Napoleon
Napoléon Bonaparte was a French statesman and military leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. He was Emperor of the French as Napoleon I from 1804 until 1814 and again in 1815 during the Hundred Days. Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars, he won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, building a large empire that ruled over much of continental Europe before its final collapse in 1815. He is considered one of the greatest commanders in history, his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoleon's political and cultural legacy has endured as one of the most celebrated and controversial leaders in human history, he was born in Corsica to a modest family of Italian origin from minor nobility. He was serving as an artillery officer in the French army when the French Revolution erupted in 1789.
He rose through the ranks of the military, seizing the new opportunities presented by the Revolution and becoming a general at age 24. The French Directory gave him command of the Army of Italy after he suppressed a revolt against the government from royalist insurgents. At age 26, he began his first military campaign against the Austrians and the Italian monarchs aligned with the Habsburgs—winning every battle, conquering the Italian Peninsula in a year while establishing "sister republics" with local support, becoming a war hero in France. In 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt, he became First Consul of the Republic. Napoleon's ambition and public approval inspired him to go further, he became the first Emperor of the French in 1804. Intractable differences with the British meant that the French were facing a Third Coalition by 1805. Napoleon shattered this coalition with decisive victories in the Ulm Campaign and a historic triumph over the Russian Empire and Austrian Empire at the Battle of Austerlitz which led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire.
In 1806, the Fourth Coalition took up arms against him because Prussia became worried about growing French influence on the continent. Napoleon defeated Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt marched his Grande Armée deep into Eastern Europe and annihilated the Russians in June 1807 at the Battle of Friedland. France forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July 1807, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent. Tilsit signified the high-water mark of the French Empire. In 1809, the Austrians and the British challenged the French again during the War of the Fifth Coalition, but Napoleon solidified his grip over Europe after triumphing at the Battle of Wagram in July. Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula, hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, declared his brother Joseph Bonaparte the King of Spain in 1808; the Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support. The Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, ended in victory for the Allies against Napoleon.
The Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states Russia. The Russians were unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade and violated the Continental System, enticing Napoleon into another war; the French launched a major invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The campaign did not yield the decisive victory Napoleon wanted, it resulted in the collapse of the Grande Armée and inspired a renewed push against Napoleon by his enemies. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in the War of the Sixth Coalition against France. A lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, but his tactical victory at the minor Battle of Hanau allowed retreat onto French soil; the Allies invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba off the coast of Tuscany, the Bourbon dynasty was restored to power.
Napoleon took control of France once again. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition which defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo in June; the British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died six years at the age of 51. Napoleon's influence on the modern world brought liberal reforms to the numerous territories that he conquered and controlled, such as the Low Countries and large parts of modern Italy and Germany, he implemented fundamental liberal policies throughout Western Europe. His Napoleonic Code has influenced the legal systems of more than 70 nations around the world. British historian Andrew Roberts states: "The ideas that underpin our modern world—meritocracy, equality before the law, property rights, religious toleration, modern secular education, sound finances, so on—were championed, consolidated and geographically extended by Napoleon. To them he added a rational and efficient local administration, an end to rural banditry, the encouragement of science and the arts, the abolition of feudalism and the greatest codification of laws since the fall of the Roman Empire".
The ancestors of Napoleon descended from minor Italian nobility of Tuscan origin who had come to Corsica fr
First French Empire
The First French Empire the French Empire,Note 1 was the empire of Napoleon Bonaparte of France and the dominant power in much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. Although France had established an overseas colonial empire beginning in the 17th century, the French state had remained a kingdom under the Bourbons and a republic after the Revolution. Historians refer to Napoleon's regime as the First Empire to distinguish it from the restorationist Second Empire ruled by his nephew as Napoleon III. On 18 May 1804, Napoleon was granted the title Emperor of the French by the French Sénat and was crowned on 2 December 1804, signifying the end of the French Consulate and of the French First Republic; the French Empire achieved military supremacy in mainland Europe through notable victories in the War of the Third Coalition against Austria, Prussia and allied nations, notably at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805. French dominance was reaffirmed during the War of the Fourth Coalition, at the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt in 1806 and the Battle of Friedland in 1807.
