Wirt Ghawdex’s next public lecture entitled “Nobility, Faith and Masculinuty: Magic and Witchcraft in Hospitaller lives during the Seventeenth Centrury” by Dr Emanuel Buttigieg, will be held on Friday, the 7th of September 2012 at the Cittadella Centre for Culture and the Arts at 6.30pm.

The theme of magic and witchcraft is a popular subject on which many books have been written, particularly because during the 16th and 17th centuries, most of Europe experienced a huge wave of persecutions against alleged witches.

It is probable that as the Reformation and Counter-Reformation intensified, each side became more concerned with what they considered to be the forces of the devil and darkness and therefore in looking for and catching witches.

After going over some general considerations about magic and witchcraft, this lecture will show that many Hospitallers were regular users and/or practitioners of magic, which constituted an integral aspect of their self-being as noblemen and religious knights.

Dr. Emanuel Buttigieg is a Lecturer in early modern history at the University of Malta. He read for a Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge (Peterhouse), under the supervision of Dr Mary Laven (Jesus College). His first book, Nobility, Faith and Masculinity: The Hospitaller Knights of Malta, c.1580-c.1700, was published by Continuum of London and New York in 2011.

The lecture will be given in English.

Following the lecture there will be the launching of a new Guide Book for the Gunpowder Magazine, Battery, WWII shelter & Silos site after which there will be a tour of the site to try out the new guide book and associated information panels.

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