This image is of one of the St. John’s Co-Cathedral Skeleton Tombstones located in Valletta, Malta. The floor of this Baroque sanctuary is covered in memento mori. The story of these cadavers is inextricably linked with the history of the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (aka Knights Hospitaller). In 1530, the Knights were given permanent headquarters on Malta. In return, they had to send a single Maltese falcon to the King of Spain each year on All Saints’ Day as payment. The decadent cathedral that stands today was built between 1572 and 1577. The nearly 400 Knights who fell during the Great Siege of Malta were originally buried elsewhere, but were later reinterred within the spectacular structure. The skeleton-covered floor is comprised of their tombstones. Source: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/st-john-s-co-cathedral-skeleton-tombstones. On this tombstone seen in the image above is a skeleton of the dead knight who is buried there with a sickle in one hand and a trumpet with the Knights of Malta flag attached in his other hand. He is sitting upon a clock with a map of the Mediterranean within it and two large wings on either side. These wings are symbolic of the Knights of Malta Crusaders as we will see throughout this series.
The Knights of Malta as well as the Masonic Order of Malta (which will be discussed in this paper) would have great influence in Palermo on the island of Sicily, which would become the birthplace for the Italian Mafia Brotherhood as well as the island of Corsica which would become the birthplace for the French Mafia Brotherhood. Bari, located on the eastern coastline of Italy was a port used by the Crusaders, the Knights of Malta were located in all Crusader ports. Bari would also have a short-lived institution of a Mafia Brotherhood that was a wholly separate phenomenon from the Palermo Mafia Brotherhood, demonstrating a very direct connection to the Knights of Malta Crusader institutions, Malta Freemasons and the birth of the Mafia Brotherhoods.
This story will discuss the Knights of Malta link to the birth of the Italian and French Mafia Brotherhoods, as well as the Mafia Brotherhoods link to the Scottish Rite and Mazzini networks, and how these were ultimately in service to what would become known as the Gladio apparatus in the 20th century. This series will cover in future installments the Jesuit Order and its relation to the Knights of Malta, as well as its role in service to Vatican Gladio, the Vatican Syndicate and its governance over the Mafia Syndicate and how the heroin market was in fact controlled at the highest levels by the Vatican Bank.
These networks were also connected to the Catholic fascist dictators who ruled in Central and South America and became the bases for Operation Condor. This Gladio apparatus was also what made up the assassination ring around Kennedy’s murder and the multiple attempts to assassinate French President De Gaulle, which this series will cover.
