Description
Clothes as social markers
In the early modern period, and indeed until the mid-twentieth century, Maltese Society was fundamentally divided in two: a cosmopolitan, mostly Italian-speaking, bustling, urban harbour area, whose population was in close contact with the Knights of St John and consequently with the latest innovations in European culture, and the rest of its inhabitants living in the countryside, including Gozo, composed mainly of a mass of inward-looking, Maltese-speaking peasants, greatly attached to their rural traditions, led mostly by the clergy and whose rhythm of life was dictated by the agricultural cycle. It was precisely because of this ‘backwardness’ that towards the end of the eighteenth century rural folk started being adopted as a model of ethnic authenticity to be recommended against the corrupt influences which came from outside through the city; and this is also the reason why country people featured increasingly in drawings and prints sought after by visitors to Malta.
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