Description
Enlightenment and Reform in Malta 1740-1798 is an account of the enlightened movement in Malta, with particular focus on the third quarter of the eighteenth century. It provides an insight into a late enlightenment which was, on one hand, connected to enlightened communities in the rest of Europe especially Italy, and, on the other, worked within the specific institutional and political traditions of Malta. While nothing resembling the anti-Christian wing of the Enlightenment is to be found, many of its other aspects are present, such as assertion of State power, desire to reduce the number and influence of the clergy, emphasis on the criterion of utility, early attempts of budgering, and a fairly rational economic policy. In additon, pride in the Maltese past and the use and teaching of the Maltese language were encouraged. The result is to justify a most interesting extension of the area in which enlightened absolutism and/or Catholic Enlightenment flourished.
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