A busy Mdina notary’s acts

Documentary Sources of Maltese History

Part I Notarial Documents, No. 5 Notary Giacomo Bondin: Notarial Archives, MS.585/1 and National Library, Univ.7 1516-1531   

Edited by Stanley Fiorini Notarial Archives Foundation in collaboration with the Malta University Press, 2026 

The early 16th-century notary Giacomo Bondin takes his place with this volume of his deeds in the substantial collection of Documentary Sources of Maltese History, edited by professor Stanley Fiorini. The deeds, which date bet­ween 1516 and 1531, were preserved in two places: 59 as recorded in a manuscript at the Notarial Archives, MS585/1, and a further 30 deeds in NLM Univ 11 at the National Library.

The volume provides in accessible form the notarial acts drawn by a busy Mdina notary public for the benefit of the public as well as students of Maltese history. It also builds on the remarkable achievement of the flagship series of volumes published by Malta University Press since 1996 in making available the documentary records of Maltese history.

Written in notarial Latin with the odd humanistic touch by Bondin, the acts throw more light on the social and economic activities of his day, presenting the reader with a portrait gallery of citizens of Mdina, including town notables, church officials and noblemen, as well as villagers, their business, private concerns and activities. The batch of 30 documents from NLM Univ 11 directly concern privileges and property concessions under forms of tenure which notables of Mdina sought to have confirmed.

On the instructions of Grand Master L’Isle Adam, in June 1530, the governing knight, Fra Aurelio de Butigellis, requested all local fief holders, as well as anyone claiming some benefit from past concessions of privileges by the kings of Sicily, to come forward with documents.

These documents, some dating back to the 1400s, were collected and transcribed by notary Bondin, giving added value to his acts as a source of reference for royal concessions by former rulers.

Throw light on the social, economic activities of his day

Bondin was a notary public in Mdina from the 1510s, married with at least one daughter. He served as a grammar school teacher, and involved himself in business, partly through his family background. He was not a member of the town nobility, but was good friends with some local notables, collaborated with the town council and served as a notary of the town’s civil court.

He also had connections in Italy, notably Rome, as well as Naples; as became clear in his role in a joint humanist effort to revise and publish an edition of a book on the history of the city, crafted in fictional accounts of origin and Virgilian magic. He was one of the first well-educated Maltese to provide his services to the Order of St John, in the circle of Aurelio de Butigellis.

A relatively late vocation led Bondin to enter religious life and go on to become a parish priest and canon of the cathedral chapter. A clash with the bishop of Malta, Domenico Cubelles, led to an investigation into the manner by which Bondin had entered the Church; this led to his suspension from clerical duties, and dismissal from his functions. He died in Rome in February 1546.

In doc. No 89 (1530) notary Bondin complained that the original document presented to him for transcription was “full of errors”. (He would, no doubt, voice a similar displeasure at a handful of typos that slipped through the present edition.) This is an indirect reminder of his humanist interest and collaboration to produce a new edition of the Cronaca di Partenope, a late medieval chronicle of Naples, which was published four years earlier under the fictitious authorship of the famous Giovanni Villani.

The fifth centenary of this publication, which came out in Naples on May 18, 1526, as Croniche de la Inclita Cità de Napole emendatissime, makes this volume of Bondin’s deeds an apt tribute to him. Messere Iacobo Bondino de la Insula de Mauta was explicitly credited as co-editor of the volume, which also carried a short poem by notary Bondin dedicated to his friend and fellow citizen of Mdina, Antonio Manduca.

The reader will find a lot of social interest in the last wills and testaments, donations and dowries, and other deeds collected in this volume. Around half the documents concern property transactions and ownership rights in some form. There is a wealth of information concerning notable families of Mdina, as well as various villagers spanning the rural communities of the island. Social status was frequently reflected in the nomenclature used by the notaries of the period.

Bondin himself enjoyed a good start – the late notary Lorenzo Agius had appointed him conservator of his acts. Giacomo’s nephew Giuliano Muscat continued the family’s connection with the notariate. Giacomo was a well-established notary regularly sought by his clients. No doubt a lot was lost when he decided to enter the priesthood in 1531, and one is always grateful that something of his work has been preserved.

For this, the editor of the present volume, the Notarial Archives Foundation and Malta University Press deserve credit in ensuring that the work of this 16th-century Maltese notary and humanist is available for the present and the future.