Malta Study Center between preservation and digitisation. Documents for architectural historians and researchers

The historiography on the events of the Sovereign Military Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta (also known as the Order of Malta) during the medieval period is considerable. Prominent historians have devoted themselves to the reconstruction of its characteristics and its administrative structures from its very beginnings, from Jerusalem to Rhodes. The study of the history of the Knights Hospitallers in the Early Modern is, on the other hand, incomplete, both because many documents were lost before the Order’s arrival in Malta in 1530 and partly because sources are harder to track down, having been dispersed in State Archives all over Europe. The archives of the Order of Saint John were in fact largely dispersed due to the Napoleonic Suppressions and, the remaining fonds are often not inventoried or difficult to access and dispersed in local archives. Furthermore, the main archives kept in Malta are largely unexplored. The preservation situation of architectural documents and drawings is often dramatic for the collections of the Order of St. John, but also for other fonds of drawings preserved in archives all across Italy. Furthermore, Covid-19 pandemic has aggravated the problems of preserving primary sources, as documents and work of art and architecture: in most cases, archives do not have financial resources to preserve their documents and it is challenging for some institutions to offer the possibility to study on deteriorated primary sources, and even not available for conservation reasons. This is the reason why the Malta Study Center’s digitisation activity is particularly valuable.