Archival Processing

The Archives Processing Unit ensures that following their transfer to the National Archives, records of national significance and enduring historical value, are described, preserved and made accessible to all those who seek them.

Work on cataloguing projects is a core business function of the Archives Processing Unit that has been going on for several years. The following are the highlights of the work carried out in this regard during 2022:

Archivists Irene Sestili and Noel D’Anastas completed the sorting, indexing and cataloguing of the Letard-Ciantar Genealogy Collection, which contains over 700 volumes and hundreds of loose documents. Patrons can view the fond’s catalogue on the National Archives portal.

The online catalogue was so well received that it sparked a surge in family history research, even among foreign researchers who came to Malta specifically to study these sources.

Over the years, the Testimoniali series, like the Acta Originalia, has been among the most extensively researched within the Consolato del Mare fonds. The Testimoniali series has recently undergone content-level cataloguing.

This collection contains testimonies collected by the Consolato del Mare in Malta from captains and crew members of ships that found themselves in Malta, either willingly or after being compelled to make port in Malta to shelter from bad weather or corsairs, to recover from damages and losses sustained in transit, or after being compelled to do so by their captors. In most cases, these testimonials describe the ship’s name, the cargo on board and the difficulties encountered by the ship while in transit. In general, these difficulties were caused by bad weather and piracy, but in some cases, merchants and captains were thwarted by uncooperative local authorities or quarantine and security policies that prevented them from entering port.

In addition to witness statements collected by the Consolato del Mare di Malta, this collection includes testimonies submitted in other foreign Consolati and before other authorities by ship captains and crew members involved in Malta-related ventures or persons in Malta, which were later deposited with the Consolato del Mare in Malta.

The entire Testimoniali collection consists of 18 bundles preserved in archival boxes. In 2021, the first five bundles were completely catalogued and in 2022, the remaining bundles. Over 5,935 consulted folios from 1750 to 1798 have been indexed and catalogued, totaling 828 individual documents.

As an ongoing part of Claire Bugeja’s internship sponsored by the Malta Study Centre at St. John’s University’s Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (Minnesota, USA), as part of her Master’s degree in Archival Science, the metadata of the Consolato del Mare fonds is well underway. The first series of the Acta Originalia, covering the period between 1697 to 1798 was completed in the first half of 2022; and the second series (1800–1814) was also completed in the second half. During 2022, metadata was completed on the four Testimoniali Series, the Registri delle Sentenze, the Registri delle Manifesti and the Registri delle Depositi, totaling approximately 267 boxes of loose bundles and 60 bound volumes. This exercise is being carried out in preparation for digitization of these records by HMML in the coming months.

Claire Bugeja gave a brief presentation about her work and current experience in archive studies at a seminar commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Department of Library, Information and Archive Sciences at the University of Malta. The seminar took place on 3 December 2022, at the University’s Valletta campus.

On October 2022, the digital preservation of the Tribunal Armamentorum fonds, spanning seven metres of shelving, by St. John’s University’s Hill Museum and Manuscript Library kicked off. By the end of 2022, around 1.2 TB of data was generated. Samuel Azzopardi, a classicist and palaeographer who also processed the Testimoniali content data, is working on this fonds’ catalogue, supplementing the digitisation project.

The Tribunal Armamentorum (1602-1798) was set up by Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt on 17 June 1605. It was constituted by four knights of different langues and a secular Judge nominated by the Grand Master, to hear and judge all the controversies between privateers and corsairs, with a second and last appeal to Rome.

The tribunal’s Acta Originalia was divided into two collections, one for 17th century cases and one for 18th century instances. The cases in these two collections primarily dealt with disputes concerning financial compensation for people employed on ships, returns on investments, debt collection and other disputes concerning the financial and logistical management of the corsairing ventures. It includes also a substantial number of documents related to disputes concerning the illegal looting of Christian shipping or mercantile goods by corsairs; Christians were supposedly excluded from being targets of the Corso

The first cataloguing process dealt with the 17th century Acta Originalia, records which were collected in 14 bundles covering 259 individual cases spread across 8,407 folios. The second phase of this project was the cataloguing of the 18th century records, which were collected in 29 bundles covering 992 individual cases spread across 18,706 folios.

The cataloguing of the other series of this fonds, which includes volumes related to slave sales, Registers of the Original Acts and Sentences is underway. All cataloguing work on the Tribunal Armamentorum and the Testimoniali series was overseen and reviewed by Noel D’Anastas.

Claire Bugeja carried out volunteer work at the Banca Giuratale during the summer of 2022. As part of her tasks, she worked on foliating volumes two to eight of the Registrum Patentarum series from the Magna Curia Castellania fonds, as well as noting the date ranges within these volumes. Now, the collected data is ready to be electronically recorded.

