For centuries, a pjazza or a road in our towns and villages served as the natural centre of gravity for communal life in the locality.

Private pursuits inside the home, public interaction in the shadow of the parish church. This survived in parallel with pedestrianisation.

A rare photo of Mdina’s main square, 1930s

So long as vehicles were not invading piazzas and roads, these spaces remained the domain of people. The more cars took over, the more man felt pushed out and retreated.

That special, almost intimate, dimension of human socialising has virtually disappeared from many of today’s urban landscapes.

A square with plenty of tourists sitting in open-air cafés bears no relation to the traditional spirit of the polis. It’s not the number of people that counts. It is why they want to be there.

Parish square, Mqabba, 1920s. Postcard by Salvatore Lorenzo Cassar

Pjazza San Filep, Żebbuġ, c. 1930, by Salvatore Lorenzo Cassar

St Gregory’s feast in a Żejtun square, 1920s

The concept of a physical area in a conurbation, where the inhabitants met informally and formally to interact, was hardly a Maltese invention.

It’s not the number of people that counts. It is why they want to be there

It harks back to the Greek agora, which I take to mean assembly, market or place for gathering.

An indispensable constituent of classical political and social life, where business was transacted, religion externalised, art found a voice, entertainment beckoned, and couples courted.

A 1940s image by Psyla Publishing Co. of an intimate corner of Mdina

1940s postcard of Pjazza San Franġisk, Victoria, by Alfred Vella Gera – ‘Vela’

Village feast in the main square of Għarb, 1920s or earlier

Cities or villages without their own agora suffered a more indistinct profile than those that had.

I must lament the scarcity of early images that have documented these aspects of indigenous life. Why were foreign photographers more sensitive to it than domestic ones?

Siġġiewi square on the occasion of the 1936 Holy Name of God Congress.

Those like Tony Armstrong Jones, Walter Kummerly and Daria Troitskaia who came, saw and left, felt sufficiently inspired by the Maltese minor quotidian, while the earlier native camera artists who were immersed in it 24/7 seem to have dismissed it as tedious and unphotogenic.

All images from the author's collections.

Celebrating the 1921 self-government constitution in an unidentified town in Malta. Any suggestions from readers?