Estratégicos anacronismos. Malta, la Orden de San Juan y la Corona española a finales del Antiguo Régimen (1795-1802)

Abstract

In historical studies about Spanish Crown during the reign of Charles IV, politic relationships between Madrid and Malta are relatively unknown; the Spanish rule during the end of the Order of Saint John of Malta and facts like his definitive abolition and the properties’ loss into lands of the Monarchy of Spain has gone really unnoticed. In this paper we analyze the strategic interest by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Maltese islands in his project of conquest of the Mediterranean Sea and the acquiescence of Spanish ministers, that show us the fall of this “verdadero anacronismo” that, to Napoleon, was the last great military religious order.