Brief Curriculum Vitae : Francis Ciappara
Professor Francis Ciappara B.A., M.A., Ph.D. (Dunelm) is a member of the Ecclesiastical History Society
of Great Britain and the editor of 'The Journal of Baroque Studies'. These connections, especially his
editorial responsibility, have allowed him to establish links with scholars in Europe and the USA. Professor
Ciappara works on the social, cultural and political history of Malta, especially in the eighteenth century.
His publications to date have focused on the Roman Inquisition, marriage, the village community,
sanctuary, parish priest and parishioners, death, confraternities, and the enlightenment.
Among his authored books, one can mention: Marriage in Malta in the late eighteenth century. Malta:
Associated News, 1988; The Inquisiton in Enlightened Malta. Malta: PIN, 2000; Society and the Inquisition
in Early Modern Malta. Malta: PEG, 2001; Enlightenment and Reform. Malta: Midsea Books, 2005.
Professor Ciappara has also contributed the following chapters in books: ‘The Roman Inquisition and the
Jews in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Malta’, in Le Inquisizioni Cristiane e gli Ebrei, Atti della
Tavola Rotonda, Rome, 20-21 December 2001 (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 2003), 449-70 ;
‘La Chrétienté et l’Islam au XV111e Siècle: Une Frontière Encore Floue’, in François Moureau, ed.,
Captifs en Mèditerranée, XVIe-XVIIIe siècles (Paris : PUPS, 2008), 23-35; ‘The Maltese Catholic
Enlightenment’, in Ulrich L. Lehner and Michael Printy, eds., A Companion to The Catholic Enlightenment
in Europe (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2010), 251-95; ‘De Soldanis and the Maltese Pre-Enlightenment’ in O.
Vella, ed., Essays on de Soldanis (Malta: University of Malta/Midsea Books, 2010), 35-70; ‘Malta’, in
Adriano Prosperi, ed., Dizionario Storico dell’Inquisizione vol. 2 (Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore, 2010),
969-72.
Other contributions of Professor Ciappara include the following articles in journals: ‘Perceptions of
marriage in late-eighteenth Malta’, Continuity and Change 16, no. 3 (2001), 379-98; ‘The Financial
Condition of Parish Priests in late Eighteenth-Century Malta’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 53, no. 1
(2002), 93-107; ‘Christendom and Islam: A Fluid Frontier’, Mediterranean Studies 13 (2004), 165-87;
‘Una Messa in Perpetuum: Perpetual Mass Bequests in Traditional Malta, 1750-1797’, The Catholic
Historical Review 91, no. 2 (2005), 278-99; ‘La peur de la Révolution française à Malte’, Annales
historiques de la Révolution française 341 (2005), 53-68; ‘Parish Priest and Community in 18th-Century
Malta: Patterns of Conflict’, Journal of Early Modern History 9, 3-4 (2005), 329-47; ‘Intercessory
Funerary Rites in Malta 1750-1797’, Nuova Rivista Storica 91, fasc. 1 (2007), 145-71; ‘The Parish
Community in Eighteenth-Century Malta’, The Catholic Historical Review 94, no. 4 (2008), 671-94; ‘Non
Gode l’Immunità Ecclesiastica; Sanctuary in Malta, c. 1740-1828’, European History Quarterly 38, no. 2
(2008), 227-43; ‘Disciplining Diversity: the Roman Inquisition and Social Control in Malta, 1743-1798’, in
Kate Cooper and Jeremy Gregory, eds., Discipline and Diversity, Studies in Church History 43
(Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2009), 354-65; ‘Trent and the Maltese Clergy in Late Eighteenth-Century Malta’,
Church History 78, no. 1 (2009), 1-25; ‘Strategies for the Afterlife in Eighteenth-Century Malta’, in Peter
Clarke and Tony Claydon, eds., The Church, the Afterlife and the Fate of the Soul, Studies in Church
History 45 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2009), 301-10; ‘Religion, kinship and godparenthood as elements of
social cohesion in Qrendi, a late eighteenth-century Maltese parish’, Continuity and Change 25 (2010),
161-84; ‘L’Illuminismo maltese’, Rivista Storica Italiana, no. 122, fasc. 1 (2010), 246-68; ‘Marriage and
the Family in a Maltese Parish: St Mary’s (Qrendi) in the Eighteenth Century’, Journal of Family History
36, no. 1 (2011), 37-51; ‘Simulated Sanctity in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Malta’, in Peter
Clarke and Tony Claydon, eds., Saints and Sanctity, Studies in Church History 47 (Woodbridge, Suffolk,
2011), 284-94.