Was the Maltese Falcon a real historical artifact?

Question

Am wondering if any of this is true (Hammett, The Maltese Falcon, p. 150).

"The archives of the Order from the twelfth century on are still at Malta. They are not intact, but what is there holds no less than three"—he held up three fingers—"referenees that can't be to anything else but this jeweled falcon. In J. Delaville Le Roulx's Les Archives de l'Ordre de Saint-Jean there is a reference to it—oblique to be sure, but a reference still. And the unpublished—because unfinished at the time of his death—supplement to Paoli's Dell' origine ed instituto del sacro militar ordine has a clear and unmistakable statement of the facts I am telling you."

"All right," Spade said.

"All right, sir. Grand Master Villiers de l'Isle d'Adam had this foothigh jeweled bird made by Turkish slaves in the castle of St. Angelo and sent it to Charles, who was in Spain. He sent it in a galley commanded by a French knight named Cormier or Corvere, a member of the Order." His voice dropped to a whisper again. "It never reached Spain." He smiled with compressed lips and asked: "You know of Barbarossa, Redbeard, Khair-ed-Din? No? A famous admiral of buccaneers sailing out of Algiers then. Well, sir, he took the Knights' galley and he took the bird. The bird went to Algiers. That's a fact. That's a fact that the French historian Pierre Dan put in one of his letters from Algiers.

Googling just turns up page after page about movie props.

Clarification: this question asks specifically the details about the falcon, starting with bare existance.

Addition: a book by Pierre Dan, unknown whether it contains the relevant letter.

More:

It is not clear exactly how Hammett got his material. He is not known to have read French, medieval or otherwise, or Italian. His references must have been gleaned from a secondary source. I have been unable to locate a simple narrative of the rental agreement between the Hospitallers of St. John and Charles V of Spain that Hammett would have had available to him with all of the detail Gutman provides. I think there must be one; but what is clear, nonetheless, is that Hammett was reading widely, carefully and thoughtfully.

Related wiki page: Tribute of the Maltese Falcon

Answer 1

While the "Maltese Falcon" itself is fictional the object might have been inspired by a real one - albeit one without the exciting Knights Templar and Pirates(!) backstory. The "Kniphausen Hawk" is a bejeweled drinking vessel dating to at least 1697 and is currently owned by the Duke of Devonshire, being ~15 inches high and literally covered in gemstones it would certainly fit the bill (pun intended!) but it has nothing to do with Malta or Algiers and I've not been able to find any evidence to show that Hammet was aware of the Kniphausen Hawk.

Answer 2

These are facts, historical facts, not schoolbook history, not Mr. Wells's history, but history nevertheless. ...

I believe what this is saying is that the following information isn't written down in any history book anywhere, but (in Hammet's fictional universe) did actually happen.

Its meant to both lay out some background information to the reader, and to clue them in that this is stuff the author made up to make his story interesting, and help drive its plot.

As far as real world information goes, you should translate the quoted sentence above as "These are fictional facts my author made up, that are only valid within the confines of this book."

Answer 3

Question:

Was the Maltese Falcon a real historical artifact?

Short Answer:

Real historical fact, but not a real artifact.

---

The concept of a valuable falcon gifted by the Knights of Malta (the Knights Hospitaller) is based on historical events. Specifically in 1530, Charles V of Spain granted the island of Malta to the Knights in return for a yearly fee of one falcon (actual live bird!!), which was largely symbolic. King Charles didn't need the bird, nor was the value of the bird an equal value of the use of the island.

The Knights

The Order spent seven years moving throughout Europe until, in 1530, the Holy Roman Emperor, King Charles V of Spain gave the Order the island of Malta for a falcon as an annual fee. The knights were noblemen from the most important families of Europe, and their mission was to protect the Catholic faith.

Answer 4

It is impossible to know whether Hammett ever heard of the Kniphausen hawk, but there are several differences between that hawk and the falcon that Gutman describes in chapter 13 of the novel: The Kniphausen bird is apparently a hawk (no tomial tooth; oval nostril), not a falcon; it is covered in semiprecious gems (not the precious gems Gutman implies); and, as best I can tell from web images, it is not obviously gold. If Hammett was inspired by the Kniphausen cup, he highly modified it. While Gutman as written by Hammett cited real history and real historians, as far as I know there is no historical basis for the statue, for the knight "Cormier or Corvere" charged with its delivery, or for the dealer Charilaos Konstantinides, although I'd be happy to be proved wrong on any of those.