Giovanni Bonello Postcard Collection Uploaded on eMuseum for All to Enjoy

Newspost | 23^rd January 2026

A collection of postcards donated to Heritage Malta by Judge Giovanni Bonello in 2022 has been uploaded on the agency’s recently inaugurated eMuseum platform for public enjoyment and appreciation.

The collection, comprising nearly 1500 postcards and postcard-size photos, was built gradually from scratch by Giovanni Bonello himself since his youth. Both the postcards and the photos show warships and submarines in Maltese harbours between the 1880s and the 1970s. Some of the scenes depicted show very rare ships that sailed into our harbours, such as the battleships Breslau and Goeben in the First World War, and will therefore form an important part of the Maritime Museum’s collection.

Among the more curious images is the torpedo ram HMS Polyphemus lying in Dockyard Creek. This short-lived late nineteenth-century experiment sought to combine emerging technologies with a very archaic naval tactic.

The Bonello donation also documents Malta’s shifting strategic significance. A large proportion of the postcards dates to a period when the island functioned as a global and regional projector of British imperial power, particularly from the 1920s onward, when the Mediterranean Fleet increasingly expected itself to intervene in the Far East against possible Japanese expansion. The collection also reflects Malta’s offensive role during the Second World War and its history as a NATO base during a portion of the Cold War.

Following the donation, the whole collection was digitized and catalogued, and has now been uploaded into Heritage Malta’s collections management system and made available on the public-facing web platform of the eMuseum.

Upon receiving significant donations, the agency actively looks for innovative and engaging ways to make such contributions accessible to the public. This approach ensures that these items are not confined to a reserved collection or merely placed in a museum, but are shared widely for public appreciation and accessibility.

The postcard collection may be viewed on eMuseum HERE

It is also accessible from the main page of eMuseum here: https://emuseum.heritagemalta.mt/collections