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Corfiot Italians

The following article is related to the Italians of Corfu, an island that was marginally interested by the Aromanian presence.

Corfiot Italians

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Corfiot Italians are the population of Corfu with ethnic and linguistic roots in the Venetian domination of the island. They were called so by Mussolini, when his Fascism promoted the ideals of Italia irredenta even for Corfu in the first half of the XX century.

Venetian blazons as frequently found on the New Fortress walls of Corfu

Venetian blazons as frequently found on the New Fortress walls of Corfu




[edit] Origins

The origins of the Corfiot Italians can be found in the expansion of the Italian States toward the Balkans during and after the Crusades. The Kingdom of Naples sent some Italian families to Corfu to rule the island conquered, and the same - but in larger scale - was done by the Republic of Venice in 1204.

When Venice ruled Corfu and the Ionian islands during the Renaissance, all the nobility of the islands was Venetian and the dominant presence of this community lasted until the first half of the XIX century. The development of the Greek nationalism, after Napoleon times, created a process that assimilated in the next century the community of the Corfiot Italians (in 1870 the Greek government abolished all the Italian schools in the Ionian islands, just incorporated to Greece in 1864).

[edit] Venetian heritage

The Republic of Venice dominated Corfu for nearly five centuries and many Venetians moved to the island. By the end of the XV century, the Italian language and culture -- including in some ways the Roman Catholic church -- came to predominate.

Kerkyra (the Greek name of Corfu) remained in Venetian hands till 1797, though several times assailed by Turkish naval and land forces and subjected to four notable sieges in 1537, 1571, 1573 and 1716, in which the great natural strength of the city and its defenders asserted itself time after time. The effectiveness of the powerful Venetian fortifications of the island was a great factor that enabled Corfu to remain the last bastion of free, uninterrupted Greek and Christian civilization in the southern Balkans after the fall of Constantinople. Will Durant, a French historian, claims that Corfu owed to the Republic of Venice the fact that it was the only part of Greece never conquered by the moslem Turks.[1]

Corfu Town looks very different from most Greek towns because of Corfu's unique history. From 1386 to 1797, Corfu was ruled by Venetian nobility: much of the town reflects this era when the island belonged to the Republic of Venice, with multi-storied buildings on narrow lanes.

Many venetian speaking families settled in Corfu during those centuries and until the second half of the XX century the Veneto da mar was spoken in Corfu. During this time, the local Greek language assimilated a large number of Italian and Venetian words, many of which are still common today.

The Venetian feudal families pursued a mild but somewhat assimilating policy towards the natives, who began to adopt many segments of Venetian customs and culture. The Corfiotes were encouraged to enrich themselves by the cultivation of the olive, but were debarred from entering into commercial competition with Venice.

The Venetian "Citadel" of Corfu City

The island served as a refuge for Greek scholars, and in 1732 became the home of the first Academy of modern Greece. Many Italian Jews took refuge in Corfu during the venetian centuries and spoke their own language (Italkian), a mixture of Hebrew and Venetian with some Greek words.

The Venetian influence was important in the development of the Opera in Corfu. During Venetian rule, the Corfiotes developed a fervent appreciation of Italian opera, and many local composers, such as the Corfiot Italians Antonio Liberali and Domenico Padovani developed their career with the theatre of Corfu, called Teatro di San Giacomo.

The internationally renowned photographer Felice Beato was born in Corfu from a venetian family in the XIX century. The architecture of Corfu remains much more Italian than anywhere else in Greece.

Venetians promoted the Catholic church during their four centuries rule in Corfu. Even if today the majority of Corfiots are Greek Orthodox (following the official religion of Greece) there is however a percentage of Catholics (5%) who owe their faith to their origins. These contemporary Catholics are mostly families who came from Malta, but also from Italy during the Republic of Venice. Today the Catholic community consists of about 4000 people, (2/3 of Maltese descent) who live almost exclusively in the Venetian "Citadel" of Corfu City, living harmoniously side-by-side with the Orthodox community.

