Nobleman, Scientist, Lexicographer and Author
Barone Cavaliere Vincenzo Azopardi was born in Valletta, the son of Calcedonio Azopardi and Saveria née Agius. He was not born in 1782 or 1783 as indicated by several historians and biographers and he was the eldest son of Calcedonio and Saveria who bore two girls before him in 1782 and 1784.
Barone Vincenzo Azopardi appertained to parents and grandparents of noble extraction and of medical doctors who occupied the highest positions in the medical institutions of the country and whose contribution to their profession was considerable.
Vincenzo studied jurisprudence at the UM from where he graduated JUD on 21 April 1809. His surname was written ‘Azopardius’. He also studied the art and craft of farming (il-biedja).
He was offered the post of Assistant Treasurer and Magistracy of Gozo by the first Governor Sir Thomas Maitland which he did not accept. He even refused the post of President of the Bench. However, he was Commissioner of the Hospice for the Invalids and of the Conservatory for the Orphans under Maitland.
Dr Vincenzo Azopardi was a portmanteau Maltese personage: he was a noble and lawyer, an intellectual rich in mind, heart and purse, a knight who loved and worked all his life for the professional and social welfare of his fellow creatures. He taught the masses and incited them for work. He quarrelled with the civil authorities so that barren lands would be given by emphyteutical grant so that they would be worked and tilled for the benefit of the nation. He studied the art of agriculture and taught it to the farmers. He encouraged the government to introduce compulsory education. He suggested reform in the teaching of English and Italian. He devised an orthography for the Maltese language in comparison with Italian and English. He published a dictionary and a grammar. He wrote on politics in Malta of the seventeenth century and sent to print many literary contributions. The government offered him the post of Principal Doctor, but he did not accept the offer and left it to others. Queen Victoria honoured him with the title of Knight of the Order of St.Michael and St. George for all these noble and gallant services.
He was an author and a historian. However, he mostly excelled as a scientist and as a thoroughly public-spirited who also took a special interest in education. He did not only suggest reforms in the curricula of schools but also in agriculture and commerce. In 1842, he received the C.M.G.
His principal literary works were: Giornale della Presa di Malta e Gozo dalla Repubblica Francese, e della susseguente rivoluzione della campangia (1836), Raccolta di varie cose antiche riguardanti Malta e Gozo (1843) and Dizionario Maltese, Italiano ed Inglese (Malta 1856). His Giornale Della Presa di Malta contained many interesting documents relating to the period of the occupation of Malta by the French Republic, and the patriotic struggle of the Maltese people against the French garrison in 1798-1800 rather than a legal graduate and would refer to him as a medical doctor. He sold out the book by the time he Royal Commissioners John Austin and George Cornewall-Lewis reported on the island's affairs in the same year 1836. Azopardi regaled by printing the Giornale della Presa a publication which came to be considered as a primary hisotircal source of first importance
In 1847, Baron Vincenzo Azopardi published in Malta the first edition of the Vocabolario Maltese-Italiana-Inglese. He made a breakthrough in dictionary writing in the country despite a wave of lexicographical enthusiasm from the time of Mikiel Anton Vassalli (d.1829)’s Lexicon of 1796 down to 1846. His vocabulary was different for the reason that lexicographers were copying each other, with perhaps a few additons. In 1849, he published a second and third editions while he had a fourth edition which appeared in Malta under the title of Piccolo Dizionario Maltese italiano Inglese in 1856. Azzopardi's short world-list gained popularity due to the importance which it attached to the study of Maltese in the elementary school curriculum. Baron Azopardi listed in the Dizionario fifteen different alphabets used up to his time, one of which was a mixture of Latin and Arabic letters. Azzopardi did not have a model because down to his time, no system of alphabet had yet been scientifically formulated. Yet, his contribution was considerable to the improvement of Maltese as a language of instruction. He was the person who made several writers in the mid-nineteenth century feel encouraged to write on a variety of topics in Maltese.
In 1847, the Cavaliere Baron Vincenzo Azopardi was the promoter of the the first Casino in Ħaż-Żebbuġ. He saw to it to make the venue very rich culturally so much so that he supplied it with a library and a machine…. He founded the Casino together with the most educated section of the population of Ħaż-Żebbuġ.
Vincenzo Azzuppurdi, widower of Theresia Zamitt and husband of Donna Martina dei Baroni Gauci, died aged circa 74 years. His funeral was held in Ħaż-Żebbuġ and his corpse was followed by a procession of distinguished people, varying from nobles to common friends. He was buried in the Archparish Church of Ħaż-Żebbuġ.
This biography is part of the collection created by Michael Schiavone over a 30-year period. Read more about Schiavone and his initiative here.