Giovanni Pietro Agius de Soldanis, Victoria, Gozo, Malta

Also known as Gian Piet, Giovanni Pietro Agius de Soldanis (1712-70) was born in Victoria (then called Rabat), Gozo, and was a writer and a historian. His bronze statue stands in Villa Rundle gardens, Victoria, and remembers an author probably best known for two books: one about Gozo: Gozo antico e moderno, sacro e profano; and one about the development of the Maltese language: Della lingua punica presentemente usata da' Maltesi ovvero Nuovi Documenti, li quali possono servire di lume all'antica lingua etrusca (1750).

Ninu Cremona, Victoria, Gozo, Malta

The statue of Ninu Cremona (1880-1972) outside the Ninu Cremona Lyceum, Fortunato Mizzi Street, Gozo. Cremona was also known as Anthony Cremona and Is-Sur Nin and was born in Victoria, Gozo. Orphaned at an early age, he spent three years with an uncle in Tunis, later returning to the Jesuits' College on Gozo, then to the Seminary in Floriana, Malta, where he met Dun Karm (see below). He worked as a government clerk, then as a sanitary officer.

In 1928 he was employed by the government with responsibility for translations and publications.

He was partly responsible for establishing the Għaqda tal-Kittieba tal-Malti (The Maltese Writers Society), later called Akkademja tal-Malti (The Maltese Academy), and was Vice-President and editor of Il-Malti, the organ of the Writers Society. More importantly, he helped to concretize Maltese orthography.

He wrote many books, but is most noted for his play Il-Fidwa tal-Bdiewa (The Farmers’ Liberation).

Roger Scicluna, Gozo, Malta

Roger Scicluna was a 20th century romantic poet who is very little known, and his almost total absence from the internet is a strong indication of this. However, like Pisani, he was a Gozitan who spent most of his life on the island. The very unusual thing, though, is that he chose to write in English as opposed to Maltese, probably as a result of extensive reading in his father's large English library.

After working as an accountant, Scicluna became an English teacher at the Archbishop's Seminary.

He published two poetry books - A Book of Verse (1937), and Fifty Sonnets (1938), and was strongly influenced by Wordsworth's nature poetry, which he adapted to a Gozitan setting. Other influences were Keats, Leopardi, and Edward Young. The images below are of places in Gozo that Scicluna names three of his poems after:

'Sonnet to Xlendi Bay'.

'Dawn on Rambla Bay in Gozo'.

'Sonnet to Marsalforn Bay'. This photo was taken from Xagħra.

Mary Meylak (1905-75), Gozo, Malta

In 2005, the centenary of the birth of Mary Meylak (or Meilak), the first woman poet in the Maltese language, a mass was held in her honor in St George's Baslilica, St George's Square, Gozo, Malta. Attending were the President of Malta, Dr Edward Edward Fenech Adami, and the Bishop of Gozo, Mgr Nicholas J Cauchi, headed the congregation. Meylak - who preferred that name to Meilak - was of the parish of St George.

After mass, a bronze plaque of Meylak mounted on a large marble tablet was unveiled on the opposite side of the square to the basilica. The proposal to erect the monument, which joined a pre-existing one of Monsignor Giuseppe Farrugia, was encouraged by Meylak's nephew, Canon Joe Mejlak, and the bronze likeness was made by artist Joseph Chetcuti, and the marble and engraving by A.F. Ellis (Marble) Works Ltd of Gozo. The image represented is of the Romantic poet in her youth, and the plaque bears some of her verses.

Ġorġ Pisani, Gozo, Malta

Ġorġ Pisani (1909-99) was born in Victoria, Gozo, his father being a successful wine merchant.

During adolescence he became a novice with an order of Capuchin Francisan friars, studied literature and theology there, and began writing poetry seriously, having some poems published in the Maltese Capuchin Franciscan magazine The Immaculate.

Pisani left the order to become a teacher, and in 1935 became the first headteacher of the Liceo on Gozo. During the war he worked for the Department of Information as a translator and as a co-editor of Information Service Bulletin.

After the war he returned to teaching at the Liceo while still working for the Department of Information, and is seen as one of the pioneers of Gozitan broadcasting.

In The Literature of Malta: An Example of Unity in Diversity, Arnold Cassola says that he gained the title 'Il-poeta ta' l-istorja u l-preistorja ('The poet of history and pre-history'), although he believes that this is too limited a description, as 'Pisani is trying to highlight the collective symbology and imagery of the Maltese and Gozitan society of today, thus bringing out that link of continuity which connects the past to the present.' He therefore sees Pisani's poetic work as 'a pilgrimage into the hazy past, having the present as a clear point of departure, rather than departing from the past to get to our days.'

Cassola also states that at the same time as Gozo is a deeply Catholic country, it retains its links with the pagan past. Il-Ghid taż-Żgħożija is perhaps badly translated as 'The Easter Sugar Youth', but - faute de mieux - it will have to suffice. This is title of the opening poem of a collection published in 1945, and it begins almost in bacchanalian fashion:

'Let’s all drink lost
In a dream of enjoyment,
Before the loss forever
Of the spark of youth.

Wine is inviting us
To joy and revelry,
In its contentment we forget
Sorrow and all worry.'

But as the poem celebrates youth and the energy of pagan times, linked with the past is also the progress that now exists in the present, and will continue into the future. And of course the red of the wine also has Christian associations. Gozo is noted for its wine, a drink which retains a profound importance among the people of the island.

In all, Pisani published eight books of poetry, six plays, a collection of short stories, and two novels.

Two years after his death, a bronze statue of him was placed in Main Gate Square, by the bus terminal in Victoria. In his left hand is a copy of Il-Ghid taż-Żgħożija. It is the work of the Gozitan artist Alfred Camillieri Cauchi.