Maltese antiquarians of early-modern age and the cave church of Mellieha - Reflections on Christian sites dealing with Islamic presence throughout the Mediterranean.

This article presents unpublished documents about Maltese Christian history and Middle Ages written by a Discalced Carmelite friar in the seventeenth century and recently discovered in the Archives of the Generalate of the Discalced Carmelites in Rome. This is the opportunity to reflect on the attitude of Maltese and European scholars regarding the Church of Our Lady of Mellieha, one of the most important Medieval sites of Malta, in order to underline how scholars and missionaries of the seventeenth century related with the archaeological sites of the island dating after the Islamic period. The essay aims therefore to describe how scholars of the seventeenth century approached the multicultural and often turbulent aspects of the Mediterranean history, contributed in assessing the nascent study of Arabic language and culture, and structured a shared Mediterranean cultural identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]