Venetian domination influenced extensively the way of life in the island in many ways: the local cuisine, for example, was influenced at a great degree by the Venetian cuisine. Today, Corfu's cuisine maintains some Venetian delicacies, cooked with local spicy recipes: "Pastitsado" (the most popular dish in the island of Corfu, that comes from the Venetian dish Spezzatino), "Strapatasada", "Sofrito", "Savoro" , "Bianco" and "Mandolato". Even the Corfu tradition of the Carnival (Ta Karnavalia) was introduced by the Venetians .

The Italian influence is evidenced even in Corfu's spacious squares such as the popular "Spinada" and its narrow cobblestone alleys known as "Kantounia". The Italian Renaissance is best represented on Corfu by the surviving structures of the old Fortezza Vecchia on the eastern side of the town by the Veronese military engineer Michele Sanmicheli and the Venetian Ferrante Vitelli, who designed the later fortress on the west, the Fortezza Nuova.

In this first Venetian period the town of Corfu began to grow on a low hillock situated between the two forts. In many respects Corfu typifies the small Venetian town, or borgo, of which there are numerous other surviving examples in the former Venetian territories of the Adriatic Sea, such as Ragusa and Spalato in Dalmatia. As in Venice itself, the "campi" developed haphazardly in the urban fabric where it was natural for residents to congregate, especially around churches, civic buildings, fountains, and cisterns. The best example of such a space is Plateia Dimarcheiou, or Town Hall Square, overlooked on its north side by the seventeenth-century Loggia dei Nobili (which today serves as the seat of local government) and on the east side by the late sixteenthcentury Catholic Church of St. Iakovos, or St. James.

[edit] Teatro di San Giacomo

Corfu City Hall, that was the original "Teatro di San Giacomo"

During Venetian rule, the Corfiotes developed a fervent appreciation of Italian opera, which was the real source of the extraordinary (given conditions in the mainland of Greece) musical development of the island during that era. The opera house of Corfu during 18th and 19th century was that of the Nobile Teatro di San Giacomo, named after the neighbouring catholic cathedral, but the theatre was later converted into the Town Hall. A long series of local composers, such as the Corfiot Italians Antonio Liberali and Domenico Padovani contributed to the fame of the Teatro di San Giacomo.

The first opera to be performed in the San Giacomo Theatre had been as far back as 1733 ("Gerone, tiranno di Siracusa"), and for almost two hundred years between 1771 until 1943 nearly every major operatic composition from the Italian tradition, as well as many others of Greek and French composers, were performed at the stage of the San Giacomo theatre. This impressive tradition, invoking an exceptional musical past, continues to be reflected in the mythology supporting the opera theatre of Corfu, a fixture in famous opera singers' itineraries. Operatic performers who found success at the theatre were distinguishd with the accolade applaudito in Corfu ("applauded in Corfu") as a tribute to the discriminating musical sensibility of the island audience.

[edit] Corfiot Italians and the Risorgimento

The Italian Risorgimento was initially concentrated in the Italian peninsula with the surrounding continental areas (Istria, Dalmatia, Trentino, Nizzardo, etc..) and did not reached Corfu and the Ionian islands. One of the main heroes of the Italian Risorgimento, the poet Ugo Foscolo, was born in Zante from a noble venetian family of the island, but only superficially promoted the possible unification of the Ionian islands to Italy.

Consequently, the small communities of venetian speaking people in Corfu were mostly assimilated by the Greek government after the island became part of Greece in 1864, mainly after all the Italian schools were closed in 1870. But the Italian language maintained some importance, as can be seen by the fact that poets like Stefano Martzokis (Marzocchi was the surname of the father, an Italian from Emilia-Romagna) and Geranimos Markonos, the first from Corfù and the second from Cefalonia, wrote in Italian some of their poems in the second half of the XIX century.

The island of Corfu was the refuge for many Italians in exile during the Wars of Independence of Italy, like Niccoló Tommaseo (who married Diamante Pavello-Artale, a Corfiot Italian).

