The documents published below relate to an exceptional event in Sicilian and Maltese history: the presence on Malta to suppress a rebellion, which was actually led by the royal captain, of a Sicilian king supported by a foreign fleet, that of the Genoese. These documents were known to Gian Luca Barberi, who used information from them in his Capibrevi at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and to the great Maltese historian Gianfrancesco Abela, who was the first to make known a number of these documents concerning the Sicilian monarch's visit to Malta. Abela also knew, from another source, of the attack on the island by Genoese galleys under the command of Tommaso Morchio, but his interpretation of these events was inspired by a monarchical loyalism which led him to ignore the real implications of the documents of 1372 and to construct the hypothesis of a royal visit to Malta designed to restore a situation provoked by a Genoese invasion of the island.

Roberto Valentini seems to have been the first to discern the core of the truth. He understood that the enfeoffments and collations made by Frederick IV between 10 and 14 November 1372 were the price paid for the support of certain families in the reconquest of Malta and Gozo.