched. He was overthrown by his Senate and committed suicide aged 30, last emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

Nero was born at Antium in AD 37, the son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina the Younger, a great-granddaughter of the emperor Augustus. When Nero was two years old, his father died. His mother married the emperor Claudius, who eventually adopted Nero as his heir; when Claudius died in 54, Nero became emperor, firstly with the support of the Praetorian guard, and then the Senate.

More information: The British Museum

In the early years of his reign, Nero was advised and guided by his mother Agrippina, his tutor Seneca the Younger, and his praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus. Nero soon sought to rule independently, and to rid himself of restraining influences.

His power struggle with his mother was eventually resolved when he had her murdered. Roman sources also implicate Nero in the deaths of his foster brother Britannicus, and his wife Claudia Octavia -the latter supposedly so that he could marry Poppaea Sabina. Most Roman sources present Nero as sexually dissolute.

He is said to have married a freedman Pythagoras, acting the part of bride at the ceremony. After Poppaea's death in unclear circumstances, Nero in short succession married an aristocratic woman Statilia Messalina and another freedman, Sporus, whom he had castrated.

More information: Live Science

Nero's practical contributions to Rome's governance focused on diplomacy, trade, and culture. He ordered the construction of amphitheaters, promoted athletic games and contests, and made public appearances as an actor, poet, musician, and charioteer. This scandalised his aristocratic contemporaries as these occupations were usually the domain of slaves, public entertainers and infamous persons.

The provision of such entertainments made Nero popular among lower-class citizens, but his performances undermined the Imperial dignity. The costs involved were borne by local elites either directly or through taxation, and were much resented.

During Nero's reign, the general Corbulo fought the Roman-Parthian War of 58-63, and made peace with the hostile Parthian Empire. The Roman general Suetonius Paulinus quashed a major revolt in Britain led by the Iceni's queen Boudica.

The Bosporan Kingdom was briefly annexed to the empire, and the First Jewish-Roman War began. When the Roman senator Vindex rebelled, with support from the eventual Roman emperor Galba, Nero was declared a public enemy and condemned to death in absentia. He fled Rome, and on 9 June in AD 68 he committed suicide. His death sparked a brief period of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors.

Most Roman sources offer overwhelmingly negative assessments of his personality and reign. The historian Tacitus claims the Roman people thought him compulsive and corrupt. 

Suetonius tells that many Romans believed that the Great Fire of Rome was instigated by Nero to clear land for his planned, Golden House.

Tacitus claims that Nero seized Christians as scapegoats for the fire, and had them burned alive, seemingly motivated not by public justice but by personal cruelty.

Some modern historians question the reliability of the ancient sources on Nero's tyrannical acts, considering his popularity among the Roman commoners. In the eastern provinces of the Empire, a popular legend arose that Nero had not died and would return. After his death, at least three leaders of short-lived, failed rebellions presented themselves as Nero reborn in order to gain popular support.

More information: The New Yorker

Nero was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus on 15 December 37 AD in Antium (modern Anzio). He was an only-child, the son of the politician Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina the Younger. His mother Agrippina was the sister of the third Roman emperor Caligula.

Nero was also the great-great grandson of former emperor Augustus, descended from Augustus' only daughter, Julia.

He died on 9 June 68, the anniversary of the death of his first wife Claudia Octavia, and was buried in the Mausoleum of the Domitii Ahenobarbi, in what is now the Villa Borghese (Pincian Hill) area of Rome.

According to Sulpicius Severus, it is unclear whether Nero took his own life.

With his death, the Julio-Claudian dynasty ended. When news of his death reached Rome, the Senate posthumously declared Nero a public enemy to appease the coming Galba, as the Senate had initially declared Galba as a public enemy, and proclaimed Galba as the new emperor.

Chaos would ensue in the year of the Four Emperors.

More information: History

 I have done everything that I should,
but the outcome is in the hand of fortune.

