Chev. Prof. Horatio Caesar Roger Vella is one of the founding members of the Malta Classics Association, back in 2010. He served the Association as Executive President for three terms of two years each.
He studied at the Seminary in Floriana, Thornleigh Salesian College in Bolton, St Thomas Aquinas College at Rabat, the University of Malta and the University of Thessaloniki. He taught at the Universities of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Malawi and Malta, as well as for brief periods in Melbourne, Lithuania, Latvia and Sweden.
His academic interests are multiple, including Metre, Maltese History, Genealogy, Epic, Mythology and Greek and Latin Language. At the University of Malta he founded the Classics Programme for which, in collaboration with the Malta Classics Association, he organized an international conference at the Valletta Campus in 2014, celebrating the 25th anniversary of its inception. The year after, in 2015, he organized the annual international conference of Euroclassica, also in Malta, a federation to which he was instrumental in joining the Malta Classics Association in 2013.
Prof. Vella published widely locally and abroad. His major books are those on Quintinus’ Description of Malta (1980), the Tristia ex Melitogaudo (2010) and Żebbuġ of Gozo (2018). In 2022, he was honoured by the Faculty of Arts with the publication of a Festschrift prepared by Dr Carmel Serracino, Head of the Department of Classics and Archaeology, at the Valletta Campus, with the title of Ardens amat.
Since 1989, Prof. Vella has been very busy with pastoral work, leading the Għaqda tal-Irġiel Emmaus and the Bible Study Group, organizing the parish’s liturgy and actively participating in it, and serving as Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist. For some years he was also the Moderator of Unity 16, incorporating the Parishes of Żurrieq, Qrendi, Mqabba, Safi and Kirkop.
He married Mary Rose Farrugia of Kirkop on the 17th May, 1981, who sadly passed away on the 2nd March, 1992. He married again Vivienne Caruana of Żejtun on the 23rd May, 1993, and had one child, Jerome.
Click here for a list of the MCA’s previous Honorary Presidents.