Vanessa Buhagiar, a palaeographer and historian, has been working on the Law Courts Miscellaneous Collection content catalogue, for the last two years. She catalogued 2,050 items totaling 23,777 folios of legal cases, 770 items of which were catalogued in the last year.

The Law Courts Miscellanea fonds is a collection of loose documents pertaining to different Courts that functioned in Malta between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. It contains a wealth of information and holds precious information on the economy, society and culture of over four hundred years of Maltese history.

Prior to the ongoing cataloguing process, the documents were organised chronologically. As a result, various types of documents from various Maltese Courts or legal contexts were grouped together. Furthermore, although this collection of records was uncatalogued, researchers were granted access.

This led to a challenging and complicated situation for the cataloguing process. The aim with this project is to organise and rationalise the Miscellanea Fond within these constraints. As a result, each box is sorted following the Provenance Principle. Folders representing specific Court Tribunals are created for each box and documents are chronologically sorted into these folders.

Following this, the details of each document are inputted into a standard archival database. The details include the tribunal the item was subject to, the date it was created, its scope and content, the language it was written in and its physical characteristics. Every document is also given a unique identifier number and each box is fully paginated. Then, a new archival-standard box is prepared to replace the old boxes to ensure the continued protection of the documents. In some instances, it becomes necessary to split the contents of each box into two boxes due to a lack of adequate space.

The cataloguing of this fonds presents the cataloguer with additional challenges. To properly catalogue the documents, a thorough understanding of the Maltese legal system at the relevant time period is required. Without such knowledge, it is impossible to understand the nature and origin of each document. This is exacerbated by the diverse nature of the documents contained within each box. For example, scattered randomly within these boxes are indices pertaining to various judicial bodies active in Malta, which also happen to be separate fonds held at the National Archives, namely the Consolato del Mare and the Magna Curia Castellania. In such cases, the records are removed from the Miscellanea collection and transferred to their respective original fonds in our Courts and Tribunals Archive in Mdina. The majority of these indices have been identified as missing and serve as excellent points of reference for researchers.

The deteriorating condition of some of the records is another challenge. A significant amount of the collection had suffered water damage and developed mould staining, making the text illegible. The collaboration with the Conservation Laboratory at the National Archives is crucial for the undertaking of the necessary conservation works.

During 2022, over 13 boxes were sorted and over 770 catalogue entries. Each box contained an average of 60 items and runs into an average of 668 pages. The sorting and cataloguing of the Law Courts Miscellaneous Fond has been a demanding yet rewarding task, as it is facilitating the access to this largely untapped source of Maltese history and in the process is contributing to our understanding of Malta’s early modern legal system.

The metadata and digitised images of the French Period documents from the Law Courts Miscellaneous Fond are now available at the virtual reading room of Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, https://www. vhmml.org/readingRoom.

Subbasti

In 2022, four German students followed an internship in the Courts and Tribunals’ Judiciary Section. They spent over 160 hours working on the volumes of the Prima Aula Subbasti and the Commercial Court Subbasti.

Philomene Schebesta, Janina Kronhofmann, Kim Herrmann and Paul Engels compiled 1,133 Prima Aula Subbasti cases from between 1873 and 1879 as well as 3,485 Commercial Court Subbasti cases from the period between 1814 and 1880.

This catalogue is currently being reviewed and updated in order to make it available for future research.

Mro Frank Vassallo Music Collection

Mro Frank Vassallo’s (1924-2000) music was catalogued by Noel D’Anastas during 2022. The collection was donated to the National Archives by the composer’s son, Dr Pierre Vassallo and Mr Carmel Axiaq, the widower of mezzo-soprano Marie Terese Vassallo, who wrote lyrics for many of the compositions in this collection. It is made up of 86 compositions, including symphonic and chamber music as well as several vocal works, including songs that participated in the Malta Song Festival in the 1960s.

Each composition has been meticulously catalogued, with information on the movement and time signature of each piece, the instrumentation and the number of sheets in each music manuscript. Then each composition was placed in an archival folder; the digitisation process began towards the end of 2022.

Frank Vassallo was born in 1924, in Sliema, Malta, to Mro Carmelo Vassallo and Theresa Doneo. Frank began studying music at the age of six with his uncle Emidio Doneo. He began violin lessons at the age of ten with Anthony Mamo, a renowned virtuoso violinist and teacher. Frank Vassallo married Theresa Theuma on 23 May 1948 and they had two children, Marie Therese Vassallo and Pierre.

Among his numerous musical pursuits, Frank Vassallo’s favourites were always teaching and composition. As a composer, he was an Associate Member of the Performing Rights Society of London. He composed works for string, woodwind, brass, pianoforte and voices, both solo and in various ensembles such as duets, trios, quartets, quintets, and octets. He also wrote symphonies for large and small orchestras, chamber works, oratorios, songs on sacred and profane subjects, two Requiem Masses and other masses and sacred music. Divertimenti and studies for various instruments are among his other works. Vassallo’s Sonata in G for Harp is a masterpiece.

