Malta in the 1920s, as seen in newly released photos from the Edoardo Zammit Collection, was home to horse-drawn carriages instead of their motorised descendants.
Overlooking Floriana, a photo taken from Castille sees the winding upward hill empty of parked cars. Even trees are missing from the old capture as leaves cover today’s limestone architecture and arches.
Floriana perched below CastilleLooking at Valletta’s Marsamxett landscape, the capital has remained fortified, yet, as some new additions can be seen to have been added in the past 100 years, more are to come as scaffolding and cranes make guest appearances in the scene.
Valletta’s Marsamxett landscapeThe collection of photographs is believed to have been taken by Edoardo Zammit between 1928 and 1933, Michael Zammit Maempel, Edoardo’s great-great nephew, told Times of Malta.
The collection, while only a small part of Zammit’s prolific but unseen photographic career, evokes “bittersweet emotions,” Zammit Maempel said.
“On the one hand they show Malta as a truly beautiful country, with both its urban and rural fabric unspoilt and wonderful.
“On the other hand, the horror of the destruction we have allowed to be wreaked on the whole country becomes impossible to miss. Many areas of Malta have been ruined beyond belief and scarred by hideous constructions and non-existent planning,” he said.
One photo shows Xemxija Bay’s upward climb as concrete apartment blocks dominate a scene that, only a century ago, was home to sparse homes and rock walls.
Xemxija, St Paul’s BayZiju Dward
Born in the mid-1890s, amateur photographer Edoardo Zammit started life as the penultimate child in a family of nine siblings, Zammit Maempel said.
Known among his surviving family as Ziju Dward (Uncle Dward), Zammit’s indulgence lay in photography, a passion which, combined with the family’s collector tendencies, led to a vast collection that still survives today.
However, the hundreds-strong catalogue would spend years locked up in a large house Zammit and his siblings lived in until their living descendants began clearing it out following the final sibling’s passing in 1980.
“The mammoth task of clearing up the old Lija house and filtering through all the papers, records and diaries then started, and some treasures were found in the process, including some of his boxes of negatives,” Zammit Maempel said.
The photos shown here were part of Zammit Maempel’s grandfather’s collection of prints, only one piece of Zammit’s vast catalogue.
Msida’s police station now surrounded by horseless carriages
Spinola Bay in St Julian’s, pre- and post-LOVE sign
Sa Maison, Pietà
he view from Valletta’s Upper Barrakka
Chalet, Sliema missing its promenade
While it is unclear where Zammit’s drive to capture Malta through a lens came from, Zammit Maempel believes that there may be connections to the family’s history as original agents and importers for Kodak.
Lacking formal training, Zammit may have once won a photography competition sometime in the 1930s, Zammit Maempel said, but the family agree that the achievement is an outlier as “Ziju Dward was hardly the man to blow his trumpet that way.”
Edoardo Zammit died on November 15, 1973.
Castille, Valletta