But after WWI the Kingdom of Italy started to apply a policy of expansionism toward the Adriatic area and saw Corfu as the gate of this sea. Mussolini developed to the extreme nationalistic positions the ideals of the Italian irredentism and promoted actively the unification of Corfu to Italy.

Ugo Foscolo, hero of the Italian Risorgimento, was born in Zante and briefly lived in Corfu


The Corfiot Italians, even if reduced to a few hundreds in the 1930s, were strongly supported by the fascist propaganda and in summer 1941 - after the Italian occupation of the Ionian islands - Italian schools were reopened in Corfu city.

[edit] Italian occupation of Corfu

Italy occupied Corfu two times: the first for a few months only in 1923 by Mussolini, after the assassination of Italian officers; the second during WWII, from April 1941 to September 1943.

  • the Corfu incident was used by Italy to occupy temporarily Corfu from august to September 1923.
  • During the Greco-Italian War Corfu was occupied by the Italians in April 1941. They administered Corfu and the Ionian islands as a separate entity from Greece until September 1943, following Mussolini's orders of fulfilling the Italian Irredentism and make Corfu part of the Kingdom of Italy.

[edit] Detailed chronology of the occupations

Corfu Incident

At the end of December 1915, Italy sent a military force to Corfu under the command of General Marro. They established Post Offices with the French occupation troops there. In 1915-1919, the Italian and French forces (as well as Serbian forces) remained on the island of Corfu. The Italians did not have any intention to pull out, but the British and the French government forced them to displace.

In 1923, the Italians tried to occupy Corfu again. The morning of the 27th of August 1923, unknown people (probably Greeks) murdered the General Enrico Tellini and other three officers of the Italian engrave deputation on the Greek – Albanian border.

Italy made an announcement asking within 24 hours the following demands: the apology of the Greek people; the commemoration of the dead in the Catholic Church of Athens, with all the members of the Greek government to participate; the honor of the Italian flag in the Italian naval squadron, which would have shipping in Faliro; the investigation of the Greek authorities adjoined by the Italian military attendant carnal Perone di San Martino, which should end within 5 days; the death penalty of the guilty people; the Greek government should pay the amount of 50 million Italian pounds in 5 days, as a penalty; the dead should be honored with military honors in Preveza.

The Greek government responded accepting only the following demands: the Greeks accepted to present the apologies; the commemoration; the honor of the Italian flag at the Embassy; the honor of the dead in Preveza.

Consequently on 31st of August 1923, the Italian Army suddenly attacked Corfu. The commander Antony Foschini asked from the Prefect of Corfu to surrender the island. The Prefect refused and he informed the government. Foschini warned him that the Italian forces would attack at 17:00 and the Corfiots refused to raise the white flag in the fortress. Seven thousand refugees, 300 orphans plus the military hospital were lodged in the Old Fortress, as well as the School of Police in the New Fortress. At 17:05 the Italians bombarded Corfu for 20 min. There were victims among the refugees of the old Fortress and the Prefect ordered the raising of the white flag. The Italians besieged the island and set the forces ashore. From the beginning of their possession, they started to inflict hard penalties on the people who had guns, and the officers declared that their possession was permanent. There were daily requisitions of houses and they censored the newspapers. Greece asked for the interference of the Society of the Nations, in which Greece and Italy were members, and demanded the solution of the problem through arbitration. The Italian government of Mussolini refused, declaring that Corfu will be possessed until the acceptance of the Italian terms. On 7th of September 1923, the ambassador’s conference in Paris ended with the evacuation of the Italian forces from Corfu, which finally happened on the 20th of September 1923 and ended on the 27th of the same month.

World War II

During the Second World War Mussolini wanted to possess the Ionian Islands, which he succeeded with the help of the Germans during the Greco-Italian War. The Italians occupied Corfu from March 28, 1941. They implemented a process of italianization, with creation of Italian schools, centered around the small surviving community of the Corfiot Italians, who still spoke the venetian dialect.

