Villa Barbaro-Vigilo54-Nov2020-PCD
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ViGiLO - Din l-Art Ħelwa 18 Creating a family patrimony has been surrounded by built-up streets, but it was once sited in open !elds. View of the garden from upstairs window ViGiLO - Din l-Art Ħelwa 19 Left: Main entrance - remodelled in the 19th century Right: Carlo Antonio Barbaro in 1748 - detail efore the eighteenth century, the building At around the same period, Gio Maria of large country houses in Malta was Cassia acquired lands in Għemieri near Bahrija not widespread. Among the best known and some 50 years later his granddaughter Bare Villa Bologna in Attard, Selmun Palace in Beatrice Cassia and her husband Paolo Mellieha or Villa Preziosi (Villa Francia) in Lija. Testaferrata expanded an existing hunting !ese were mostly built a"er 1700 and were lodge there into a larger house, today Palazzo prominent in the open landscape, constructed Gomerino. Other early country houses include on a relatively imposing scale and designed to Palazzo Abela in the village of Tarxien, said impress. to have been begun by Monsignor Leonardo Earlier country houses o"en began as small Abela in 1562 just before the Great Siege. hunting lodges. Grand Master Verdalle shi"ed Villa Barbaro in Tarxien also dates to this this to a grander scale in the 1580s, building a earlier period. !e gardens are large while the forti#ed lodge and summer retreat for himself old house is typically more rustic than later, at Buskett outside Rabat, today Verdala Palace. eighteenth-century Maltese country houses. Inquisitor Onorato Visconti followed It is quite long and narrow in shape, and suit in 1625 and built a summer residence originally had an external stone staircase. at Girgenti, not far from Buskett, today used !e real fear of raids by corsairs made by the Prime Minister. !is trend continued. living in the countryside in the seventeenth Around the 1620s Bishop Baldassare Cagliares century a dangerous business, and the house built a summer residence (villereccia) near Tal- typically does not have any large windows on Virtu outside Rabat, and in 1624 Andreotta the ground %oor, with only two narrow slit Cumbo Navarra built a house at Bahrija. windows on the façade. Handwritten description of the house by Carlo Antonio Barbaro, late 18th century. ViGiLO - Din l-Art Ħelwa 20 !e present owners recall the date 1625 and Teresa Francesca was born later but did Top left: carved inscribed on an external garden wall, but this not survive into adulthood. stone staircase Above: garden path has since been eroded and is no longer legible. In 1741 Gioacchino erected an imposing, with prospettiva !e house is thought to be even older than that. free-standing niche on some land which he Its #rst origins have yet to be explored within owned in Mriehel, dedicated to his namesake the family archive and other documentary San Ġwakkin (S. Joachim). !is monument was sources, as well as through an architectural restored in 1996 by the Qormi Local Council. appraisal. In 1760 this house in Tarxien belonged to of 1750 Gioacchino Psaila. !roughout history, people have sought to build and maintain a patrimony and status for themselves and their families. Formal legal Only few personal details about Gioacchino instruments were also used to achieve this have surfaced so far. He was born around 1695 aim and to safeguard a family patrimony from and was the son of Antonio and Maria Psaila. being dispersed among heirs or sold o&. On 26th November 1724 Gioacchino married One of the available tools was the Rosa Attard. establishing of a fedecommesso – essentially a Rosa’s family lived in Senglea. She was the type of trust which prohibited the division or daughter of Giuseppe Attard and Francesca sale of property received through inheritance. Borg, and was one of at least six children. Her !e fedecommesso (!deicommissio) was widely brothers Ra&aele and Benedetto were both used in Malta, as it was in Sicily and elsewhere. priests, and another brother Gio Batta Attard A fedecommesso enabled a testator had a son named Aloisio who was also a priest. to ensure that selected assets, such as a Her sister Marcella married Giovanni Farrugia principal family home, other houses, land and another sister Teresa married Francesco or artworks, would be transferred as a whole Bellia. A third sister, Maria, was married twice in ownership from one generation to the – #rst to Giovanni Psaila and then to Antonio next, and not divided. Moreover, the testator Darmanin. !e Attard family had origins could restrict this succession from first-born in Zebbug, Malta, and owned some land in to first-born, through the primogeniture Handaq near Qormi. line of