Mro Vassallo’s works have been published by Lucia Publishing Co. (1946), Keith Prowse Publishing Co. Ltd, (London), Peter Morris of Milan and El Brios Publishing Co. in Malta, England, Italy, France and the United States (Firenze). Con Gioco and Mon Amour Parisien, two of his songs, are regularly played on French and Italian television and radio stations. One of his guitar books was published by Charnwood Musical Publishing Co. in London and is part of the Leicester School of Music’s examination syllabus.

Mro Vassallo spent the majority of his life teaching and writing music. He taught privately in addition to being a Music teacher and Orchestra director at St Edward’s College and St Aloysius College. He died on 7 February 2000. His daughter Marie-Therese took care of his musical collection after his death.

In a bid to enrich their professional development, Samuel Azzopardi and Vanessa Buhagiar participated remotely in the II International Congress on Palaeography and Diplomatics, a three-day congress held at the University of Évora (Portugal) between 5 and 7 May 2022.

During 2022, we hosted 23 students following different placement programmes, including Erasmus Plus engagement from foreign educational institutions, Systems of Knowledge-related projects and University of Malta placements. The tasks carried undertook by most students included digitisation of records, cataloguing, labelling, sorting of documents and minor conservation duties. Two students carried out tasks on paper conservation, under the guidance of our Conservators.

The countries of origin of the students participating in these various placement programmes were Malta (7 students), Germany (7 students), France (2 students) and Albania, Argentina, Bangladesh, Belarus, Cyprus, Italy and the United States of America (1 student from each country).

Name Country Institution

Janina Kronhofmann Germany

Public Administration, Ludwigsburg University, Germany

Kim Herrmann Germany Ludwigsburg University, Germany

Matthew Saliba Malta M.A. Tourism and Culture, UM

Sophia Georgiou Cyprus MSc. Tourism, Development and Culture, UM

Sraboni Akter Bangladesh MSc. Tourism, Development and Culture, UM

Ruth Micallef Malta Systems of Knowledge Project

Rocio Belen Cali

Falasca Argentina MSc. Tourism, Development and Culture, UM

Philomena Schebesta Germany

Public Administration, Ludwigsburg University, Germany

Paul Engels Germany Public Administration, University of Kehl, Germany

Serendra Geffry France Public Administration, Lycee Jean Jaures, France

Geraldine Corriolan France Public Administration, Lycee Jean Jaures, France

Martina Buttigieg Malta Systems of Knowledge Project

Rosaya Vella Malta Systems of Knowledge Project

Eleonora di Mauro Italia PhD Architecture, University of Palermo, Italy

Ana Sophia Dvrinovan USA B.A. (Hons) Conservation Books and Paper, London

Nathaniel Azzopardi Malta St Paul’s Missionary College

Roman Vasilets Belarus Systems of Knowledge Project

Alina Strunk Germany

Frederick Ebert Germany

Lea Blender Germany

Enkelejd Memetaj Albania

Vocational Apprenticeship, City and District Archives, Germany

Vocational Apprenticeship, Fredrich-List Schule, Germany

Public Administration, Ludwigsburg University, Germany

Archival, Library and Information Studies, West Attica, Greece

Jacques Schembri Malta Systems of Knowledge project

Raisa Zammit Malta MCAST, Malta

Apart from the above, we also hosted seven students reading for a Master’s degree in Archival and Information Knowledge at the University of Malta, who undertook a 10-hour practicum session on cataloguing of the CSG Collection under the supervision of Dr Valeria Vanesio.

Map Room activity during 2022 included of the digitisation of various interesting records, comprising drawings, sketches and photographs from

Giuseppe Galea Collection: 1,545 drawings and 8 photographs

Sciortino Galea Collection: 48 drawings and 2 photographs

· Sciortino Galea Bequest: 37 drawings and 1 photograph

· St.Paul’s Reliquary: 27 photographs

· Wignacourt Museum: 22 photographs

Capuchin Church, Fr Martin Micallef Collection: 34 photographs

Arch.Robert Galea Collection: 34 photograhs

The Database Digitising Works project continued as well as its inclusion into the PDM fond. These include plans, maps and drawings from fonds such as the Santa Maria Addolorata Cemetery Collection, Record Plans from the Ordnance Department, Country Tenements, Pious Foundations and St Luke’s Hospital Drawing Office. These added up to 1,984 images.

Another 296 high resolution digitised images were done for National Archives staff, which included scans from various fonds such as LGO/PWD/OPM/Building Notices, etc.