The Land and the Cross. Properties of the Order of St John between Centre and Periphery (16th-18th centuries), edited by Valentina Burgassi, George Alexander Said-Zammit and Valeria Vanesio. London-New York:
Routledge, 2025, 270 pp. ISBN: 978-1-032-15452-7.
Table of contents:
1 Introduction: The Religion and the Land.
Emanuel Buttigieg and Rakele Fiott
PART 1: POLITICS AND DIPLOMACY
2 Serving the Convent: The commanderies of the Order of St John in the sixteenth century.
Anne Brogini
3 European dynasticism and Hospitaller interest: The Grand Priory of Castile and León at the end of the reign of Charles II of Habsburg (1679-1700).
Roberto Quirós Rosado
4 The Order of the Knights Hospitaller: Wealthy landowners?
Alain Blondy
5 In the shadows of Secularisation, Church policy and Febronianism. The transfer of the property of the
Societas Jesu to the Bavarian Grand Priory of the Order of St John. Thomas Freller
PART 2: ARCHIVES AND INSTITUTIONS
6 'Per la distanza de’ luoghi e per la varietà delle Nationi': People, properties and archival procedures of the Order of St John in the early modern period.
Valeria Vanesio
7 The Sicilian Priory of Messina and its commanderies from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century.
Fabrizio D’Avenia
8 The commanderies de jure patronatus in the Venetian Mainland from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century: Land, control and power.
Luigi Robuschi
9 Dispersed archives, authority control and the land surveys of the Order of St John of Jerusalem.
Daniel K. Gullo
PART 3: PATRIMONIAL NETWORKS
10 The Patrimonial network and heritage of the Order of St John in Portugal in the late medieval and early modern period.
Paula Maria de Carvalho Pinto Costa
11 Artistic landscape and visual memory: The Order of St John in the Crown of Castile.
Olga Pérez Monzón
12 The Order, its city, and its peripheries: Rural-urban dialectics in early modern Malta.
Daniel Borg and Christian Mifsud
13 The cabrei of the Order of St John in Malta as a means of communication to transmit power and material wealth.
George A. Said-Zammit
14 Hospitaller commanderies as an international phenomenon: The lens of architectural sources in the early modern Italian States.
Valentina Burgassi
Afterword. Victor Mallia-Milanes
Abstract:
‘As the sun sees everything, so should the eye’: this was the guiding principle expounded in the 1588 Statutes of the Order of St John concerning management and control over its extensive urban and rural properties. In a similar way, this book seeks to provide
its readers with the eyes through which to navigate a variegated Hospitaller landscape from Portugal to Italy and from Germany to Malta in the early modern period.
Priories, bailiwicks, foundations, and commanderies formed the power base of the institution, and the Order acted with local leaders and communities in a series of overlapping jurisdictions which led to both fruitful alliances and power struggles. The contributions
in this book, by scholars from across diverse disciplinary and geographical borders, shed light on the archival sources and legal procedures, politics and diplomacy, social and financial aspects, as well as the landscape and architectural features of the Hospitaller
network of properties. In so doing, they help to recompose a fragmented and often forgotten history forged in multicultural environments.
The Land and the Cross establishes a foundation for future scholarship and stimulates interdisciplinary collaboration to recover and protect a heritage that is today neglected, hidden, or abandoned. The book challenges readers in the field of Hospitaller studies
and beyond to explore a wider world through the unique and original lens of the Order of St John.
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