The first reaction to the Italian occupation happened on the first Sunday of November 1941. During the procession of the Saint Spyridon, the fascist young Corfiot Italians participated and provoked the students of the Greek high schools. When the procession arrived in the Upper Square, the students started to leave whilst singing the national Greek songs. The “Carbinaria” and the “Finetsia” fascist groups attacked and arrested many Greek students, beating them and exiling some of them to the island of Othonous. After that episode there was a relative calm in Corfu until the surrender of Italy in September 9, 1943.

From the 10th to the 14th of September, the Germans tried to force to surrender the Italian garrison in Corfu, while the political prisoners were set free from the small island of Lazaretto. The morning of 13th of September, Corfiots woke up to the disasters of the war. The German air raids continued the whole day bombarding the port, the Fortresses and strategic points. During the night of 14th of September, huge damages happened in the Jewish parts of Saint Fathers and Saint Athanasios, the Court House, the Ionian Parliament, the Ionian Academy, -in which the Library was lodged-, the Schools of Middle Education, the Hotel "Bella Venezia", the Custom Office, the Manor-Houses and the Theatre. Finally the next week the Germans occupied the island with huge losses between the Italians, forcing successively the nearly 5000 Jews (speakers of the Italkian) of the island to concentration camps in Germany.

Actually there are no more Corfiot Italians in the island: the last peasant speaking the veneto da mar died in the 1970s. There are only a few Jews in Corfu city who speak the Italkian, a Jewish language mixed with many venetian words.

Downtown Corfú City with typical venetian-style arquitecture

Downtown Corfú City with typical venetian-style arquitecture

The long Venetian domination had a very strong influence on local Greek language which absorbed a wide range of Italian words. One third of the words in the local greek dialect of Corfú city are loanworded from the Italian language.

[edit] Maltese Italians in Corfu

There it is a huge community of descendants from Maltese Italians in Corfu. [1]

During the XIX century the British authorities brought many skilled workers from Malta. They needed married man so that their work would be continued by their children. Because of this the British took from Malta 80 people (40 families from 1815 until 1860) and they stayed at Corfu till today.

In 1901 there were almost one thousand people in Corfu who considered themselves as ethnic Maltese. In Cephalonia the number was 225. There were another hundred Maltese spread among the other lesser islands of the Ionian Group. Maltese emigration to these islands practically ceased when they were returned to Greece in 1864. Because of the union with Greece a number of Maltese families abandoned Corfu and settled in Cardiff, Wales (their descent still live in that city).

The Maltese colony in Corfu did not vanish. Two villages on the island bear name a Maltese derivative: Maltezika is named after Malta and Cozzella got its name from Gozo. In Cozzella the Franciscan Sisters of Malta opened a convent and a school in 1907. Those two institutions still flourish.

In 1923 there were some 1,200 ethnic Maltese left in Corfu, but many of them spoke either Greek or the local Corfiot dialect which still bore traces of the Venetian occupation of the island. Because of this Venetian connection, fascist propagandists tried, to build up an irredentist case for Corfu. Guido Puccio wrote in "Tribuna", a leading Roman newspaper on September 12, 1923, that the Maltese element in Corfu could be used as an instrument to further Italian claims on that island.

In 1930 the Maltese in Corfu had their own priest who looked after their welfare while he kept useful contacts with the ecclesiastical and civil authorities in Malta. The priest was the Rev Spiridione Cilia. He had been born in Corfu of Maltese parents and was then the parish priest of the Maltese community.

From these 80 people who moved in the XIX century from Malta to Corfu, there are now 3500 people in the island. They constitute the center of the Catholic community of Corfu, but no one of them speaks anymore the maltese language.

[edit] Renowned Corfiot Italians

  • Felice Beato, famous photograper of the XIX century.
  • Antonio Liberali, opera musicist and composer
  • Domenico Padovani, opera musicist and composer.
  • Spiridione Cilia, priest of the maltese community in Corfu.
  • Diamante Pavello-Artale, wife of Niccoló Tommaseo.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Durant, Will. The Renaissance. MJF Books. New York, 1981 ISBN 1-56731-016-8
  • Martin, John Jeffries. Venice Reconsidered. The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297–1797. Johns Hopkins UP. New York, 2002.
  • Norwich, John Julius. A History of Venice. Vintage Books. New York, 1989.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Will Durant. The Renaissance. pag 684. MJF Books. New York, 1981 ISBN 1-56731-016-8

[edit] See also

Categories: Italy | Greece | Corfu


Pro-Italian Maltese are italophile Maltese. Historically, views ranged from cultural admiration (particularly for the language) to sympathy for Italian irredentist ideals and support for union with Italy. The issue was important particularly from the political perspective from the mid-nineteenth century to the Second World War, usually in contrast to the views of the pro-British Maltese.

