Priests, Rebels, and the Last Challenge to the Knights of Malta - Couverture souple

Martello, Casey

Couverture souple

ISBN 13 : 9798237420074

Editeur : Goldenback, 2026

Synopsis

On the night of 8 September 1775, while the Knights of Malta celebrated the anniversary of the Great Siege in the gilded Church of Saint John, a Maltese priest named Gaetano Mannarino led thirteen men through the dark streets of Valletta and seized Fort Saint Elmo. A second band took Saint James Cavalier with duplicate keys. At dawn, the red-and-white banner of Malta flew over the fortresses of the most celebrated military order in Christendom.

The rising lasted three days. The countryside never came, the hoped-for Russian ships never appeared, and the Grand Master who had given his word of mercy broke it. Three men were strangled and their heads impaled above the city gate. Mannarino spent twenty-three years in the vaults beneath the fort he had captured.

Drawing on the trial registers that overturned two centuries of official history, this gripping narrative reveals that the Rising of the Priests was far more than a clerical mutiny. Nobles, lawyers, physicians, fountain keepers and violinists rose together to defend bread, faith and ancient liberties against an empty treasury and an absolutist prince.

A story of hunger, conscience, broken faith and the price of loyalty on an island ruled by strangers.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Casey Martello grew up in the west of Ireland, where a childhood spent among ruined abbeys, old fortifications and long winter evenings of storytelling gave rise to a lasting fascination with small islands and the powers that have tried to rule them. A lifelong reader of Mediterranean history, Martello has travelled widely across the region and finds in Malta's story many echoes of Ireland's own: a deeply Catholic people, a language that survived without official favour, and a long history of governance by outsiders. Martello writes narrative history for general readers, with a particular interest in the ordinary men and women whose lives are recorded only at the moment history catches up with them.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Goldenback
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 13: 9798237420074
• Reliure: Paperback
• Nombre de pages: 518
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible