Diminutive Comino snuggles in between the two larger land masses of the Maltese archipelago. It nicked its name from cumin seed plantations which, together with their cousin, aniseed, formed one of Malta’s most valuable cash crops up to the British period.

Musical entertainment on Comino. Pre-WWI postcard by Mikiel Farrugia

A popular Italian cough lozenge, the Pasticca del Re Sole, made since 1836 to a recipe claimed to have been used by Louis XIV, to this day boasts of anice di Malta among its miraculous ingredients.

Comino British military barracks, also used as an isolation hospital.

The tiny island served many and varied roles throughout history – a haven for pirates and corsairs, a place of confinement and punishment for mischievous knights, military barracks, quarantine enclave.

In 1960, John Gaul, a British millionaire later charged with the murder of his fourth wife, took it over to turn it into a posh tourist resort. A UK request to extradite Gaul from Malta in 1981 failed in the Magistrates’ Court.

In 1979, Comino was designated as a quarantined pig farm after the epidemic of African swine fever.

And when, in 1979, an epidemic of African swine fever wiped out virtually every pig herd in Malta, large tracts in Comino were turned into segregated pig farms, to revive the moribund pork industry.

Successive owners of the Comino tourist facilities invested heavily in advertising, including dedicated postcards of the Club Nautico and other hotel complexes. 

A promotional postcard of Comino by Swiss International Hotels

A composite 1980s postcard by Perfecta Advertising Ltd

The ABC Library published this Comino Hotel postcard in the 1960s.

These included the Zammit Cutajar family, Gaul, the Swiss International Hotels company and the Hilis. Leading postcard publishers like Perfecta, the ABC Library, What’s On, Cathedral Library, Sinetmalta, Miller, Click! and others all issued high quality cards of Comino.

HMS Sultan struck an uncharted reef off Comino on March 6, 1889, and later sank.

The ancient chapel of Santa Maria on Comino

The island originally aimed at serene, laid back, uncongested tourism – for the get-away-from-it-all eccentrics who enjoy intimacy with nature and invest in silence. However, Comino had other plans: to become the paradise for those who would willingly pay for overcrowding and disburse premiums for pandemonium.

Cliffs in Comino featured in a 1900s photographic postcard.