The category is today of no political significance. Italophile sympathies remain in Malta because of Italy's proximity and the Italian language is Malta's third language [1] (although having no official status since 1934). Rivalry with pro-British Maltese persists but is largely limited to sport, particularly football.[2]

Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 Early influences
1.2 Anglicanisation
1.3 Rise of Italian Fascism and the Second World War
1.4 Post-War
2 Present-day influences
3 See also
4 External links
5 References
6 Bibliography

[edit] History
[edit] Early influences
The Romans took Malta in 218 BC, and were followed by the Byzantines in 535 AD. During those long periods of colonization the small population, numbering between 5,000 and 10,000, was fully romanized and spoke Latin.[3]

The Arabs made a violent raid on the islands in 870 and successively occupied the island for two centuries. The beginnings of present-day Maltese date from this period: in 1048 around 400 families from Moslem Sicily were moved to Malta and the original community absorbed the Siculo-Arabic language of the new arrivals[4]. This has been confirmed by a major study which found that "the contemporary males of Malta most likely originated from Southern Italy, including Sicily and up to Calabria"[5].

The Norman conquest and their arrival in Malta in 1090 exposed to islands to Latinisation. The population of the Maltese islands kept growing, mainly through immigration from Italy (especially Sicily), with the exile to Malta of the entire male population of the town of Celano in 1223, the stationing of a Norman and Sicilian garrison on Malta in 1240, the settlement in Malta of noble families from Sicily between 1372 and 1450, and the introduction of several thousand Sicilian labourers in 1551 and again in 1566. The indigenous community remained largely Muslim until 1250 by which time it was Chistianised.

The Order of Saint John brought prosperity to the island, raising it to the social levels of a contemporary European town (from 17,000 in 1530 to 96,000 in 1797). The Knights of Malta chose to maintain the Italian language as their official language but rivalry between the larger national groups (Italian, French and Spanish) meant that Italian never gained a strong enough foothold to become the native tongue of the general populace[6].

[edit] Anglicanisation
The British gained military control of Malta in 1800. However, in the first years Italian kept on enjoying its de facto official status. After all, Malta was still formally part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. It was only in 1814 with the Congress of Vienna that Malta formally became a British Crown Colony and the first attempts at anglicanisation were made. These were weak efforts and so were the results: in 1842, when only 11% of the total population of Malta was literate, all literate Maltese learned Italian while only 4.5% could read, write and speak English.

Efforts grew stronger in the later 19th century. In 1878 a Royal Commission (the Rowsell-Julyan-Keenan Commission) recommended in its report the anglicanisation of the educational and judicial systems. While the latter had to wait until the 20th century teaching of the English language started to be enforced in State schools at the expense of Italian. In 1911, English overtook Italian as the secondary language after Maltese, spoken by 13.1% of the population vs. 11.5%.[citation needed]. The Royal Commission's report also had significant political impact. Supporters and opponents organised themselves into a Reform and Anti-Reform parties which, apart from being the forerunners of the present day two main political parties in Malta, assumed respectively the anglophile and italophile imprint (and also, subsequently, pro-colonial and anti-colonial policies) that were to characterise them for decades to come.

[edit] Rise of Italian Fascism and the Second World War
There was a huge minority in Malta who not only loved Italy's language but also saw Malta as a geographical extension of the Italian mainland[citation needed]. Senator Caruana Gatto in a speech delivered at the Royal Opera House in honour of the celebrated Maltese tenor Calleia, described Malta as "the extreme end of Italian soil". Caruana Gatto represented the nobility in the Senate (his speech was delivered on March 21, 1923).