the family. Gioacchino and Rosa Psaila had at least Such trusts could provide stability and two daughters. Maria Vittoria was born 1726 longevity to the family status, but on the other ViGiLO - Din l-Art Ħelwa 21 Above: co!ered ceiling hand they also took away the freedom to dowry included a house in the principal street on the "rst #oor dispose of assets and could at times be a source of Senglea in the area known as ‘del Fiordolese’, Top right: view of garden from upstairs balcony of tensions among relatives. another in Birgu in the street known as ‘dietro In May 1750 Gioacchino Psaila fell ill and l’Arsenale’, and a third in the area known as drew up a will. In it he determined the dowry ‘delli due balle’ (sic) in Valletta. to be given to his only surviving daughter Maria’s husband was 30-year-old Carlo Maria, as yet unmarried. She is referred to Antonio Barbaro, who had studied law at La throughout as just ‘Maria’, not her formal name Sapienza university in Rome. He was the son ‘Maria Vittoria’, suggesting that this is how she of Simone Barbaro and Graziulla, also referred was generally known. to as Lucrezia, née Bartolo. Carlo’s brother, To create a lasting patrimony for his heirs, Gio Domenico Barbaro, became a conventual in his will Gioacchino Psaila also set up a chaplain at the langue of France of the Order of fedecommesso. With this legal instrument, he St John. On his marriage to Maria Psaila, from tied up some of his assets to be restricted to his parents Carlo received a house in Valletta inheritance by the male primogeniture of his in the area known as ‘dall’ Arcipelago’, among descendants. other property. In this fedecommesso, Gioacchino included some property at Mriehel near the village of Qormi. He presumably already owned land there when he built the niche in 1741, but Carlo Antonio and Maria’s #rst son Giuseppe he had also acquired some more land in the died in infancy. !eir second son Gioacchino, area in 1744. As Maria was his only child, the bearing his grandfather’s name, sadly also died income and ownership of these properties in March 1760. At this point in time they had were thus intended to pass down through no other male children, only daughters. In the line of Maria’s future eldest son, then her August that year Gioacchino Psaila, who was grandson, and so on. nearing the end of his life, decided to draw up !is legal structure was not unusual. a codicil to amend his will. His wife Rosa’s family had also established a Gioacchino now changed some of the fedecommesso, tied to her brothers. terms of the fedecommesso which he had set Four months a"er her father Gioacchino up in 1750, such as specifying how it could set up this trust, on 20th September 1750 Maria be inherited through the female line of the Psaila married in Senglea. Besides money and family. He also added some more land at other goods to the value of 15,000 scudi, her Mriehel to this trust. ViGiLO - Din l-Art Ħelwa 22 Far left: en"lade of oldest rooms downstairs Left: main façade Bottom: garden wall Importantly, he now also included his l-Art Ħelwa). In the codicil Gioacchino is country house at Tarxien. Here he describes it noted as residing in Valletta, not Senglea. as a ‘… tenimento de beni, che possiede in casal Gioacchino died soon a"erwards, and Tarxen, consistente in un casamento grande con in March 1762 his daughter Maria requested diversi appartamenti terrani, e superiori, con permission to have his remains moved to a un giardino con diverse conserve d’acque, e due grave within Porto Salvo church (St Philip terreni contingui al detto giardino unitamente Neri) in Senglea, together with his brother col vicolo’. [translation: ‘a property that he Giovanni, and to install an inscribed marble owns in the village of Tarxien, consisting of a gravestone there. Gioacchino was a benefactor large house with various rooms at ground level of this church, particularly of its side altar and above, with a garden with various water devoted to Our Lady of Sorrows. reservoirs, and two pieces of land adjacent to Carlo and Maria later had another son this garden together with the lane’]. named Gioacchino Ermolao Barbaro, and the In his 1760 codicil Gioacchino listed the ownership of the Tarxien house descended land neighbouring his Tarxien property as through his heirs. being partly owned by Baron Testaferrata Abela and leased out to Giovanni Bellia, another part owned by Signor Decos, and another part by maestro Giacomo Bianco, a well-known perito. In 1778 Carlo Antonio Barbaro was granted Another side of the property bordered a public the title of Marquis di San Giorgio by Emanuel road. de Rohan, Grand Master of the Order of St !is is the house which is today known as John.