The map is surrounded by 63 armorials of the Grand Masters of the Knights of Malta.

The Knights of Malta were initially founded as the Knights Hospitallers, a quasi-military order helping pilgrims in the Holy Land. Forced to leave after the failure of the crusades, the order moved from island to island in the Mediterranean before arriving in Malta in 1530. There they established their base, and from here, they campaigned against the Barbary Pirates, earning the wrath of the Ottoman Sultan. In 1565, the Sultan sent a force of some 40,000 men to capture Malta, but the order managed to hold out until relief came. When the replacement city was built, it was named Valetta after the Grand Master who conducted the defence, Jean de la Valette.
After that, the Knights of Malta stayed there, secure until the French Revolution. In 1798 the French fleet sailed for shelter in Valetta and then turned on its host. Losing the island caused a diaspora and diminishing of the order, although it still exists today.

Vincenzo Coronelli   (1650-1718)

Vincenzo Coronelli was born in Venice on 16 August 1650 and primarily brought up in Ravenna. He returned to Venice in 1665 and joined the convent of the Minor Conventuals. Five years later, he was sent to Rome to study, and by 1673, he was already a doctor of theology. 

Having achieved fame by constructing two globes for the Duke of Parma, he was invited to Paris for three years in 1681 and made two enormous examples for Louis XIV. On his return to Venice, he assiduously collected cartographic material and founded the Academy of the Argonauts. In 1685, he was appointed Cosmographer to the Republic of Venice and authorised to publish a large atlas. He became a geography lecturer at the University of Venice and brought out an Atlante Veneto the following year.

In 1696, he visited Germany, Holland and southern England. During intervals in compiling his vast encyclopaedia, he continued with cartographic projects up to 1709. He died in his native Venice on 9 December 1718.

Coronelli became famous for his globes. In addition, he was a renowned encyclopaedist, mapmaker and geographer. Most of his maps and other material are gathered in his Atlante Veneto (13 vols, 1690-1705). The first volume, subtitled Descrizione generale istorica geografica, was his masterpiece, planned as an extension of Blaeu’s atlas.

Other volumes of the atlas which contain maps are Isolario, two parts (1696-8), with detailed maps and plans, mostly of islands; Corso geografico, two parts based on the edition 1694-7; Libro de’ globi (1697); and Lo Specchio del Mare, a reprint of Levanto's Lo Specchio del Mare Mediterraneo of 1664.

The other vital aspects of his mapping are those arising from the Venetian conquest and his travels. His most extensive military compilation was the Teatro della Guerra, in more than 30 volumes.