In the 1930s the policy of Anglicisation reached full steam, mainly after the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in 1936 when many British politicians thought that the pro-Italian organizations in Malta were growing to be predominant inside the Maltese population. [7]

Italian was dropped from official status in Malta in 1934 and its place was taken by Maltese. When the Kingdom of Italy and Great Britain found themselves at war, Italian bombers began dropping their bombs on Maltese towns and villages: World War II buried the "Language struggle" about the use of the Italian or English in Malta.

At the height of the tensions before World War II which pitted Great Britain against Italy, the Italian language was dropped from official language status in 1934. In these year the Italian Irredentism promoted the unification of Malta to the Kingdom of Italy. A number of pro-Italian Maltese participated in fascist-supported organizations amongst whom was Carmelo Borg Pisani, a prominent proponent for Italian unification, who attempted to enter Malta as a spy and was executed for treason.

The nationalist movements together with their leaders evolved into a strong political force. Only in 1926 did the movements merge, although they had the same ideals for quite a long time and have been governing together during the first self-government of 1921. The 1921 constitution granted a considerable measure of self-government, but political tensions reemerged (promoted even by the Italian irredentism in Malta), and the constitution, after having twice been suspended, was revoked in 1936. A new constitution in 1939 reinstated Malta as a British crown colony.

During the war, the Nationalist Party was deprived of some of its leaders. Dr Enrico Mizzi (who was even the Director of the "Malta", a newspaper in Italian) and other 49 Maltese Italian supporters were exiled to Uganda by the colonial government on suspicion of pro-Italian leaning.

The other leader, Sir Ugo Mifsud died while defending in the Maltese Parliament the cause of these internees (among them: prof. Giulio Cortis of the University of Malta, father Alberto Pantalleresco, prof. Vincenzo Bonello, Alberto Laferla, Herbert Ganado, Berto Gauci and Alberto Baiona).

Arturo Mercieca was chief of Justice in Malta in the late 1930s and on 11 June 1940, the day after Italy declared war on Britain and France, aircraft of the Italian Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) attacked Malta. On that same day Mercieca was compelled to resign the Chief Justiceship to avoid removal[8] and was among those for whom the Governor issued detention orders [9] under the terms of the Malta Defence Regulations. He was interned and then in 1942 deported to Uganda, together with his wife and daughter and about 60 other Maltese nationals[10]. Their exile in Uganda lasted until early 1945[11]

Some Maltese Italians decided to fight for the unification of Malta to the Kingdom of Italy and joined the Italian military forces during WWII. [12] Among them, Carmelo Borg Pisani, Antonio Cortis, Paolo Frendo, Ivo Leone Ganado, Roberto Mallia, Manuele Mizzi, Antonio Vassallo, Joe d’Ancona and Carlo Liberto were the most politically renowned in Malta.

Carmelo Borg Pisani paid with his life for this decision: he was executed by the British authorities in 1942. Mussolini called him a Maltese Martyr and created in his honor in Liguria the "Battaglione Borg Pisani" in November 1943, where other Maltese irredentists fought.

[edit] Post-War
When the war ended, Dr Enrico Mizzi together with the others Maltese Italians continued to struggle for more political rights for Malta. In 1950, he was appointed Prime Minister. This did not last long, since Dr Mizzi died in office and was succeeded by Dr Giorgio Borg Olivier, another Maltese Italian with links to the Italian irredentism when young (he later promoted and obtained the independence of Malta from the British Empire in 1964).

