Notarial Archive Sponsorship
Historical documents on piracy and corsairs in 18th Century Malta are being restored through a sponsorship agreement signed by Salvo Grima Foundation with the Maltese Notarial Archives.
The Salvo Grima Foundation has adopted nine manuscripts that form part of the collection of Corsair documents held at the Notarial Archives in Valletta, Malta.
Navigational logbooks describing conditions out at sea are also found within these types of documents. Signs of scorch marks indicate that these corsair documents were fumigated before getting to harbour.
The captains mentioned in the sponsored manuscripts are Giorgio Mitrovich, Francesco German, Gaetano Cavasso, Michele Borg, Gaetano Cumbi, Simone Gavaso and Pietro Zelalich.
Giorgio Mitrovich too originated from Kotor, Montenegro, and settled in Isla in the course of the 1760s. He started his corsairing career in the 1770s and his campaigns yielded great profits to the family. He eventually involved his older sons in corsairing and fathered a generation of corsair captains. He also was grandfather and godfather to the future Maltese patriot Giorgio Mitrovich. Born in 1795, the younger Giorgio Mitrovich was born at the height of his grandfather’s military career.
Information taken from: Liam Gauci, In the Name of the Prince: Maltese Corsairs 1760-1798 (Malta: Heritage Malta, 2016).
