Medical Doctor, Philosopher, Scientist, and Poet
The author of the second known Maltese poem Meiju gie bl’ Uuard u Zahar, Buonamico was born in Valletta. He was the son of Francesco, a French doctor of medicine from Nantes who had settled in Valletta in 1620 as one of the Order’s physicians and set up a family.
In recent years, Giovanni Bonello* (2000) and Arnold Cassola* (2012), enhanced the life of this Maltese intellectual with more details, in three separate publications.
Buonamico studied at the Jesuits’ college and, in 1657, proceeded to the university of Aix-en-Provence, where he graduated in medicine. He stayed there for a year, until August 1658 when he left and visited various French towns and cities, including Selon, Cavallion, Orange, Valence, Vienne, Lyons, Nevers, and Orleans. He arrived in Paris on the 16 October 1658, where he stayed for more than a year and a half.
He continued his studies in Paris, Berlin, Louvain, and Amsterdam, where he obtained a second degree in medicine. Between 1660 and 1663 he spent a considerable amount of time in Belgium and, after visiting Bouillon, The Ardenne, Liege, Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, Malines, and Antwerp. He arrived at the conclusion that Antwerp was the most beautiful and complete city of the old continent.
Buonamico departed from Paris on 20 May 1660, and started his journey to Germany by horse-drawn carriage. Subsequently he arrived in Rheims in France and stayed for just a day, then to Sedan, continued his journey through the Belgian cities of Bouillon and Liege, and after some few days, he proceeded on horseback to the Dutch city of Maastricht, and finaly arrived in Aachen in April 1661.
After Aachen he travelled to Jülich, Düren and Koblenz, then to Mainz, Worms, Frankenthal, Oggersheim and Mannheim, His next stages were Heidelberg, Speyer and Philippsburg, Breisach, Heitersheim, Freiburg and finally to Bonn and Köln.
Buonamico’s memoirs of his German travels show that he was very well informed and very conscious of the facts that played a decisive role in German history – the religious conflicts and the political fragmentation that divided the German peoples for centuries. Buonamico’s travels in Germany provided him with various occasions to comment upon the different branches of Protestantism that were active in the region.
On his return to Malta in 1666, Buonamico was immediately appointed physician to the Order and became Grandmaster Nicholas Cotoner’s greatest friend.
The same year he returned to Malta, he married Ursola Cangialanza a Maltese but of Italian origins, from whom he had three children: Nicola, who became canon and pro-vicar of the Mdina cathedral, Anna, who married Nicola Riperio, a Flemish man, and Rosalia, who in 1714 married the lawyer Giuseppe Preziosi, who became the first Count Preziosi.
Buonamico, a man of letters similar to the philosophers-scientists in Italy of his time, travelled to various cities of Europe, not only for his studies and work, but also to obtain direct knowledge on the latest techniques in contemporary European art and literature. He was known and esteemed in scientific circles on the continent, and corresponded with personalities as Nicolas Steno, Athanasius Kircher, and Paolo Boccone, who visited Malta during his lifetime.
Buonamico, who combined scientific and literary interests, had an excellent command of the Latin language, and he wrote most of his poetic works in Latin. Examples of his traditional and classical literary style are his Latin poems, such as Gaudia Melitensia, Laureae Cotoneriae, Gratulatorii Plausus, and Gaudia Melitensia. But his unpublished work of a high prestige is his Memorie de viaggi di Giovan Francesco Buonamico nella Francia, Germania, Olanda, Fiandra, Lorena, Svizzera, Italia, Sicilia, spiaggie e varie isole della Grecia. Dall’Anno 1657 sino al’1666 which is written in Italian.
A medical doctor by profession, Buonamico was also a botanist, linguist, scientist, poet, writer, theologian, and traveller. He visited 69 cities all over Europe between 1657 and 1666. He spoke Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Latin and Maltese.
His scientific and medical dissertations range from the properties of chocolate to observations on the flora of the Maltese archipelago.
This ‘truly encyclopaedic Maltese’ had written a treatise on chocolate – Trattato della Cioccolata, which is listed among his manuscripts. While Giovanni Mangion* considers this work as lost, Bonello considers himself ‘very fortunate’ that have discovered this manuscript in a private collection, written personally by Gian Francesco Buonamico, and dated 1658. Buonamico’s treatise is divided into four sections: what chocolate is, its composition, examination of the ingredients of chocolate and their quality, how to use chocolate; its harm and usefulness.
This biography is part of the collection created by Michael Schiavone over a 30-year period. Read more about Schiavone and his initiative here.