Today, 66% of the Maltese population speak Italian, while the vocabulary of the Maltese language itself is 52.46% Italian (particularly Sicilian).[1] Indeed, an analysis of the etymology of the 41,000 words in Aquilina's Maltese-English Dictionary shows that words of Romance (Italian) origin make up 53% of the Maltese vocabulary, and other linguists believe can be as high as 60%.[citation needed]

Map of Italy in 1494, showing at the bottom Malta as part of the Kingdom of the Two SiciliesThe influence of the Italian can be seen in the Maltese language, written in a Latin alphabet and often offering the possibility of using either the Semitic or the Romance forms.[13]

Academic Maltese language frequently adopts a large number of Romance words, which is becoming the norm, a trend which is making the Maltese language more Europeanized. Maltese Grammar is mainly Arabic, although drastically simplified, but syntax, possibly through the influence of schooling, is more akin to Italian, and vocabulary is nearly 55% from Italian language and Sicilian dialect.[citation needed]

For many centuries, Maltese was the language of the kitchen and the workshop, while Italian was the language of learning, literature, the arts, law and commerce.[14] Hence, until the early 20th century, the vast majority of literary works in Malta were written in Italian.

According to Prof. Oliver Friggieri:

Maltese writers developed an uninterrupted local "Italian" literary movement which went on up to about four decades ago, whereas Maltese as a literary idiom started to coexist on a wide scale in the last decades of the 19th century. Whilst Maltese has the historical priority on the level of the spoken language, Italian has the priority of being the almost exclusive written medium, for the socio-cultural affairs, for the longest period.[15]

[edit] Present-day influences
Located just 60 miles to the north, Sicily has provided Malta with a virtually continuous exchange of knowledge, ideas, customs and beliefs throughout recorded history. Most modern Maltese families trace their origins to various parts of Sicily and Southern Italy. The geographic proximity has facilitated a considerable amount of intermarriage, cross-migration, and trade between the two groups of islands.

Map of Malta in the XVI century, when Italian was declared the official language by the Knights of MaltaThe Sicilian influence on Maltese culture is extensive, and is especially evident in the local cuisine, with its emphasis on olive oil, pasta, seafood, fresh fruits and vegetables (especially the tomato), traditional appetizers such as caponata (Maltese: "kapunata") and rice balls (arancini), speciality dishes such as rice timbale (Maltese: "ross fil-forn"), and sweets such as the cassata and cannoli.

Sicilian influence is also evident in many of the local superstitions, in children's nursery rhymes, and in the devotion to certain saints, especially St. Agatha. Centuries of dependence on the Diocese of Palermo brought many Sicilian religious traditions to Malta, including the Christmas crib (Maltese: "il-presepju"), the ritual visiting of several Altars of Repose on Good Friday (Maltese: "is-sepulkri"), and the graphic, grim realism of traditional Maltese religious images and sculpture.

Despite Malta's rapid transformation into a strategic naval base during the British period, the influence of Italian culture on Malta strengthened considerably throughout the 19th century. This was due in part to increasing levels of literacy among the Maltese, the increased availability of Italian newspapers, and an influx of Italian intelligentsia to Malta.

Several leaders of the Italian Risorgimento movement were exiled in Malta by the Bourbon monarchs during this period, including Francesco Crispi, and Ruggiero Settimo. There was even the emigration to Malta of 891 Italian exiles during the Risorgimento in 1849.

Malta was also the proposed destination of Giuseppe Garibaldi when he was ordered into exile, but this never came to happen. However, the political writings of Garibaldi and his colleague, Giuseppe Mazzini - who believed that Malta was, at heart, part of the emerging Italian nation - resonated among many of Malta's upper and middle classes. This created the fertile ground on which the Irredentism of the Maltese Italians developed during the last century, mainly during the Fascism decades.[16]

Catholic procession in Casal Fornaro, more commonly known as the village of Qormi, (a few miles away from Valletta), similar to those done in SicilyThat 67% of the Maltese people know Italian 50 years after the war's vicissitudes is confirmation of the cultural and linguistic influence of their northern neighbor through the spread of media from geographic proximity. Italian TV can be viewed with simple terrestrial reception from Malta, with many Maltese learning the Italian language through this means.

In the past decade there has been a revival of the Italian and culture in Malta.

