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Malta – Sir Luigi Preziosi
1977 Proof Silver 2 Liri 27mm (12.09 grams) 0.925 Silver (0.3364 oz ASW)
Reference: KM# 46
REPUBLIKA TA’ MALTA, Luigi Preziosi.
LUIGI PREZIOSI £M2 1888-1965 1977, Luigi facing left.
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 Count Sir Luigi Preziosi (29 July 1888 – 30 July 1965) was a Maltese politician and a doctor who specialized in ophthalmology. He was mostly known for devising an original operation for the treatment of glaucoma in 1924, which remained in use for many decades.
He was born in Sliema, Malta on 29 July 1888, the second son of the seventh Count Preziosi of Malta. He graduated in the Royal University of Malta in 1907.
During the First World War, Luigi Preziosi was a medical officer in the RAMC. He then married the Noble Lugarda Chapelle dei Baroni di San Giovanni on 29 April 1920, with whom he had three children. The same year he specialised in ophthalmology in Oxford.
Following the death of his father, Luigi inherited the hereditary noble title of count and became the 8th Count of Preziosi. He became a member and later president of the Committee of Privileges of the Maltese Nobility. He was knighted in the 1948 New Year Honours.
In 1924, he was appointed as Professor of Ophthalmology in the University of Malta. He was unusually interested in trachoma — a diseases prevalent in Malta at the time. In his early years, however, he obtained his greatest reputation internationally for his treatment of glaucoma which was first published in 1924. He referred to this operation initially as electro-cautery puncture and later simply as Preziosi’s operation. The procedure was considered an advance over the other available filtering operations such as trephination, sclerectomy and iridencleisis. The operation was discussed at various international ophthalmic congresses over the years. It was further developed by Harold G. Scheie in 1957. Preziosi’s operation for glaucoma remained in use for many years until the development of trabeculectomy.
During the Second World War Preziosi served as an ophthalmic surgeon and consultant.
Preziosi was actively involved in politics. He was a member of the UPM and later in the interest of the Nationalist Party until 1949 when he retired.
Count Sir Luigi Preziosi died on 30 July 1965 in Malta.
 Malta, officially known as the Republic of Malta (Maltese: Repubblika ta’ Malta), is a Southern European island country consisting of an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. It lies 80 km (50 mi) south of Italy, 284 km (176 mi) east of Tunisia, and 333 km (207 mi) north of Libya. With a population of about 475,000 over an area of 316 km2 (122 sq mi), Malta is the world’s tenth smallest and fifth most densely-populated country. Its capital is Valletta, which is the smallest national capital in the European Union by area at 0.8 km.2 The official languages are Maltese and English, with Maltese officially recognised as the national language and the only Semitic language in the European Union.
 Malta has been inhabited since approximately 5900 BC. Its location in the centre of the Mediterranean has historically given it great strategic importance as a naval base, with a succession of powers having contested and ruled the islands, including the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Sicilians, Spanish, Knights of St. John, French, and British. Most of these foreign influences have left some sort of mark on the country’s ancient culture.
 Malta became a British colony in 1815, serving as a way station for ships and the headquarters for the British Mediterranean Fleet. It played an important role in the Allied war effort during the Second World War, and was subsequently awarded the George Cross for its bravery in the face of an Axis siege, and the George Cross appears on Malta’s national flag. The British Parliament passed the Malta Independence Act in 1964, giving Malta independence from the United Kingdom as the State of Malta, with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and queen. The country became a republic in 1974. It has been a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations and the United Nations since independence, and joined the European Union in 2004; it became part of the eurozone monetary union in 2008.
Malta has a long Christian legacy and its Archdiocese is claimed to be an apostolic see because Paul the Apostle was shipwrecked on “Melita”, according to Acts of the Apostles, which is now widely taken to be Malta. While Catholicism is the official religion in Malta, Article 40 of the Constitution states that “all persons in Malta shall have full freedom of conscience and enjoy the free exercise of their respective mode of religious worship.”
Malta is a popular tourist destination with its warm climate, numerous recreational areas, and architectural and historical monuments, including three UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni, Valletta, and seven megalithic temples which are some of the oldest free-standing structures in the world.
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