Bernardo de Opuo
Bernardo de Opuo was a Sicilian soldier who is known for his actions during the Ottoman attack on Gozo, during which he killed his own family before he himself was killed in the fighting.
Biography
De Opuo was originally from Sicily, and he had settled on the island of Gozo in Hospitaller Malta where he married a woman and had two daughters. He was part of the garrison of the Castello when it was besieged by Ottoman forces in July 1551. On 26 July, when Governor Galatian de Sesse surrendered and the Ottomans proceeded to sack the fortress and began enslaving its inhabitants, de Opuo is said to have been the only one who attempted to resist the invaders.He stabbed his daughters and wife to death in order to spare them from being raped and enslaved, then armed himself with a crossbow and an arquebus and killed two Turks in the street. He then ran towards a group of attackers and wounded several of them with a sword, but he was quickly surrounded and was killed.
Inscription
In July 1579, a plaque with a fleur-de-lis and an inscription commemorating de Opuo was affixed to the façade of a building within the Gozo Castello. This was installed by the Universitas Gaudisii, probably at the initiative of Governor Bernardo d'Aldana. The inscription read as follows:The significance of the fleur-de-lis on the plaque is unclear. De Opuo's name and his place of birth – an otherwise-unknown village or hamlet named "Mirados" or possibly "Mirandos" – are known solely from this inscription. According to Giovanni Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis, by 1745 it was generally believed that the plaque marked the location of what had been de Opuo's residence.
The street in which the plaque was affixed is now named Triq Bernardo DeOpuo in his honour. The plaque itself has been replaced by a copy, while the original one is now preserved at the Gozo Museum of Archaeology.