Lexicographer, Linguist, and Historian
Giovanni Pietro Agius Sultana (‘De Soldanis’) was born in Rabat, Gozo, the son of Andrea Hagius and Valenzia née Sultana, and was baptised in the parish church of St George the following morning. Giovanni Francesco Agius Sultana was not the only son. There were at least three other brothers in the Agius family: Fra Melchior Agius, the sacristan at the Conventual Church of St John, Fra Salvatore Agius, served as Hospital Chaplain for some years, and was also Fra Cappellano d’Obbedienza Magistrale, and Fra Giuseppe Agius, who had some literary pretensions, and the author of a diary recording useful details of life and events in eighteenth century Malta.
As a young boy, he received private tuition by a Capuchin friar in the convent of Our Lady of Graces, on the outskirts of Rabat, and under the guidance of Don Giuseppe Vassallo at the Scuola della Matrice in Rabat, Gozo, and studied Latin and other langauges in Malta, and studied philosophy and theology at the Jesuit College, Valletta. He also studied law, graduating from the University of Padua, in Italy.
He is considered as the first custodian of the library collections, and he was an eminent scholar and historian, author of a Maltese grammar and other works published in Rome.
De Soldanis’s intelligence was brought to the attention of Fra Paolo Alpheran de Bussan, then Bishop of Malta and Gozo, who appointed him at the age of 17 as Canon of the Gozo Matrice and Collegiate church in 1729, thus providing him with a regular salary to further his studies. Giovanni Pietro Agius Sultana was ordained Deacon at St Francis Church, Valletta in 1735 and ordained priest in 1737.
In 1750, at the age of 38, De Soldanis had tried, without success, to improve his status within the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Besides the backing of the local Bishop, in seeking ecclesiastical preferment, De Soldanis also sought the patronage of high-ranking Princes of the Church in Rome. Cardinal Portocarrero informed him from Rome that a vacant seat of Canon at the Malta Cathedral was intended for someone else. There were other positions which De Soldanis sought to occupy but with no success.
Agius De Soldanis became member of several important institutions such as the Accademia degli Apatisti in Florence, the Accademia Botanica of Cortona, and the Accademia di Buongusto and the Accademia degli Erranti, both in Palermo. He immediately showed that he was endowed with moral and intellectual gifts which he united in courteous manners. He was graced with extraordinary zeal and open mind for every useful and honourable undertaking. He was born to be a wise and cultured man.
In 1753 Agius De Soldanis was chosen by the administration of Gozo as the quaresimalista, the official preacher of the advent and lenten sermons at the Matrice. This was considered a very important privilege.
In 1758, Agius De Soldanis settled down in Gozo. He struggled hard to obtain an important post in his island especially as a Minister of the Inquisition Tribunal. However, he never obtained that post. On 14 June 1763 he was handpicked as the first librarian (custodian) of the Bibliotheca Publica in Valletta, and soon organised the heritage of Venerable Bailiff Fra Giovanni-Luigi Guérin de Tencin, the founder and first Commissario of the Bibliotheca Publica (or ‘Tensenian’). In other words, he drew up the first catalogue in alphabetical order by author and by subject. He was given an apartment and a salary of six scudi per month by way of appointment. Indeed, he bequeathed his many books, manuscripts, and old paraphernalia to the National Library which conserved them accurately. He was acquainted with many intelligent and leading Maltese personalities like Ignazio Saverio Mifsud.* According to Ġużè Cassar Pullicino*, it is to Mifsud that we owe certain details concerning the office of librarian assigned to De Soldanis by the Balì Tencin, founder of what is now known as the National Library. On 20 June 1763 Mifsud noted in his diary: ‘In detto tempo il Balì Tensè faceva mettere in ordine la pubblica libreria, e chiamò a se per aiutarlo il Canonico Dr D. Francesco Agius del Gozo, il quale essendogli riuscito di fare un Coadiutore, passò nella Valletta, e nel Forfantone, luogo adatto per la libreria, gli fu dato dal Balì un’appartamento con l’assegnamento, come si dice, di dieci scudi per mese’.
We also know that on 11 August 1763, Ignazio Saverio Mifsud called at the Library and spent the whole morning watching De Soldanis at work indexing the books belonging to the two collections combined – Tencins’ and Portocarero’s: ‘Il Canonico Agius Bibliotecario stava applicato in far l’indice faticosissimo alfabetico, si dei nomi e cognomi delli autori, che delle materie’.
In 1768, Giovanni Pietro Francesco Agius De Soldanis suffered from ill-health and died two years afterwards at the age of 58. He was buried at St Paul’s Collegiate Church, Valletta.
De Soldanis’ first publication on the Maltese Language was: Della lingua Punica presentmente usata da’ Maltesi with the subtitle ovvero Nuovi Documenti li quali possono servire di lume all’antica Lingua Etrusca, in 1750. Prof. P. P. Saydon* described De Soldanis’s grammar as an ‘unsuccessful attempt at reducing the Maltese language to grammatical rules’.
Agius De Soldanis’s most famous work in the linguistic field was the Damma tal-Kliem Kartaginis mscerred fel fomm tal Maltin u Ghaucin, a four-volume manuscript, and featuring words in Italian, Latin, and Punico-Maltese (1750). This collection of Carthaginian words in the spoken language of Maltese and Gozitans was the main source of Maltese lexicographers. He wrote also a grammar of the Maltese language, published in Rome in 1750.
One of the greatest work for which De Soldanis should continue to remain famous is the history of Gozo, Gozo Antico e Moderno e Sacro-Profano’ in 1745, which was translated by Canon G. Farrugia* in 1936, and into English by Fr Anthony Mercieca* in 1999. In writing his Il Gozo Antico e Moderno he set out to do for Gozo what G. F. Abela* had done for Malta in 1647, and the idea had been maturing in his mind since 1738. In 1738 the Balì Siniscalco Fra Ferdinando Ernesto de Stadl, who was interested in the annals of these islands, asked De Soldanis to supply further information about Gozo which was not included in Abela’s work.
His Damma (1750) was published as a faithful version of his final copy 250 years later after it was digitally transcribed by Rosabelle Carabott and Joanna Trevisan under the direction of Dr Olvin Vella, designed by Daniel Cilia, and published by the Kunsill Nazzjonali tal-Ilsien Malti, the National Library, the Department of Maltese, the Akkademja tal-Malti, Heritage Malta, the University of Malta Research Innovation and Development Trust, BPC International, and the Gozo Ministry.
Besides his studies on Maltese, De Soldanis occupied himself with writing other works on historical, archeological, and other matters which are connected with Malta and Gozo.
In 2010, Giovanni Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis was commemorated by a special issue of the Journal of Maltese Studies: Essays on De Soldanis (ed.) Olvin Vella.
On 27 September 1964 as part of the Independence celebrations, Prime Minister George Borg Olivier unveiled a bust of Ġann Piet Agius de Soldanis at Victoria.
This biography is part of the collection created by Michael Schiavone over a 30-year period. Read more about Schiavone and his initiative here.