The Hospitaller Grand Priory of Messina in the Seventeenth Century

This book details the origin of the Grand Hospitaller Priory of Messina. It discusses a breadth of themes, such as the historiography, the Hospitaller’s European commandery and Sicilian patrimony, its management and organization in the seventeenth century, its religious practices, and the prioral mansion in Messina. The final chapter includes a detailed account of the 1674 Messina insurrection against the Spanish overlords. This event plunged the priory into political chaos, fracturing it and pitting members against each other. It also shattered neutrality issues embedded in the statutes of the religion and ignoring the precepts emanating from the Convent on Malta.

The Hospitaller Grand Priory of Messina in the Seventeenth Century will appeal to students and scholars alike interested in the Crusading Orders, the history of the Knights Hospitaller, and the history of Malta.

Ray Gatt has a professional medical background and holds a doctoral degree from the University of Malta. His thesis on the Grand Hospitaller Priory of Messina became the foundation for the current book with the same title. He has also written various papers on the Hospitallers which have been included in edited books, as well as on another Hospitaller Order, that of St Lazarus.