Except for a few geriatrics in the legal profession, the name Alberto Magri will today elicit a bemused “Alberto who?”

He was a high-profile achiever who compulsively shrivelled his image to the lowest profiles possible. The negation of a narcissist, he just craved not to be noticed. I am aware that writing about him I am guilty of what he would consider a heinous disservice to his memory – the right to be forgotten. 

In life, he was reputed to have taken the vow of chastity. I cannot confirm or deny, but he was anything but chaste in his extravagant charity, in relentless loyalty to duty, in living by the highest ethical standards, in his aspiring to moral and professional perfection. And he was a lawyer? Are you serious?

Alberto (1896-1972) was hardly handicapped by his family DNA. Magri on his father’s side, he was reputed to be a collateral descendant of the polymath Magri brothers, Domenico and Carlo, the only Maltese who achieved bestselling-author status in Europe in the seicento.

Their Hierolexicon Dizionario Ecclesiastico went through some 20 editions, translations and reprints in various languages throughout Europe. And so was the Jesuit Fr Manuel Magri, Malta’s pioneer archaeologist, also said to be related.

Not to mention a grand aunt from Senglea, who boasted with anyone who would listen of so many graduates in the family that they gave away their parchment diplomas to turn into drums (“aħna mil-lawrji nagħmlu t-tnabar”). This poor aunt, the braggart, remained a standing joke in the family. No one remembered her real name. We routinely referred to any show-off as iz-zija ta’ Ċaċu.

From left: Dr Alberto Magri, Fr Gerald Paris, O.P. (?) and Dr Ġuzé Pace, in Marsalforn.

Alberto’s mother was Italian from Tuscany, nonna Valentina Consigli. The family had fled to Malta in the mid-19th century – I never established if with the first wave of political exiles, those who fought for liberation from foreign rule and unification, or with the second wave, those who felt they had to leave when the liberal democrats later took over.

Valentina’s uncle, the engineer Egisto Beghè, served as second-in-command in the monumental Suez Canal project, under Ferdinand de Lesseps. I still recall as a prized family heirloom the dazzling pair of diamond cufflinks in their velvet casket with a silver inscription: ‘Presented to Egisto Beghè by the Empress Eugenie of France on the occasion of the opening of the Suez Canal, November 17, 1869.’

Alberto’s Italian cousins included the seaman Carlo Maccaferri, a captain in World War II, hero of the naval battle of Marettimo, April 15 and 16, 1943, one of the very few David-and-Goliath encounters in which the weaker Italian warships had the better of the superior British squadron. Carlo crowned his career as admiral and rector of the Italian Naval Academy in Livorno.

When, in September 1943, the Italian navy surrendered to the Allies in Maltese waters, Carlo formed part of its higher ranks. He came over to Rabat to greet his relatives. I, barely seven years old, recall this tall stranger, dressed in impeccable civilian clothes, hugging nonna Valentina. Her eyes glistened with tears.

Alberto grew tall, strong, handsome and athletic. His younger brother Edoardo, later judge, has the distinction of being the very first Maltese sportsman to take part in the Olympic games, in Amsterdam 1928.

Alberto Magri with one of his nephews.

With credentials like these, it is unsurprising that Alberto had to struggle not to outshine. He did. After graduating as a lawyer in 1919, the turbulent Sette Giugno year, he very soon became the leading jurist in Malta – the only one in living memory to excel as a civil, criminal and commercial counsel concurrently.

Highly unusual, as generally advocates who glow in one area do not simultaneously make a name for themselves in others. Magri, throughout the whole of his legal career, excelled outstandingly in every branch of law.

By will, he left me his entire legal library. What an amazing collection of books, undoubtedly the richest private law library in Malta. It had one questionable peculiarity. I would say about nine-tenths consisted of legal textbooks – all the classics and the contemporaries. The remaining tenth included only apologetics, studies of papal encyclicals, theology and canon law, but mostly, lives of saints. Not one single work of fiction, art, history, travel or biographical volume. Wait, it did include Dante’s Divine Comedy illustrated by Gustave Doré. 

His few concessions to the ecstasies of art: he played the mandolin, rather rigidly, I would say, either solo or accompanying his sister Lily on the piano. His favourites included soulful classics like the Meditation from Massenet’s Thaïs and the Swan by Saint-Saëns. Lily’s forte remained Sinding’s Rustle of Spring, a bravura piece which sounds impossible to play but is said to be relatively easy. I also remember her braving Chopin’s posthumous Fantasie Impromptu. And, spurred by my father, Alberto bought old master paintings not, I believe, with any major passion.

Though undoubtedly a man of superior intelligence, Alberto sailed through life retaining the naivete of the innocent. I recall several instances. Quite some time after the colonial government stopped issuing gold sovereigns as legal tender, printing paper money instead, the Treasury published an order that all gold sovereigns were to be exchanged into printed currency, one paper pound for one gold sovereign.

Alberto Magri with his mother Valentina in Montecatini in 1933.  

Uncle Bertu had a number of gold sovereigns in his home safe and went promptly to exchange them. I remember his amazement and disbelief discovering that he had been the only person in Malta to comply with the Treasury order. Everyone else had held on to the precious gold.

This mirrored a later occurrence. With the approach of war, supplies were expected to become problematic. Alberto purchased a stock of food essentials for a rainy day – sugar, rice, tinned meats, flour, oil.

