In his introduction to this translation, Kiril Petkov bills The Maltese dialogue as the first comprehensive treatise on the institutions and political projects of the Order of the Knights of Saint John of the Hospital. He dates the treatise to c.1554–6 and argues that it should be considered as an intervention in an intermittent standoff between the Knights and Venice's authorities. The Venetians wished to rein in the activities of the Knights, particularly their interference in shipping lines with the Ottomans, but at the same time, Petkov suggests, both sides needed each other; the Knights for access to Venice's ports and the Venetians for potential protection. Tensions, though, had resulted in Venice sequestering property belonging to the Knights, and it is against this backdrop that Giuseppe Cambiano penned his treatise. Cambiano was one of the Knights' principal emissaries during the middle decades of the sixteenth century, acting as official ambassador to the papacy at one point and attending the Council of Trent. He was the Knights' representative in Venice in the 1550s at the time of the sequestrations and the treatise takes the form of a dialogue between him and several representatives of Venice. In this volume, Petkov provides a brief introduction, the original text in Italian drawn from comparisons of several surviving copies and a translation of the treatise into English. He identifies the treatise as composed of three parts: an early modern account of the history of the Knights, framing them as a bulwark against the Ottomans for the defence of Christendom, but a role now being undermined by divisions between Christian heads of state; a second section that deals with what may be termed the bureaucracy and organisation of the Knights; and the final part, potentially the most interesting for scholars, of conflict in the central Mediterranean in the mid-sixteenth century, in which Cambiano puts forward the idea of the Knights abandoning Malta and relocating to Tripoli. It would have been interesting to see Petkov extend his introduction to explore thoroughly the context and the treatise's further reaching implications but, overall, this is a tidy volume that points towards the need for more work on the Knights in the future.