A very rare 18th century “Bill of Health” from the Knights of St John in Malta

An extremely rare surviving example of a Maltese 'health passport', a printed form guaranteeing that Malta was free from plague at the time the traveller left the island. The engraved text is within a decorative, martial-themed engraved border, with a vignette map of Valletta, figures of John the Baptist and St Paul, allegorical figures of Justice and Plenty and depictions of two prisoners of war. The text begins: ''We, the Castellan and President of the Grand Court of the Castellania [the court of the Knights of St John] of Malta, to one and all who see, read or listen to these our present letters wish good health. We bear witness and truthfully declare that the renowned Island of Malta is free from epidemic and pestilential diseases and of any suspicion thereof through the grace of Almighty God and of the Saints Protectors John the Baptist and Paul'. It was issued to a captain 'Gio: Battista Ciotta' of Livorno for his return to his home port and was signed and sealed by the notary of the court. The printing plate shows evidence of great use, which is inevitable was very ship leaving the island needed such a document. An outbreak of plague in nearby Messina in 1743 made them vital, and their use seems to have worked, because Malta escaped that outbreak. Surviving examples are rare because they only had purpose until the ship landed in another port and would have been disposed of. Paul Cassar, author of 'The Medical History of Malta' (1965) wrote a paper on the only one he had encountered in 23 years of research, a different engraving, with virtually all the same text but all in manuscript, dated 1782.