[MALTA - WAR OF COURSE] OF GERARDESCA, Francesco (XVIII century). 7 letters exchanged with Francesco Antonio Mansi to the Order of Malta's naval activity. Florence, 1764. Interesting correspondence relating to the Order of Malta, composed of six letters sent in 1764 to Francesco Antonio Mansi, a knight of Malta belonging to a famous family of Lucca and already protagonist, in 1728-1729, of a caravan on the prisons of the Order. The sender is Francesco Giuseppe della Gherardesca, exponent of the Tuscan comitatal family and receiver of the Order in Florence. The correspondence concerns commissions and affairs of the Religion, remuneration and practices to be dealt with by the Maltese Government. Of particular interest are the political-military news coming directly from the island. The Gherardesca reports on the content of Malta's public letters and gives an account of the movements of the Galleries of the Feast of Religion, their operations and meetings with Turkish ships. In a letter dated Florence, September 18, 1764, he informed of the return of the jails and operations carried out against Barbarian and Turkish ships, offering a contemporary testimony of the naval activity and the race war practiced by the Order in the second half of the eighteenth century. This document documents the administrative and information network that connected Malta to Tuscany, alongside the business of the Florentine receivership news on the operations of the HeroSolimitan fleet. 7 signed handwritten letters, addressed to Francesco Antonio Mansi in Lucca, vergate in brown ink on paper (folds, blooms and traces of use; in some transparent sheets of ink from the verso). (7)