Nero

GIACOMO PUCCINI'S 'TOSCA' PREMIERES IN ROMA IN 1900

Tosca by Giacomo Puccini

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has received the visit of her closer friend Tina Picotes who is a great fan of opera. They have been talking about this musical genre and they have been listening to a great masterpiece, Tosca, the opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini that was premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on a day like today in 1900.

Many great tenors and sopranos have sung this wonderful opera but The Grandma and Tina have their own preferences. The Grandma loves Errico Caruso and Tina likes Luciano Pavarotti. Both of them love Maria Callas.

The Grandma has remembered another closer friend. Ana Maria Bean, a great fan of Maria Callas, who shared her knowledge about the American diva with The Grandma and The Beans some years ago.

Tina and The Grandma have been remembering last time they went to the theatre together to enjoy Tosca. It was last June in the Teatre Liceu in Barcelona in a special day when this opera was offered free by TV to hundreds of Catalan cities and towns that installed giant screens to allow to their citizens to follow this opera in an event called Liceu a la Fresca.

Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.

It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language dramatic play, La Tosca, is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800, with the Kingdom of Naples's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's invasion of Italy. It contains depictions of torture, murder and suicide, as well as some of Puccini's best-known lyrical arias.

More information: Lucca, Giacomo Puccini's Birthplace in Tuscany

Puccini saw Sardou's play when it was touring Italy in 1889 and, after some vacillation, obtained the rights to turn the work into an opera in 1895. Turning the wordy French play into a succinct Italian opera took four years, during which the composer repeatedly argued with his librettists and publisher. Tosca premiered at a time of unrest in Rome, and its first performance was delayed for a day for fear of disturbances. Despite indifferent reviews from the critics, the opera was an immediate success with the public.

Giacomo Puccini

Musically, Tosca is structured as a through-composed work, with arias, recitative, choruses and other elements musically woven into a seamless whole. Puccini used Wagnerian leitmotifs to identify characters, objects and ideas. While critics have often dismissed the opera as a facile melodrama with confusions of plot -musicologist Joseph Kerman famously called it a shabby little shocker- the power of its score and the inventiveness of its orchestration have been widely acknowledged.

The dramatic force of Tosca and its characters continues to fascinate both performers and audiences, and the work remains one of the most frequently performed operas. Many recordings of the work have been issued, both of studio and live performances.

The French playwright Victorien Sardou wrote more than 70 plays, almost all of them successful, and none of them performed today. In the early 1880s Sardou began a collaboration with actress Sarah Bernhardt, whom he provided with a series of historical melodramas. His third Bernhardt play, La Tosca, which premiered in Paris on 24 November 1887, and in which she starred throughout Europe, was an outstanding success, with more than 3,000 performances in France alone.

Puccini had seen La Tosca at least twice, in Milan and Turin. On 7 May 1889 he wrote to his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, begging him to get Sardou's permission for the work to be made into an opera: I see in this Tosca the opera I need, with no overblown proportions, no elaborate spectacle, nor will it call for the usual excessive amount of music.

More information: Live About

Ricordi sent his agent in Paris, Emanuele Muzio, to negotiate with Sardou, who preferred that his play be adapted by a French composer. He complained about the reception La Tosca had received in Italy, particularly in Milan, and warned that other composers were interested in the piece. Nonetheless, Ricordi reached terms with Sardou and assigned the librettist Luigi Illica to write a scenario for an adaptation.

In 1891, Illica advised Puccini against the project, most likely because he felt the play could not be successfully adapted to a musical form. When Sardou expressed his unease at entrusting his most successful work to a relatively new composer whose music he did not like, Puccini took offence. He withdrew from the agreement, which Ricordi then assigned to the composer Alberto Franchetti. Illica wrote a libretto for Franchetti, who was never at ease with the assignment.

When Puccini once again became interested in Tosca, Ricordi was able to get Franchetti to surrender the rights so he could recommission Puccini. One story relates that Ricordi convinced Franchetti that the work was too violent to be successfully staged.

