Msida Bastion Cemetery
AWARD
In
March 2002
Din L’Art Helwa was awarded the prestigious Silver Medal of Honour for the
restoration of the Msida Bastion Cemetery by Europa Nostra, which is the
European Federation of 230 National Trusts and Heritage NGO’s. Prince Heinrich
of Denmark, the President of Europa Nostra, made the presentation at a ceremony
in Copenhagen.
As
is customary, the recipient country celebrates the award by arranging its own
official presentation. This took place at the Palace in Valletta on Friday 10th
May when the President of Malta, H.E. Professor Guido de Marco, held a reception
for the Council of Din L’Art Helwa and the Din L’Art Helwa volunteers who
had given so much of their free time over ten years on this project.
A
commemorative plaque was also presented, and will be displayed in the Cemetery
Museum currently under construction.
Msida
Bastion cemetery was one of four cemeteries or burial grounds located close to
the bastions at Floriana. These bastions were built in the 17th century by the
Italian engineer, Floriani, as additional protection for the city of Valletta.
The French took over Malta in June 1798 but surrendered in September 1800 to the
combined Maltese and British Forces. Shortly afterwards burials began to be made
in this bastion area. The other three cemeteries, Quarantine, Greek Orthodox and
Cholera, are no longer in existence and the land has been built upon.
Din L’Art Helwa (The National Trust of Malta) in
conjunction with the Government of Malta and the British High Commission took an
interest in Msida Bastion Cemetery and during 1988 this research culminated with
the then Minister of Education, Dr. Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, declaring that the area
should be open to the public as a garden, with some of the most important tombs
restored and retained.
As a first step the surrounding wall was increased in
height in an attempt to preserve what was left of the cemetery at that time. The
main driving force Mr. Reginald G. Kirkpatrick, the project leader died suddenly
shortly afterwards, and work came to a halt. In 1993 a new team was assembled,
being a joint effort between Din L’Art Helwa volunteers, British residents,
aided by the Environment and Agriculture Ministries of the Malta Government, and
the British High Commission.
The
first section to be restored was officially opened in September 1995 by the
President of Malta, Dr. Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, who had been instrumental in the
scheme since its conception. The work continued and was finished in 2000 when
the whole cemetery area was opened to the public as a ‘Garden of Repose’.
No records exist recording the burials, but the cemetery was surveyed by Captain Charles Zammit in 1930, and upon his basic data the late Mr. Kirkpatrick carried out further research on the persons buried there. He built up an a comprehensive collection of material, from sources in the U.K. as well as in Malta. This research has continued and during the site restoration some previously unknown graves were uncovered under about 6”of soil. The Zammit report says ‘the great majority of the inscriptions are damaged and indecipherable’, and during the intervening seventy years the site was subjected to further ruinous actions.
All the grave space was virtually taken by 1857 when the large Ta' Braxia cemetery was opened.
The
principal occupants of the cemetery were British Army and Naval personnel,
British civil officials and merchants, as well as their wives and children. Some
are the ancestors of families still residing in Malta to this day. Apart from
the British there are a few graves of men, women and children from other
European countries, often missionaries.
During
the restoration work a very large number of stone fragments have been collected
and are being painstakingly sorted out. Putting them together again is slow and
time consuming but as a result several inscriptions have been reconstructed and
are placed on the walkway overlooking the harbour. However, there are still a
large number of pieces which do not form a reasonably complete text so they are
being kept in store for future use.
MIKIEL
ANTON VASSALLI
No cemetery records have survived and no gravestone has come to light but it is thought that Msida Bastion Cemetery contains the grave of Mikiel Anton Vassalli, nowadays considered to be ‘the father of the Maltese language”.
Vassalli
was a seminal figure in the crystallisation of Maltese nationalism and culture.
He was born in Zebbug on 5th March 1764. His father died when he was about five
years old and his mother
re-married. He studied for the priesthood and was a cleric in Minor Orders, but
was never ordained. A move to Rome gave him the opportunity for further study
and whilst there he started work on
the structure, grammar and alphabet of Maltese language. He returned to Malta
and became involved in an attempt to overthrow the rule of the Knights of St. John
in 1797, but was arrested, tried, found guilty and imprisoned in Fort
Ricasoli. It is thought that during
the French occupation, he left the island to take up residence in France.
Archives in Paris show that in 1810 he was living in Bouches-du-Rhone.
It
appears that in 1814 after the defeat of Napoleon, he moved his family briefly
to Spain, but returned to France
where he had married Catherine Formosa de Fremeaux, and by the time the couple
returned to Malta in 1820 they had
three sons, Grabiel, Mikiel Anton, and Savier.
Once
back in Malta he needed to find work to support his family. He did much work for
the Church Missionary Society, but apart from religious translations he had
completed a Maltese Dictionary, and
a new Maltese Grammar book, but was unable to get them printed since the
type-face with Maltese characters was not available on the island.
In
1825 through the patronage of the Hon. John Hookham Frere, he obtained the post
of Professor of Maltese at the Malta University. However, he continued working hard at
translating parts of the New Testament for the C.M.S. and refining his Maltese
books.
In April 1826, Susannah Frere wrote to her brother William, Master of Downing College, Cambridge University:
“My brother (John) mentions having talked over with you the printing
at the University a Maltese Grammar and Dictionary, etc., the work of a poor man
named Vassalli.
Is it to be ? He is a most laborious man and I believe would quite
starve himself to attain his object the publishing these things. Half starved he
is already."
John Hookham Frere was trying to persuade the Governor, General Sir Frederick Ponsonby, to allow the Maltese type-faces to be forwarded from Cambridge so that printing could be undertaken in Malta. Meanwhile, Vassalli was unceasing in his desire to get his Maltese language books printed, and a rather lengthy method was established whereby his hand written manuscript would be sent to England, printed in Maltese type, then returned to Malta for Vassalli to proof read.
He was living at Pieta, but his health was deteriorating and in 1828 he was unable to go to the offices of C.M.S. in Valletta, which he normally visited about four times a week, so the Secretary, the Reverend C.F. Schlienz went to see him at Pieta instead.
The Gospels were translated and sent to England, then Vassalli moved on to the Acts of the Apostles and was finalising the draft at the time of his death. This was the first, and for a long time the only, translation of parts of the Bible into Maltese.
Schlienz provides a first hand report of Vassalli’s death :
‘He ended his earthly life on the 12th January 1829 at 5 o’clock in
the morning.......Vassalli was exceedingly poor and left to his family not even
the means to defray the expenses of burial. In consequences of this and the
utterly distressed state of their family in respect to the assistance of
relatives or friends we took it upon ourselves to execute the burial of the
reliques of the deceased.
As Mr. Vassalli never made profession of being a Protestant we would have
had him buried in a Catholic burial place. However, when we presented him, from
reason that Vassalli had never been legally married (he could not marry
regularly as he had taken minor orders) and ought therefore to be put among the
dishonest at the wayside without any ceremony.
To this we would not consent, and with the consent of the relict and the
sister of the deceased, applied to Government for a license to bury him in the
Protestant burial place; and as his Excellency, the Lt. Governor (Sir Frederick
Ponsonby) was pleased to grant us a license
Written confirmation of the burial was made by the Reverend John Cleugh, Chaplain to the Government and can be seen in the records of St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral, Valletta. His wife, Catherine Formosa de Fremeaux, continued to live at Pieta for many years, and died 26th October 1851, aged 66 years. A large monument to Mikiel Anton Vassalli was unveiled in his birthplace, Zebbug, on 4th May 1987.
Monument to Mikiel Anton Vassalli
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