ABSTRACT
In the early years of the Order of St John, both Grand and Marsamxett Harbours were used for quarantine. In 1640 an edict of Grand Master Lascaris directed all ships from the Levant and Barbary to either ‘Marsa-Muscetto’ or to a bay within Grand Harbour, where they should stay without communication with the shore until guardians of the health issued further instructions.2 Any infringement would result in death by hanging and, if a ship’s master were complicit in the offence, his ship would be forfeited; if a merchant were involved, his death would be supplemented by the confiscation of his cargo.3 Before the end of the seventeenth century, quarantine in the Grand Harbour had moved to a wharf directly below the walls of Valletta and known as Il Barriera, or ‘the barrier’, from a row of bollards which separated the town’s people from those in quarantine.4