Tosca, Teatre Liceu, Barcelona (2019)

A Franchetti family tradition holds that Franchetti gave the work back as a grand gesture, saying, He has more talent than I do. Whatever the reason, Franchetti surrendered the rights in May 1895, and in August Puccini signed a contract to resume control of the project.

According to the libretto, the action of Tosca occurs in Rome in June 1800. Sardou, in his play, dates it more precisely; La Tosca takes place in the afternoon, evening, and early morning of 17 and 18 June 1800.

Italy had long been divided into a number of small states, with the Pope in Rome ruling the Papal States in Central Italy.

Following the French Revolution, a French army under Napoleon invaded Italy in 1796, entering Rome almost unopposed on 11 February 1798 and establishing a republic there. Pope Pius VI was taken prisoner, and was sent into exile on February 20, 1798. Pius VI would die in exile in 1799, and his successor, Pius VII, who was elected in Venice on 14 March 1800, would not enter Rome until July 3. There is thus neither a Pope nor papal government in Rome during the days depicted in the opera. The new republic was ruled by seven consuls; in the opera this is the office formerly held by Angelotti, whose character may be based on the real-life consul Liborio Angelucci.

In September 1799 the French, who had protected the republic, withdrew from Rome. As they left, troops of the Kingdom of Naples occupied the city.

More information: Murashev

In May 1800 Napoleon, by then the undisputed leader of France, brought his troops across the Alps to Italy once again. On 14 June his army met the Austrian forces at the Battle of Marengo, near Alessandria. Austrian troops were initially successful; by mid-morning they were in control of the field of battle. Their commander, Michael von Melas, sent this news south towards Rome. However, fresh French troops arrived in late afternoon, and Napoleon attacked the tired Austrians. As Melas retreated in disarray with the remains of his army, he sent a second courier south with the revised message.

The Neapolitans abandoned Rome, and the city spent the next fourteen years under French domination.

By December 1899, Tosca was in rehearsal at the Teatro Costanzi. Because of the Roman setting, Ricordi arranged a Roman premiere for the opera, even though this meant that Arturo Toscanini could not conduct it as Puccini had hoped -Toscanini was fully engaged at La Scala in Milan.

Leopoldo Mugnone was appointed to conduct. The accomplished, but temperamental, soprano Hariclea Darclée was selected for the title role; Eugenio Giraldoni, whose father had originated many Verdi roles, became the first Scarpia. 

Tosca & Maria Callas, 1964

The young Errico Caruso had hoped to create Cavaradossi, but was passed over in favour of the more experienced Emilio De Marchi. The performance was to be directed by Nino Vignuzzi, with stage designs by Adolfo Hohenstein.

At the time of the premiere, Italy had experienced political and social unrest for several years. The start of the Holy Year in December 1899 attracted the religious to the city, but also brought threats from anarchists and other anticlericals. Police received warnings of an anarchist bombing of the theatre, and instructed Mugnone, who had survived a theatre bombing in Barcelona, that in an emergency he was to strike up the royal march. The unrest caused the premiere to be postponed by one day, to 14 January.

By January, 14 1900, the premiere of a Puccini opera was a national event. Many Roman dignitaries attended, as did Queen Margherita, though she arrived late, after the first act. The Prime Minister of Italy, Luigi Pelloux was present, with several members of his cabinet. A number of Puccini's operatic rivals were there, including Franchetti, Pietro Mascagni, Francesco Cilea and Ildebrando Pizzetti.

More information: The Opera 101

Shortly after the curtain was raised there was a disturbance in the back of the theatre, caused by latecomers attempting to enter the auditorium, and a shout of Bring down the curtain!, at which Mugnone stopped the orchestra. A few moments later the opera began again, and proceeded without further disruption.

The performance, while not quite the triumph that Puccini had hoped for, was generally successful, with numerous encores. Much of the critical and press reaction was lukewarm, often blaming Illica's libretto. In response, Illica condemned Puccini for treating his librettists like stagehands and reducing the text to a shadow of its original form. Nevertheless, any public doubts about Tosca soon vanished; the premiere was followed by twenty performances, all given to packed houses.

