Siege Maps: Keeping Memory Safe

The Map Collection and The National museum of Fine Arts from Valletta present exhibition of unique maps of the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. 

The exhibition presents four unique renaisance maps of the Great Siege of 1565 by Giovanni Francesco Camocio, a thriving publisher and dealer of maps, prints and books. These news maps were once the most effective means of reporting the last developments of the Siege. Panels inform about how were these maps created, who and why created them and show differences between four states and describe geographic and battle situation.

Part of the 2nd state of the map

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, Czech Republic. Exhibition was already presented in Valletta.

Exhibition was presented:

• National Museum of Archaelogy, Valletta, Malta - 29 January - 22 May 2016
• Heart of Gozo Museum - 10 June - 17 July 2016
• the Map Collection, Prague - 1 July - 31 August 2016

The exhibition was lent to the following institutions:

• Research Library of Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem (20 March - 12 May 2017)
• Moravian Cartographic Center Velké Opatovice (15 May - 15 October 2017)

Digitized posters are available HERE.

Report from the innauguration of the exhibition is available HERE.

More information about the exhibition and unique maps is available HERE.