A series of wars, known collectively as the Napoleonic Wars, extended French influence to much of Western Europe and into Poland. At its height in 1812, the French Empire had 130 departments, ruled over 70 million subjects, maintained an extensive military presence in Germany, Italy and the Duchy of Warsaw, counted Prussia and Austria as nominal allies. Early French victories exported many ideological features of the French Revolution throughout Europe: the introduction of the Napoleonic Code throughout the continent increased legal equality, established jury systems and legalised divorce, seigneurial dues and seigneurial justice were abolished, as were aristocratic privileges in all places except Poland. France's defeat in 1814, marked the end of the Empire. In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte was confronted by Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès—one of five Directors constituting the executive branch of the French government—who sought his support for a coup d'état to overthrow the Constitution of the Year III.
The plot included Bonaparte's brother Lucien serving as speaker of the Council of Five Hundred, Roger Ducos, another Director, Talleyrand. On 9 November 1799 and the following day, troops led by Bonaparte seized control, they dispersed the legislative councils, leaving a rump legislature to name Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos as provisional Consuls to administer the government. Although Sieyès expected to dominate the new regime, the Consulate, he was outmaneuvered by Bonaparte, who drafted the Constitution of the Year VIII and secured his own election as First Consul, he thus became the most powerful person in France, a power, increased by the Constitution of the Year X, which made him First Consul for life. The Battle of Marengo inaugurated the political idea, to continue its development until Napoleon's Moscow campaign. Napoleon planned only to keep the Duchy of Milan for France, setting aside Austria, was thought to prepare a new campaign in the East; the Peace of Amiens, which cost him control of Egypt, was a temporary truce.
He extended his authority in Italy by annexing the Piedmont and by acquiring Genoa, Parma and Naples, added this Italian territory to his Cisalpine Republic. He laid siege to the Roman state and initiated the Concordat of 1801 to control the material claims of the pope; when he recognised his error of raising the authority of the pope from that of a figurehead, Napoleon produced the Articles Organiques with the goal of becoming the legal protector of the papacy, like Charlemagne. To conceal his plans before their actual execution, he aroused French colonial aspirations against Britain and the memory of the 1763 Treaty of Paris, exacerbating British envy of France, whose borders now extended to the Rhine and beyond, to Hanover and Cuxhaven. Napoleon would have ruling elites from a fusion of the old aristocracy. On 12 May 1802, the French Tribunat voted unanimously, with the exception of Carnot, in favour of the Life Consulship for the leader of France; this action was confirmed by the Corps Législatif.
A general plebiscite followed thereafter resulting in 3,653,600 votes aye and 8,272 votes nay. On 2 August 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed Consul for life. Pro-revolutionary sentiment swept through Germany aided by the "Recess of 1803", which brought Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden to France's side. William Pitt the Younger, back in power over Britain, appealed once more for an Anglo-Austro-Russian coalition against Napoleon to stop the ideals of revolutionary France from spreading. On 18 May 1804, Napoleon was given the title of "Emperor of the French" by the Senate. Note 3In four campaigns, the Emperor transformed his "Carolingian" feudal republican and federal empire into one modelled on the Roman Empire; the memories of imperial Rome were for a third time, after Julius Caesar and Charlemagne, used to modify the historical evolution of France. Though the vague plan for an invasion of Great Britain was never executed, the Battle of Ulm and the Battle of Austerlitz overshadowed the defeat of Trafalgar, the camp at Boulogne put at Napoleon's disposal the best military resources he had commanded, in the form of La Grande Armée.
In the War of the Third Coalition, Napoleon swept away the remnants of the old Holy Roman Empire and created in southern Germany the vassal states of Bavaria
Żejtun
Żejtun is a city in the South Eastern Region of Malta, with a population of 11,218 at end 2016. Żejtun holds the title of Città Beland, conferred by the grandmaster of the Order of the Knights of Malta, Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim in 1797. Before that, the village was known as Casale Santa Caterina, named after its patron saint and parish titular; the old urban cores, called Bisqallin and Ħal Bisbut retain their narrow medieval streets and ancient boundaries. Since at least the 19th century, the name Żejtun, or Casale Zeitoun, has referred to the settlement which developed around these two core villages. Together with a number of small hamlets in the vicinity, the bulk of the conurbation forms the city of Żejtun, administered by the mayor and the Żejtun Local Council. Over successive centuries, Żejtun lost a number of villages and hamlets that used to form part of its territory, which covered most of the south eastern part of Malta; the city experienced extensive urbanisation over the seventies and eighties, with the completion of numerous infrastructural and urban projects designed to relieve housing pressure in the neighbouring Cottonera area.
