Malta Had Its Very Own James Bond In The 16th Century And He Was An Absolute Badass
Back in the 16th Century, Malta was pretty much an OG Game of Thrones plot line minus the dragons, surprise incest and sneaky eunuchs. The Knights of St. John desperately needed to know what the Ottomans were up to during the Great Siege of 1565, and in order to do this, they needed to come up with a foolproof way to infiltrate the Ottoman camps without being detected. This seemed pretty impossible considering how flamboyant those Knights were.
Enter the heroic and handsome Toni Bajada, Malta’s very own dreamy badass spy. Bajada was born in Naxxar and is one of the most famous spies the Maltese islands have ever seen.
This man is widely considered to be a hero, and it’s no surprise.
Toni spent some time in Turkish captivity where he made it his life goal to learn his captives’ language… most probably so that he would know when the next meal is coming up.
When Grand Master de Valette learned of Bajada and his prowess, he handpicked him personally and gave him the pant-wetting task of carrying messages in and out of besieged cities… by swimming.
Yes, Bajada used to swim from Valletta to fuck knows where to carry messages.
At this point, we can safely assume that Toni was a hunk, seeing as he swam great lengths daily.
To fit in better, he had to put on some drab Turkish attire and infiltrate the Ottoman camps with gusto along with four of his other secret agent spy friends to gather information from the Turks. Ha!
The Great Siege of Malta, from the Vatican Museum, painted between 1580 and 1583 by Ignazio Danti.
One day, Toni had just arrived from Mdina to inform the Grand Master that relief was coming from Sicily in the form of 700 men led by some guy named Melchior de Roblea.
La Valette was of course worried about how the hell they would reach Birgu and Isla from Mdina undetected by the Turks, so he and Bajada decided that it would be best for them to just go by sea.
So Bajada returned to Mdina (there’s clearly no rest for this guy) to lead the Sicilian relief to Kalkara. Bajada led a whole fucking army of 700 loud Sicilian men in the middle of the night — right under the Turkish invader’s noses. Without being detected. Not only that, but they made it there two hours before their planned time. Toni, you’re our hero.
We assume that after all of this, Bajada’s hand got permanent tennis elbow from all the high fives he was given. His shoulders probably were never quite the same after all the bro backslaps everyone bestowed him with.
This man’s accomplishments pretty much gained him a permanent place in Malta’s Hall of Heroes along with countless roads named after him. We applaud his ball-busting courage; not everyone can manage to swim from Valletta to St.Angelo on what we assume is a daily basis.
Thank you for everything Toni.
Tag someone who could probably be Malta’s Next Toni Bajjada!
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