The exhibition presents four maps of the Great Siege of 1565 by Giovanni Francesco Camocio, a thriving publisher and dealer of maps, prints and books. Distributed far and wide, these news maps were once the most effective means of reporting the latest developments of the Siege. Today, now part of our cultural heritage, they hold the collective memory of a lost cultural landscape, a historic past and a turning point of an event that shaped the history of the Maltese Islands.
This exhibition has been inspired by a Malta-Czech Republic joint initiative which seeks to register these four maps in UNESCO’s International Memory of the World Register because of their outstanding cultural significance for humanity. Three maps of the Camocio-series form part of the Cartographic Collection at the National Museum of Fine Arts. The other map in the same series belongs to the Map Collection of the Faculty of Science at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. The Permanent Delegation of Malta to UNESCO is currently tendering the joint-application. The outcome of this bid will be announced by June 2017.
Hosted by the National Museum of Archaeology, Valletta, the exhibition will remain open to the public until Sunday the 22nd May. Opening house daily between 09.00 and 17.00 (last admission at 16.30hrs). Admission free of charge.
Purchase the exhibition leaflet … available from the museum’s gift shop at €2.00 (folded version) and €5.00 (unfolded version).
Link to Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic.