Żejtun is a major centre on the islands, with a significant contribution to the islands' history and commerce. One of the country's principal industrial estates, can be found on the city's borders. Żejtun contains a number of important heritage sites, such as St Catherine's Parish Church, St Catherine's Old Church - known as St Gregory's, numerous votive chapels, the remains of a Roman villa. The parish of Żejtun is one of the oldest on the islands and existed in 1436; the original parish church was built in the twelfth century, rebuilt in 1492. The current mayor is Doris Abela; the archpriest is Fr Nicholas Pace. The etymology of Żejtun has been studied over the ages, it takes its name from the Sicilian Arabic for olive – zaytun – one of the ancient agronomic industries on Malta. This was confirmed by Ciantar, who stated that "...the town was pleasant, due to the great quantity of olive groves, from whence it got and still retains the name Zeitun, which means olive. While the Sicilian Arabic word zaytun refers to the fruit of the tree, the olive tree itself is called zabbūğ/zanbūğ.
The Arabic origin of the town's name was again recorded in the first Maltese language dictionary as "Żejtun, in the eastern part of the island of Malta, there is a large and thriving town with this name, which incorporates another area called Bisqallin, the village of Bisbut. In the Saracen era, there must have been olive groves here, for the area to retain its true name."In his commentary on Maltese history, Gio. Francesco Abela claimed that the eastern half of Malta, from the old city to the coast was times divided into two further halves. To the east, all the land was called Zeitun, while to the other side - that is, from Marsamxett to all the old territory of the Birkirkara parish - the land was called Araar. Abela claims to have seen this notation in plans drawn by Girolamo Cassar, that these two contrade were covered with the two respective trees. Over the centuries, Żejtun was identified by several names. Casale Santa Caterina, iż-Żejtun, Ħal Bisbut, Ħal Ġwann, Bisqallin were used interchangeably to refer to both specific areas, or to the whole settlement.
The name Bisqallin, the name of the lower part of the city, means "the scions of Sicily", deriving from Sicilian settlers who inhabited this part of the island after landing at Marsascala. Over time, the name was corrupted into the Italian Casal Pasqualino. Żejtun shares its name with a number of settlements and areas in Greece, North Africa and the Near East. Today, Bisqallin is known as ir-raħal t'isfel, the'lower village', while Ħal Bisbut is referred to as ir-raħal ta' fuq, the'upper village.' The historic motto of the city of Żejtun is Palladis clara munera, indicating the town's position on a hill gifted it with clear and commanding views over the south-eastern part of Malta. The motto according to the Żejtun local council is Frott iż-Żebbuġ ismi, meaning that the city derives its name from the fruit of the olive tree; the core of Żejtun is located on a hill. The promontory is marked to the north by Wied iz-Ziju, which separates Żejtun from Tarxien and the outlying high ground; this valley is obscured by the Bulebel industrial zone, an old road which links Tarxien to Żejtun, as well as by the widened arterial road of Tal-Barrani.
The valley meanders. To the south, the Żejtun promontory is bounded by a gentle slope which forms the greater port area of Marsaxlokk; the higher ridge of Żejtun is marked by the late medieval chapel of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, known as Saint Gregory's Church, the important crossroads of Bir id-Deheb. Żejtun is strategically located between three important ancient harbours, that of Marsa to the north, those of Marsaxlokk and Marsascala to the south. The area was occupied since prehistory. Late Neolithic remains were found near the megaliths of Ħal Ġinwi, as well as the megalithic remains at Tas-Silġ, found on a hillock between Żejtun and Marsaxlokk. Remains of the temple at Ħal Ġinwi were found in the vicinity of San Niklaw chapel, between Żejtun and the Tas-Silġ temple; the site is today represented by a few ashlar blocks still visible in a field wall. More remains may survive beneath the soil; these sites remained in use during the Bronze Age, as well as during historical periods. Pottery shards
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in Western and Central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. The largest territory of the empire after 962 was the Kingdom of Germany, though it came to include the neighboring Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Burgundy, the Kingdom of Italy, numerous other territories. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Emperor, reviving the title in Western Europe, more than three centuries after the fall of the earlier ancient Western Roman Empire in 476; the title continued in the Carolingian family until 888 and from 896 to 899, after which it was contested by the rulers of Italy in a series of civil wars until the death of the last Italian claimant, Berengar I, in 924. The title was revived again in 962 when Otto I was crowned emperor, fashioning himself as the successor of Charlemagne and beginning a continuous existence of the empire for over eight centuries.
