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then were _ it would be a far greater humiliation to the Order
than that of a few months earlier. The Grandmaster appears
to have been fairly familiar with the situation on the islands.
It was still October 1523, when the Prior of Castile and Leon
(Fra' Diego de Toledo) and the Bailiff of Santo Stefano (Fra'
Gabriel Todino de Martinengo) were about to be despatched
to the court of Charles V, nearly a whole year (that is) before
the eight-men Commission submitted its report to the Venerable
Council. The two extraordinary ambassadors were instructed
to seek permission for the Order to settle temporarily for
three or four years at Syracuse (Saragoza de Sicilia)
or anywhere else within the Empire until the Maltese islands
were adequately fortified to withstand any enemy assault.
A second request concerned the grant of the necessary tratte,
franchi, liberi et exempti d'ogni dacio et gabella,
for the regular export of wheat, ship biscuits, wine, and
all sort of other victuals from Sicily and the Kingdom of
Naples, necessary for the upkeep and proper maintenance of
the fortress, the Convent, and the rest of the island. Both
requests show the realistic image which l'Isle Adam entertained
of Malta: they also provide valuable insight into his initial
hopes regarding the new island. These issues constituted two
major flaws not only in the mind of the military strategist
but also in the eyes of the shrewd politician. Their combined
negative potential would be even more disconcerting when the
two basic weaknesses _ in defence and essential food supplies
_ marked the government of an island State. There were very
sharp contrasts between Rhodes and Malta which help one understand
how distressful these issues must have been to l'Isle Adam.
They would depressingly haunt every single Grandmaster on
Malta. To these two requests, which featured prominently in
the two ambassadors' instructions, a third was added, one
which was equally disturbing at this point in time as it as
throughout the Maltese phase of the Order's history. It concerned
the
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universal recognition of its status as an exempt Order of the
Church. The Hospitaller institution felt it needed the Emperor's
protection against other kings' and princes' gradual usurpation
of its rights and privileges; the suppression of its sources
of income; the confiscation of its lands. It was on these
factors, as well as on the political protection extended to
it by the Great Powers, that the Order depended, not only
for its survival but also for the performance of its sacred
duties, for the realization of its mission. In brief, this
was the form, defined by the three qualifying requests, which
in l'Isle Adam's mind Charles's offer of Malta could be accepted
in October 1523.
The inclusion of Tripoli
At the court of Charles V things
ran differently from the way l'Isole Adam thought they would.
The conditions attached to the donation were harsher than
expected. To Malta and Gozo, Charles V now added the North
African city and fortress of Tripoli which had been in Spanish
hands since 1510. This has been generally interpreted as reflecting
the Emperor's innately hostile attitude towards a French-dominated
Order (of the eight Langues, three were French) which in turn
was answerable only to the papacy whose current incumbent
_ the Medici Clement VII _ was unwittingly betraying signs
of anti-Spanish tendencies. However, the inclusion of Tripoli
in the proposed deal need not necessarily have been thus motivated,
although the possibility
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