More information: ENO

The first opera I went to see

was Maria Callas singing Tosca.

Marianne Faithfull

MALTA & THE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS OF SAINT JOHN (I)

Grand Master Knight of Malta

Today, The Grandma wants to talk about one of the oldest European orders: The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem whose history in Malta has left lots of footprints in these islands. It's an amazing part of our history that The Grandma wants to share with her families in a two-parts story.

The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, also known as the Order of Saint John, Order of Hospitallers, Knights Hospitaller, Knights Hospitalier or Hospitallers, was a medieval Catholic military order that became the modern Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which remains a sovereign subject of international law, as well as the Protestant members of the Alliance of the Orders of Saint John of Jerusalem. It was headquartered variously in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, on the island of Rhodes, and in Malta, and it is now headquartered in Rome.

The Hospitallers arose in the early 11th century, at the time of the great monastic reformation, as a group of individuals associated with an Amalfitan hospital in the Muristan district of Jerusalem, dedicated to John the Baptist and founded around 1023 by Gerard Thom to provide care for sick, poor or injured pilgrims coming to the Holy Land. 

Grand Master Knight of Malta & The Grandma

Some scholars, however, consider that the Amalfitan order and hospital were different from Gerard Thom's order and its hospital. 

After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade, the organisation became a religious and military order under its own Papal charter, charged with the care and defence of the Holy Land. 

Following the conquest of the Holy Land by Islamic forces, the knights operated from Rhodes, over which they were sovereign, and later from Malta, where they administered a vassal state under the Spanish viceroy of Sicily. The Hospitallers were the smallest group to colonise parts of the Americas; at one point in the mid-17th century, they acquired four Caribbean islands, which they turned over to the French in the 1660s.

More information: Order of Malta

The knights were weakened in the Protestant Reformation, when rich commanderies of the order in northern Germany and the Netherlands became Protestant and largely separated from the Roman Catholic main stem, remaining separate to this day, although ecumenical relations between the descendant chivalric orders are amicable. 

Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Malta

The order was disestablished in England, Denmark, Sweden and elsewhere in northern Europe, and it was further damaged by Napoleon's capture of Malta in 1798, following which it became dispersed throughout Europe and Russia. 

It regained strength during the early 19th century as it redirected itself toward religious and humanitarian causes. In 1834, the order, by this time known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, acquired new headquarters in Rome, where it has since been based.

More information: Sovereign Order of Saint John of Malta

In 603, Pope Gregory I commissioned the Ravennate Abbot Probus, who was previously Gregory's emissary at the Lombard court, to build a hospital in Jerusalem to treat and care for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. 

In 800, Emperor Charlemagne enlarged Probus' hospital and added a library to it. About 200 years later, in 1005, Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah destroyed the hospital and three thousand other buildings in Jerusalem. 

In 1023, merchants from Amalfi and Salerno in Italy were given permission by the Caliph Ali az-Zahir of Egypt to rebuild the hospital in Jerusalem. The hospital, which was built on the site of the monastery of Saint John the Baptist, took in Christian pilgrims traveling to visit the Christian holy sites. It was served by the Order of Saint Benedict.

The Grandma at Wignacourt Tower, San Pawl il-Baħar

The monastic hospitaller order was founded following the First Crusade by Gerard Thom, whose role as founder was confirmed by the papal bull Pie Postulatio Voluntatis issued by Pope Paschal II in 1113. 

After centuries from place to place in Europe, the knights gained fixed quarters in 1530 when Charles I of Spain, as King of Sicily, gave them Malta, Gozo and the North African port of Tripoli in perpetual fiefdom in exchange for an annual fee of a single Maltese falcon, the Tribute of the Maltese Falcon, which they were to send on All Souls' Day to the King's representative, the Viceroy of Sicily.

The Hospitallers continued their actions against the Muslims and especially the Barbary pirates. Although they had only a few ships they quickly drew the ire of the Ottomans, who were unhappy to see the order resettled. In 1565 Suleiman sent an invasion force of about 40,000 men to besiege the 700 knights and 8,000 soldiers and expel them from Malta and gain a new base from which to possibly launch another assault on Europe. This is known as the Great Siege of Malta.
 

Take this sword:

In Brightness Stands for Faith

Its point for hope,

Its guard for Charity,

Use it well...

Hospitaller Rite of Profession

At first the battle went as badly for the Hospitallers as Rhodes had: most of the cities were destroyed and about half the knights killed. On 18 August the position of the besieged was becoming desperate: dwindling daily in numbers, they were becoming too feeble to hold the long line of fortifications. But when his council suggested the abandonment of Birgu and Senglea and withdrawal to Fort St. Angelo, Grand Master Jean Parisot de Valette refused.

Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Malta

The Viceroy of Sicily had not sent help; possibly the Viceroy's orders from Philip II of Spain were so obscurely worded as to put on his own shoulders the burden of the decision whether to help the Order at the expense of his own defences. 

A wrong decision could mean defeat and exposing Sicily and Naples to the Ottomans. He had left his own son with La Valette, so he could hardly be indifferent to the fate of the fortress. 

Whatever may have been the cause of his delay, the Viceroy hesitated until the battle had almost been decided by the unaided efforts of the knights, before being forced to move by the indignation of his own officers.

On 23 August came yet another grand assault, the last serious effort, as it proved, of the besiegers. It was thrown back with the greatest difficulty, even the wounded taking part in the defence. The plight of the Turkish forces, however, was now desperate. With the exception of Fort Saint Elmo, the fortifications were still intact. 

More information: Medieval Warfare

Working night and day the garrison had repaired the breaches, and the capture of Malta seemed more and more impossible. Many of the Ottoman troops in crowded quarters had fallen ill over the terrible summer months. Ammunition and food were beginning to run short, and the Ottoman troops were becoming increasingly dispirited by the failure of their attacks and their losses.

The Grandma in Malta's Knights of St John Hall

The death on 23 June of skilled commander Dragut, a corsair and admiral of the Ottoman fleet, was a serious blow. 

The Turkish commanders, Piali Pasha and Lala Mustafa Pasha, were careless. They had a huge fleet which they used with effect on only one occasion. They neglected their communications with the African coast and made no attempt to watch and intercept Sicilian reinforcements.

On 1 September they made their last effort, but the morale of the Ottoman troops had deteriorated seriously and the attack was feeble, to the great encouragement of the besieged, who now began to see hopes of deliverance.

More information: St John's Co Cathedral

The perplexed and indecisive Ottomans heard of the arrival of Sicilian reinforcements in Mellieħa Bay. Unaware that the force was very small, they broke off the siege and left on 8 September. The Great Siege of Malta may have been the last action in which a force of knights won a decisive victory.

The Grandma at Saint John's Cathedral, Valletta

When the Ottomans departed, the Hospitallers had but 600 men able to bear arms. The most reliable estimate puts the number of the Ottoman army at its height at some 40,000 men, of whom 15,000 eventually returned to Constantinople. 

After the siege a new city had to be built: the present capital city of Malta, named Valletta in memory of the Grand Master who had withstood the siege. In 1607, the Grand Master of the Hospitallers was granted the status of Reichsfürst, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, even though the Order's territory was always south of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1630, he was awarded ecclesiastic equality with cardinals, and the unique hybrid style His Most Eminent Highness, reflecting both qualities qualifying him as a true Prince of the Church.

More information: Malta Uncovered

Having gained Malta, the knights stayed for 268 years, transforming what they called merely a rock of soft sandstone into a flourishing island with mighty defences and a capital city, Valletta, known as Superbissima, Most Proud, amongst the great powers of Europe. However, the indigenous islanders had not particularly enjoyed the rule of the Knights of St John. Most Knights were French and excluded the native islanders from important positions. They were especially loathed for the way they took advantage of the native women.

To be continued... 

In Malta, the Wars of Religion reached their climax. 

If both sides believed that they saw Paradise in the bright sky above them, they had a close and very intimate knowledge of Hell.

Ernle Bradford