Some historians refer to the coronation of Charlemagne as the origin of the empire, while others prefer the coronation of Otto I as its beginning. Scholars concur, however, in relating an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, describing a gradual assumption of the imperial title and role; the exact term "Holy Roman Empire" was not used until the 13th century, but the concept of translatio imperii, the notion that he—the sovereign ruler—held supreme power inherited from the ancient emperors of Rome, was fundamental to the prestige of the emperor. The office of Holy Roman Emperor was traditionally elective, although controlled by dynasties; the German prince-electors, the highest-ranking noblemen of the empire elected one of their peers as "King of the Romans", he would be crowned emperor by the Pope. The empire never achieved the extent of political unification as was formed to the west in France, evolving instead into a decentralized, limited elective monarchy composed of hundreds of sub-units: kingdoms, duchies, prince-bishoprics, Free Imperial Cities, other domains.
The power of the emperor was limited, while the various princes, lords and cities of the empire were vassals who owed the emperor their allegiance, they possessed an extent of privileges that gave them de facto independence within their territories. Emperor Francis II dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806 following the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by emperor Napoleon I the month before. In various languages the Holy Roman Empire was known as: Latin: Sacrum Imperium Romanum, German: Heiliges Römisches Reich, Italian: Sacro Romano Impero, Czech: Svatá říše římská, Polish: Święte imperium rzymskie, Slovene: Sveto rimsko cesarstvo, Dutch: Heilige Roomse Rijk, French: Saint-Empire romain. Before 1157, the realm was referred to as the Roman Empire; the term sacrum in connection with the medieval Roman Empire was used beginning in 1157 under Frederick I Barbarossa: the term was added to reflect Frederick's ambition to dominate Italy and the Papacy. The form "Holy Roman Empire" is attested from 1254 onward.
In a decree following the 1512 Diet of Cologne, the name was changed to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, a form first used in a document in 1474. The new title was adopted because the Empire had lost most of its Italian and Burgundian territories to the south and west by the late 15th century, but to emphasize the new importance of the German Imperial Estates in ruling the Empire due to the Imperial Reform. By the end of the 18th century, the term "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" had fallen out of official use. Besides, contradicting the traditional view concerning that designation, Hermann Weisert has stated in a study on imperial titulature that, despite the claim of many textbooks, the name "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" never had an official status and points out that documents were thirty times as to omit the national suffix as include it. This, or the shortened "Roman Empire of the German Nation", is used in Germany to refer to the Holy Roman Empire. In a famous assessment of the name, the political philosopher Voltaire remarked sardonically: "This body, called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."
As Roman power in Gaul declined during the 5th century, local Germanic tribes assumed control. In the late 5th and early 6th centuries, the Merovingians, under Clovis I and his successors, consolidated Frankish tribes and extended hegemony over others to gain control of northern Gaul and the middle Rhine river valley region. By the middle of the 8th century, the Merovingians had been reduced to figureheads, the Carolingians, led by Charles Martel, had become the de facto rulers. In 751, Martel's son Pepin became King of the Franks, gained the sanction of the Pope; the Carolingians would maintain a close alliance with the Papacy. In 768, Pepin's son Charlemagne became King of the Franks and began an extensive expansion of the realm, he incorporated the territories of present-day France, northern Italy, beyond, linking the Frankish kingdom with Papal lands. In 797, the Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VI was removed from the throne by his mother Irene who declared herself Empress; as the Church regarded a male Roman Emperor as the head of Christendom, Pope
Knights Hospitaller
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem known as the Order of Saint John, Order of Hospitallers, Knights Hospitaller, Knights Hospitalier or Hospitallers, was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headquartered in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, on the island of Rhodes, in Malta and St Petersburg; the Hospitallers arose in the early 11th century, at the time of the great monastic reformation, as a group of individuals associated with an Amalfitan hospital in the Muristan district of Jerusalem, dedicated to John the Baptist and founded around 1023 by Gerard Thom to provide care for sick, poor or injured pilgrims coming to the Holy Land. Some scholars, consider that the Amalfitan order and hospital were different from Gerard Thom's order and its hospital. After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade, the organisation became a military religious order under its own Papal charter, charged with the care and defence of the Holy Land. Following the conquest of the Holy Land by Islamic forces, the knights operated from Rhodes, over which they were sovereign, from Malta, where they administered a vassal state under the Spanish viceroy of Sicily.
