Etxea de Guevara, Guara, Gebara ...

Charles has studied the long and sometimes fragmented history of the de Guevara family in Malta. Its Maltese story begins during the expansion of the Crown of Aragon into the central Mediterranean, when members of the powerful Vélez de Guevara family served King Alfonso V in the conquest and government of his Italian possessions. In the fifteenth century, the family acquired important rights and offices in Malta, including the Castellania and Secrezia of Malta and Gozo, placing the Guevaras among the Crown’s principal representatives on the islands. Their presence did not end with those early offices. Members and descendants of the wider family appear in Maltese and Gozitan records through appointments, property, marriages and connections with other established families. The name is also preserved visibly within St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta, where the elaborate marble tombstone of Frà Don Didaco Vélez de Guevara, a knight of the Order of St John, lies in the main nave. Charles continues to gather and interpret these traces including references associated with the Order of Malta in Gozo, family marriages and the later forms of the surname to better understand how the medieval de Guevara presence became part of Malta’s own history. To this day the de Guevara (now syncopated to De Guara), family is still present on the island and many hold notable positions in government.