Sitting in his Valletta townhouse overlooking Hastings Gardens, Albert Ganado smiles as he wistfully recalls his younger days as an up-and-coming lawyer, politician and budding map collector.

Now on the cusp of his 100th birthday, Ganado is perhaps best known as one of Malta’s most prominent collectors of Melitensia, amassing a world-leading collection of antique maps, lithographs and objects from throughout Malta’s history.

Things could have taken a very different turn when, as a young man, the spectre of World War II came to Malta. Speaking of his youth, Ganado says, “I have nice memories that are, to a certain extent, miraculous, because I could have easily died.”

Bombings and near-death experiences

In his autobiography, Ganado describes how he spent three months as a gunner in the Royal Malta Artillery at the end of 1941 together with another 70 fellow law, architecture and medicine students.

A young Albert Ganado (second from right) as a gunner in 1941.

His stint as a gunner was bookended by two close brushes with death in which he was lucky to have lived beyond boyhood, one taking place a few months before he was recruited and the second just a few weeks after he was discharged.

“I remember the first raid of the (HMS) Illustrious when they entered through the breakwater. I was in this house (in Valletta) on the rooftop from where I could see the German pilot in his cockpit. I covered myself with a large piece of wood to protect myself from red-hot ‘splinters’ (steel debris from bombs).”

His second brush with death came a year later when he found himself in the midst of the bombing of Valletta in February 1942. Ganado recalls the events of the day in vivid detail.

“I was in the palace square with my older sister Hilda when the alarm rang out. We walked down the stairs of the shelter but my curiosity piqued me because I wanted to see what was going to happen, so I climbed back up. Thank God I did because I saw a formation of 15 Junkers 88 (a German Luftwaffe aircraft) flying over Marsamxett in the direction of Valletta, more precisely towards the palace.”

It was then that Ganado says he “saw three of the planes exit their formation, their undercarriages open, dropping bombs right above our shelter. I ran as fast as I could down the stairs and narrowly avoided the bombs which exploded over my head.”

Over 20 civilians and 80 servicemen are believed to have died in that attack. To this day, Ganado remains thankful for his lucky escape. “If I hadn’t managed to make it to the basement before the bomb exploded, I wouldn’t be here with you today,” he sighs.

I was on the rooftop from where I could see the German pilot in his cockpit. I covered myself with a large piece of wood to protect myself from red-hot splinters

Politics and expulsion from PN

Having graduated from the University of Malta as a lawyer, Ganado soon found himself appointed as an acting magistrate by then-Justice minister Giovanni Felice, filling in for other magistrates during the courts’ summer break in 1954.

Although Felice asked him to stay on after the summer ended, Ganado was unconvinced. “I told him that I wanted to go back to my career; I liked my independence,” he explains.

Not long afterwards he was convinced to enter the political fray, being elected as a candidate for PN’s executive committee. This was to be short-lived.

“My political career was not very successful because I didn’t always agree with George Borg Olivier. So much so that they kicked me out of the party’s executive committee after we had a disagreement.”

At the heart of this disagreement was Ganado’s insistence that the party should hold a national congress. Ganado says that Borg Olivier was reluctant to call a congress, fearing it would bring about a challenge on his leadership of the party. According to Ganado, when he argued that the party’s statute should call for a congress, Borg Olivier’s disdainful reply was “Nistmaħ f’għajni l-istatut (I don’t care about the statute)”.

My political career was not very successful because I didn’t always agree with Borg Olivier

Ganado didn’t spend long in the political wilderness, swiftly joining the fledgling Democratic Nationalist Party, a new party made up of breakaway PN members led by his cousin Herbert Ganado. He briefly served as the party’s secretary but, once again, his involvement was short-lived.

Albert Ganado (third from right) at a meeting of the Partit Demokratiku Nazzjonalista in 1961.

“There really isn’t much to say about my political career,” he says. “I was sad to leave my political career at the time because I used to love it very much. But it worked out well because I could dedicate my time to my hobby of cartography, which opened paths that I would never have dreamt of.”

Maps and Melitensia

Politics’ loss was cartography’s gain, as Ganado soon developed an outstanding collection of maps dating back centuries, eventually becoming the first (and, so far, only) Maltese person to be awarded the prestigious Helen Wallis Award, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to cartography.

“Can you see that map up there?” he says, pointing to a large map framed on the wall over his left shoulder. “That is the beginning of the construction of Valletta. That map was created in 1558, before the Great Siege, by (Italian architect and engineer) Bartolomeo Genga.”

A detail from the map by Bartolomeo Genga that hangs in Ganado’s living room. Created in 1558, before the Great Siege, it shows one of the earliest known depictions of Fort St Elmo.

The map, showing one of the earliest known depictions of Fort St Elmo, is just one of the astonishing artefacts littered around Ganado’s house. Maps, paintings and lithographs adorn the stairwells leading up to Ganado’s living area, where bookshelf-lined walls hold an extensive collection of books by Malta’s most prominent writers throughout the years. Ganado’s collection includes the world’s largest collection of Lafreri atlases, a series of 16th-century maps from the Roman publishing house of famed engraver and cartographer Antonio Lafreri.

In 2008, Ganado gave his extensive collection of maps, many of them dating between 1507 and 1899, to the government in exchange for his family home in Valletta.

Ganado says he inherited a love for Maltese history from his father, whose own Melitensia collection he frequently used to turn to for help with his schoolwork as a child. With a playful glint in his eye, he recalls an incident in which his schoolteacher, impressed by his extensive research into a school exercise, summoned him to the front of the class and instructed him to teach the class in his place. “I was nine years old. That was probably the seed of my enthusiasm for Malta’s history.”

Having had a front-row seat to every milestone in Malta’s history over the past century, Ganado’s enthusiasm has never dimmed. “Malta’s history has now been given the importance that it deserves. People have come to appreciate it more, and many people now publish material about Maltese history.”