The Hospitallers were the smallest group to colonise parts of the Americas: they acquired four Caribbean islands in the mid-17th century, which they turned over to France in the 1660s. The knights were weakened in the Protestant Reformation, when rich commanderies of the order in northern Germany and the Netherlands became Protestant and separated from the Roman Catholic main stem, remaining separate to this day, although ecumenical relations between the descendant chivalric orders are amicable; the order was disestablished in England, Denmark, as well as in some other parts of northern Europe, it was further damaged by Napoleon's capture of Malta in 1798, following which it became dispersed throughout Europe. In 603, Pope Gregory I commissioned the Ravennate Abbot Probus, Gregory's emissary at the Lombard court, to build a hospital in Jerusalem to treat and care for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. In 800, Emperor Charlemagne added a library to it. About 200 years in 1005, Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah destroyed the hospital and three thousand other buildings in Jerusalem.
In 1023, merchants from Amalfi and Salerno in Italy were given permission by the Caliph Ali az-Zahir of Egypt to rebuild the hospital in Jerusalem. The hospital, built on the site of the monastery of Saint John the Baptist, took in Christian pilgrims travelling to visit the Christian holy sites, it was served by the Order of Saint Benedict. The monastic hospitaller order was founded following the First Crusade by Gerard Thom, whose role as founder was confirmed by the papal bull Pie Postulatio Voluntatis issued by Pope Paschal II in 1113. Gerard acquired territory and revenues for his order throughout the Kingdom of Jerusalem and beyond. Under his successor, Raymond du Puy, the original hospice was expanded to an infirmary near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem; the group cared for pilgrims in Jerusalem, but the order soon extended to providing pilgrims with an armed escort, which soon grew into a substantial force. Thus the Order of St. John imperceptibly became military without losing its charitable character.
Raymond du Puy, who succeeded Gerard as Master of the Hospital in 1118, organised a militia from the order's members, dividing the order into three ranks: knights, men at arms, chaplains. Raymond offered the service of his armed troops to Baldwin II of Jerusalem, the order from this time participated in the crusades as a military order, in particular distinguishing itself in the Siege of Ascalon of 1153. In 1130, Pope Innocent II gave the order a silver cross in a field of red; the Hospitallers and the Knights Templar became the most formidable military orders in the Holy Land. Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor, pledged his protection to the Knights of St. John in a charter of privileges granted in 1185; the statutes of Roger de Moulins deal only with the service of the sick. In the latter a marked distinction is made between secular knights, externs to the order, who served only for a time, the professed knights, attached to the order by a perpetual vow, who alone enjoyed the same spiritual privileges as the other religious.
The order numbered three distinct classes of membership: the military brothers, the brothers infirmarians, the brothers chaplains, to whom was entrusted the divine service. In 1248 Pope Innocent IV approved a standard military dress for the Hospitallers to be worn during battle. Instead of a closed cape over their armour, they wore a red surcoat with a white cross emblazoned on it. Many of the more substantial Christian fortifications in the Holy Land were built by the Templars and the Hospitallers. At the height of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Hospitallers held seven great forts and 140 other estates in the area; the two largest of these, their bases of power in the Kingdom and in the Principality of Antioch, were the Krak des Chevaliers and Margat in Syria. The property of the Order was divided into priories, subdivided into bailiwicks, which in turn were divided into commanderies; as early as the late 12th century the order had begun to achieve recognition in the Kingdom of England and Duchy of Normandy.
