In Search of Corsairs at the Notarial Archives: My Journey

Speaker: Liam Gauci
Language: English

About the Lecture:

Join Liam Gauci this November as he takes you on a journey through the Notarial Archives of Malta. What began as a serendipitous discovery in 2009 soon turned into a quest through centuries-old, uncatalogued documents, covered in dust and bearing the marks of history. Some pages were stained with ink from shipboard writing, while others bore traces of 18th-century quarantine fumigation. Through these fragile, forgotten manuscripts, Liam uncovered the human stories of corsairs—adventurers who roamed the Mediterranean, leaving behind tales of daring and heartache. This lecture promises to reveal a hidden chapter of Maltese history that was once believed to be lost, but thanks to the NAF these have been preserved for generations to come.

About the Speaker:

Liam Gauci is a historian and author whose work has helped uncover Malta’s maritime past through the fragile pages of forgotten archives. His books, Morte o Fortuna and In the Name of the Prince, bring to light the world of Maltese corsairs—men who sailed under letters of marque and whose lives were entwined with empire, trade, and survival.

Liam spent 18 years at the helm of the Malta Maritime Museum, where he curated international exhibitions and collaborated with artists, curators, and institutions across the globe to tell Malta’s maritime story in compelling new ways.

Today, he serves as Senior Asset Development Manager at Heritage Malta and is the founder of Taste History, a unique initiative that fuses food history with archival research to recreate the flavours of the past.

Kindly RSVP by emailing ou******@na******.org. Following the lecture, we warmly invite you to the courtyard to enjoy some light refreshments.

This lecture is kindly supported by The Alfred Mizzi Foundation.