Actually 66% of Maltese can speak Italian today and nearly all understand Italian (mainly because of the Italian TV transmissions from Sicily)[citation needed] . Although Italian has since been exchanged for English as the official language, it is still used and is spoken commonly in certain professional workplaces. The percentage of speakers today, 66%, is in fact much greater than when the language was actually official, in 1931, when only 14% spoke it.[citation needed]

An interesting fact is that a large number of Maltese learn Italian through Italian television, mainly Mediaset and RAI, as their broadcasts reach the Maltese Islands.[17] In addition to this, many products, services, and businesses that reach Malta are Italian, with Malta being too small on its own to produce some things, so many people learn Italian in order to work.

In addition to the Italian language itself being spoken in Malta, 52.46% of Maltese vocabulary is of Sicilian and Italian origin.[citation needed] And because in the English language (that influences nearly 15% of Maltese)[citation needed] many words are loan-worded from Italian (mainly in art and music), the presence of Italian words is calculated to be around 60 % of the entire Maltese vocabulary[citation needed] . This means that many words in Italian and Maltese are almost interchangeable[citation needed] , and a Maltese conversation typically includes much Italian vocabulary[citation needed] . In this way, the Italian language influences everyday speech all the time.

[edit] See also
Italy–Malta relations
Italia irredenta
Italian Fascism
Nationalist Party (Malta)
Enrico Mizzi
Arturo Mercieca
Carmelo Borg Pisani
[edit] External links
Maltese Italians and the Malta migrations
Site of the Knights "Order of Malta"
Carmelo Borg Pisani and other Maltese Irredentists (in Italian)
Influences of the Italian culture in the movement for Maltese independence
Google book with chapter on influence of Italian in the Maltese language
[edit] References
^ a b
^ [1]
^ Toynbee, Arnold. The Provinces of the Roman Empire. pag 79 Brincat, Giuseppe. Malta. Una storia linguistica
^ C. Capelli, N. Redhead, N. Novelletto, L. Terrenato, P. Malaspina, Z. Poulli, G. Lefranc, A. Megarbane, V. Delague, V. Romano, F. Cali, V.F. Pascali, M. Fellous, A.E. Felice, and D.B. Goldstein; "Population Structure in the Mediterranean Basin: A Y Chromosome Perspective," Annals of Human Genetics, 69, 1-20, 2005.
^ Cassola, Arnold. L'Italiano di Malta. Malta University Press. .
^ Douglas Austin, Malta and British strategic policy, 1925-43, page 73
^ Austin, Douglas; French, David (FRW) (2004). Malta and British Strategic Policy, 1925-43. Routledge. pp. 85-86. ISBN 0714655457.
^ Austin, Douglas; French, David (FRW) (2004). Malta and British Strategic Policy, 1925-43. Routledge. p. 75. ISBN 0714655457.
^ Mack Smith, Denis. Mussolini's Roman Empire. pag 147
^ Tagliavini, Carlo. Le origini delle lingue neolatine. pag 94
^ Lawrence Attard Bezzina, "Maltese and Hebrew: Two Cases of Cultural Survival"
^ Prof. Oliver Friggieri, "Main Trends in the History of Maltese Literature"
^ Lamb, Richard. Mussolini as Diplomat pag 280
^ Country profile: Malta BBC News; [2008/01/10]; [2008/02/21]
[edit] Bibliography
Attard, Joseph. Britain and Malta. PEG Ltd. Malta, 1988.
Brincat, Giuseppe. Malta. Una storia linguistica. Ed. Le Mani. Recco, 2004
Fabei, Stefano. Carmelo Borg Pisani (1915-1942) – eroe o traditore?. Lo Scarabeo Ed. Bologna, 2006
Cassola, Arnold. L'Italiano di Malta. Malta University Press. Malta, 1998
Durant, Will. The Renaissance. MJK Books. New York, 1981.
Lamb, Richard. Mussolini as Diplomat. Fromm International Edition. New York, 1999 ISBN 088064244-0
Mack Smith, Denis. Mussolini's Roman Empire. Fromm Ed. London, 1976.
Seton-Watson, Christopher. Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 1870-1925, John Murray Publishers. London, 1967.
Stephenson, Charles. The Fortifications of Malta 1530-1945. Osprey Publishing London, 2004.
Tagliavini, Carlo. Le origini delle lingue neolatine. Patron Ed. Bologna 1982.
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