As a result, buildings such as St John's Jerusalem and the Knights Gate, Quenington i
Manuel Pinto da Fonseca
Manuel Pinto da Fonseca was the 67th Grand Master of the Order of Saint John, from 1741 until his death. He undertook many building projects; the cost of these projects contributed to bankrupting the Order in the decades following his death. His views were comparatively liberal. In 1764, he agreed to the re-unification with the Protestant Prussian branch of the Order, however, receiving the approval of Pope Clement XIII; the pope did agree, reluctantly, to the expulsion of the Jesuits from Malta in 1768. He was a Portuguese nobleman, the son of Miguel Álvaro Pinto da Fonseca, Alcaide-Mór de Ranhados, his wife, Ana Pinto Teixeira; the coat of arms of the Pinto portrays five red crescents, to symbolising that the Pinto de Fonseca family won five battles with the Ottomans. Before his election as Grand Master on 18 January 1741, Pinto da Fonseca was a knight of the Langue of Portugal, he had an illegitimate son by one Rosenda Paulichi, daughter of Alberigo Paulichi and Patronilla Ramuzetta, named José António Pinto da Fonseca e Vilhena, who married his first cousin Maria Inácia Pinto da Fonseca de Sousa Teixeira e Vilhena, illegitimate daughter of Francisco Vaz Pinto by one Clara Cerqueira.
He was elected as Grand Master in his 60th year, he lived to be a nonagenarian, ruling the Order for 32 years. As Grand Master, Pinto da Fonseca kept an elaborate court, imitating the courts of the great European princes of his era; the court was a center of intrigue, the Grand Master being surrounded by a multitude of "ambitious pretenders". In 1749, one of his bodyguards, Giuseppe Cohen, refused to join a plot led by Pasha Mustafa to stage a Muslim slave revolt. Pinto da Fonseca made substantial donations to the Conventual Church, among the most notable mementoes are two large and heavy bells cast by the Master Founder of the Order of Saint John, Aloisio Bouchut, in 1747 and 1748; these bells were made by melting two basilisks that were left by the Ottomans after the Great Siege of 1565. As Grand Master, Pinto da Fonseca completed construction of the Auberge de Castille. Today this building houses the Office of the Prime Minister. Pinto built nineteen storehouses at the Marina, which still bear his name, built several other buildings and structures.
In 1756, he has built the first printing press in Malta at the magistral palace of the Grand Master, known as la stamperia del Palazzo. Pinto gave his name to the town of Qormi and accorded it the status of a city as "Città Pinto"; the city of Qormi adopted the Pinto arms, with the tinctures reversed, for its own coat of arms and flag. Pinto gained a bad reputation for creating large debts for the treasury of the Order, leading to bankruptcy. In 1764, Pinto da Fonseca negotiated with King Frederick II of Prussia a reunification of the Protestant Bailiwick of Brandenburg with the Catholic Order of Saint John, but as Pope Clement XIII would not allow admission into a Roman Catholic organization of men he viewed as heretics the agreement came to naught. In 1765/6, Pinto was befriended by occultist Alessandro Cagliostro. Malta since 1734 was nominally a fief under the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, from 1759 under Ferdinand III. Bernardo Tanucci pressured Pinto to follow the Bourbon policy of suppression of the Jesuits, threatening a boycott of Malta if he refused.
Pinto consulted with Pope Clement XIII, who reluctantly agreed to the expulsion of the Jesuits from Malta, insisting that it should be done "with due decency". Pinto signed the decree of expulsion on 22 April 1768. Twenty Jesuits were expelled, while three elderly Jesuits, two of them native Maltese, were allowed to remain. After the expulsion of the Jesuit Order, Pinto appropriated all the revenue accruing from its property on the island with the aim of establishing a Pubblica Università di Studi Generali; the decree constituting the University, now the University of Malta was signed by Pinto on 22 November 1769, having been authorised to do so by the Papal brief, Sedula Romani Pontificis, received on 20 October 1769. By 22 November of that year, the Grandmaster signed a bando establishing the University. Pinto died on 23 January 1773, aged 91, his body was laid in a neoclassic monument with his mosaic portrait. A statue of Pinto is found in Floriana. Salles, Félix de. Annales de l'Ordre de Malte, ou, Des Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean-de Jerusalem, chevaliers de Rhodes et de Malte, depuis son origine jusqu'à nos' jours, du Grand Prieuré de Bohême-Autriche et du Service de santé volontaire avec les listes officielles des chevaliers-profès et de justice, des chevaliers d'honneur, etc.