War did bring about the scarcity predicted and the government issued anti-hoarding directives – those in possession of edibles and essentials had to declare their holdings and hand them over at a minimum fixed prize. This time round, Alberto was not the only one to comply to the directives, but almost. When people came to know of his heroic guilelessness, no one said thank you; they commiserated him as baħnan.

His innate naivete sometimes infected his professional performances. Classic in court folklore remained his disingenuous defence of a man accused of intimacy with a minor: the fact was physically impossible, the closet where it allegedly happened being too tiny and cluttered to permit any activity. The jurors did not buy it and the accused ended behind bars. The foreman of the jury later publicly mocked Magri, bragging: “Bert, I can ‘have’ a nice woman anywhere, even on top of a flagpole (anke fuq il-galletta ta’ arblu).” No doubt to the lawyer’s cringe, he deployed language far more colourful.

His charity remained always discreet and hidden, but equally proverbial

When my father Vincenzo was dismissed from his job, imprisoned and eventually exiled to Uganda, with his pension forfeited, my mother ended entirely destitute, with zero income and three infants to somehow keep alive.

Her brother, Uncle Bertu, perhaps mindful that he had served as witness to her wedding, offered us indefinite free board and lodging. We moved in with him to his pretty second home in Rabat at 5, St Augustine Avenue, and stayed under his roof for the whole duration of the war and the following two years, until father returned from exile in 1945. 

Uncle Bertu was a towering, awe-inspiring presence, always kind, never warm. He took full responsibility for mother and all the family. I believe he went on helping us financially, until father found his feet after his return. I never ever heard him raise his voice, at home or in court, as lawyer or as judge.

Alberto Magri with the lawyer Ġuzé Pace in 1931.

His charity remained always discreet and hidden, but equally proverbial. I know – not from him – he helped routinely with money handouts several deserving  families who depended on him in times when social services did not even come in dreams. For many years, he chaired aggressively the Valletta St Vincent de Paule Society, a last resort against starvation for hundreds in need.

When, in 1961, he retired from the bench, he clawed back more time to dedicate to the poor. He rented two basement rooms in Fredrick Street under the Greek catholic church and, twice a week, ran a free legal aid office. Against zero costs, anybody in Malta who claimed they could not afford a lawyer, enjoyed the luxury of obtaining legal advice and services, often in writing, from the leading legal luminary of the island, and for free. He went on rolling out this charity until his death.

I remember quite clearly his appointment to the judiciary and his retirement. The moment he took office in 1952, he disappeared from social life. Like most other judges of his time, he declined all invitations to receptions, weddings, parties and other social events. He only made the briefest appearance at strict family celebrations.

He did not drive and, in his days, judges did not enjoy a chauffeured car allotted to their needs. Whenever he had to go anywhere, he hired a cab and paid for it. When I asked why he did not use public buses as he had frequently done before his appointment, he replied: “I never know who will sit down next to me – it could be someone who has a court case pending.”

Isolation as an ethical imperative made him distance himself from all his close friends. He retained just one, a very old monsignor. Twice or thrice weekly they used to meet in the late evening near Castile for a walk to Sarria and back.

Alberto Magri with his sister Lily in Florence in 1964

His retirement almost had a touch of comedy about it. The day his colleagues celebrated his last day in court, mother passed me a message: “Uncle Bertu wants you to call on him.” I said I’ll go on the weekend. Mother insisted – “go tomorrow, it’s urgent.” The next day I found uncle with a cardboard box.

“Please take these to the Court Registrar today. They don’t belong to me.” The bag contained some used blotting and carbon papers, a few paper clips, two pencil stumps, a knot of rubber bands, a wooden writing pen with spare steel nibs and what dregs remained in bottles of Quink and of Gloy glue. Returning those treasures relieved an unbearable anguish from his conscience. And made me swear softly, sottovoce.

Up to his death, Alberto never used a fountain pen. He stuck to the old quill with replaceable steel nibs, which he dipped in an inkwell every few seconds. Grateful clients had given him the best Parker, Cross, Pelikan and Waterman fountain pens, even gold ones, but he never switched to them.

I ended the beneficiary of this stubbornness. From the USA, a Maltese American client had gifted him a (then) expensive Biro ball pen, the like of which had never been seen in Malta before. He immediately gave it to me, I believe it was in 1947, and I found myself the only envied student in the whole Lyceum owning that amazing wonder of technology, a pen that apparently never needed topping up. When it eventually ran out, I had to discard it, as no one in Malta had heard of it or had any refills for sale.

Though gaunt and inevitably serious, Uncle Bertu was not totally devoid of humour. Except once, I never remember him laughing boisterously. It was in October 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crises, when a nuclear war was on the verge of annihilating the world.

Everyone talked anxiously about nothing else. Everyone, except zia Lola, who never left Bertu’s house except at 6am to hear mass and then spent the rest of the day dusting the furniture, wholly oblivious to anything that was going on in the outside world. I had a meeting with the retired judge and he immediately asked me for the latest news.

“Nuclear war seems imminent and inevitable,” I answered. Humanity was on the verge of the ultimate apocalypse. Zia Lola overheard us; she interjected “Madonna! How unlucky we are! We’ve just whitewashed the house!” (għadna kemm bajjadna).

I may in the future write about Magri’s stellar legal career, his breaking all local records defending 20 suspects facing the death penalty, and his input in advancing the political and social destiny of the nation.