200-Year-Old Architectural Manuscripts Donated To Malta’s National Archive
A donation of 800 manuscripts dating back to 1786 will be featured in an exhibition of the European Digital Treasures project.
The manuscripts cover the works of 16 architects, up until the end of the 19th century, and were discovered by Perit Andre Zammit in an old family house in Lija in 1990.
Zammit was born in 1930 in Gozo and died on 14th May 2020. The manuscripts were formally donated to the state by his wife, Victoria Zammit, at the National Archives of Malta in Rabat.
“A donation like this is of great importance; through this grant, we will continue to keep history as an integral part of our country’s life, and we will continue to give it the importance it deserves,” Minister for the National Heritage, the Arts and Local Government Owen Bonnici said.
These records practically cover the whole careers of architects Michele Cachia (1760 -1839), Francesco (1755 – 1820) and Giovanni Sammut (1784 – 1841), and Giuseppe (1812 – 1859) and Francesco Zammit (1844 – 1917) as well as works by Saverio (1740 – 1799), Pietro (1774 – 1803), Salvatore (1777 – 1830), Giuseppe (1741 – 1841) and Gaetano Xerri (1783 – 1853), Pasquale (1738 – 1817) and Vincenzo Sammut (1782 – 1850), Paolo (1792 – date unknown) and Alfred Zammit (1892 – 1970).
The collection includes sketches and notes of houses or fields for calculation and valuation or partition requested by owners, heirs or the Courts, Agrimensore course notes and school copybooks.
It also reflects the broader political context, for example, the twilight of the Order of St John’s stay in Malta and the revolution against the French in 1798, where Michele Cachia played a key role and established the British administration.
The National Archivist, Charles Farrugia, stated that with donations like those of the Zammit family, the state would be able to offer materials that shed light on a specific type of architecture and the work of various Maltese architects.
The project is co-financed by the Creative Europe program of the European Union. The project includes a consortium of five national archives (Malta, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Norway), ICARUS (International Center for Archival Research, Austria) and the Munster University of Technology (Ireland).
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