Vienne, France: Imprimerie St. Norbert. Pp. 192–195. OCLC 458895934. Portraits of Grandmaster Fra Manuel Pinto Coins of Grandmaster Emmanuel Pinto
Germans
Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe, who share a common German ancestry and history. German is the shared mother tongue of a substantial majority of ethnic Germans; the English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages. Since the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation within the Holy Roman Empire, German society has been characterized by a Catholic-Protestant divide. Of 100 million native speakers of German in the world 80 million consider themselves Germans. There are an additional 80 million people of German ancestry in the United States, Argentina, South Africa, the post-Soviet states, France, each accounting for at least 1 million. Thus, the total number of Germans lies somewhere between 100 and more than 150 million, depending on the criteria applied. Today, people from countries with German-speaking majorities most subscribe to their own national identities and may or may not self-identify as ethnically German.
The German term Deutsche originates from the Old High German word diutisc, referring to the Germanic "language of the people". It is not clear how if at all, the word was used as an ethnonym in Old High German. Used as a noun, ein diutscher in the sense of "a German" emerges in Middle High German, attested from the second half of the 12th century; the Old French term alemans is taken from the name of the Alamanni. It was loaned into Middle English as almains in the early 14th century; the word Dutch is attested in English from the 14th century, denoting continental West Germanic dialects and their speakers. While in most Romance languages the Germans have been named from the Alamanni, the Old Norse and Estonian names for the Germans were taken from that of the Saxons. In Slavic languages, the Germans were given the name of němьci with a meaning "foreigner, one who does not speak "; the English term Germans is only attested from the mid-16th century, based on the classical Latin term Germani used by Julius Caesar and Tacitus.
It replaced Dutch and Almains, the latter becoming obsolete by the early 18th century. The Germans are a Germanic people. Part of the Holy Roman Empire, around 300 independent German states emerged during its decline after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ending the Thirty Years War; these states formed into modern Germany in the 19th century. The concept of a German ethnicity is linked to Germanic tribes of antiquity in central Europe; the early Germans originated on the North German Plain as well as southern Scandinavia. By the 2nd century BC, the number of Germans was increasing and they began expanding into eastern Europe and southward into Celtic territory. During antiquity these Germanic tribes remained separate from each other and did not have writing systems at that time. In the European Iron Age the area, now Germany was divided into the La Tène horizon in Southern Germany and the Jastorf culture in Northern Germany. By 55 BC, the Germans had reached the Danube river and had either assimilated or otherwise driven out the Celts who had lived there, had spread west into what is now Belgium and France.
Conflict between the Germanic tribes and the forces of Rome under Julius Caesar forced major Germanic tribes to retreat to the east bank of the Rhine. Roman emperor Augustus in 12 BC ordered the conquest of the Germans, but the catastrophic Roman defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest resulted in the Roman Empire abandoning its plans to conquer Germania. Germanic peoples in Roman territory were culturally Romanized, although much of Germania remained free of direct Roman rule, Rome influenced the development of German society the adoption of Christianity by the Germans who obtained it from the Romans. In Roman-held territories with Germanic populations, the Germanic and Roman peoples intermarried, Roman and Christian traditions intermingled; the adoption of Christianity would become a major influence in the development of a common German identity. The first major public figure to speak of a German people in general, was the Roman figure Tacitus in his work Germania around 100 AD; however an actual united German identity and ethnicity did not exist and it would take centuries of development of German culture until the concept of a German ethnicity began to become a popular identity.
The Germanic peoples during the Migrations Period came into contact with other peoples. The Limes Germanicus was breached in AD 260. Migrating Germanic tribes commingled with the local Gallo-Roman populations in what is now Swabia and Bavaria; the arrival of the Huns in Europe resulted in Hun conquest of large parts of Eastern Europe, the Huns were allies of the Roman Empire who fought against Germanic tribes, but the Huns cooperated with the Germanic tribe of the Ostrogoths, large numbers of Germans lived within the lands of the Hunnic Empire of
Order of Saint John
