Maltese grammars and dictionaries had already been written before the century, but all of them have long since been lost. It is for this reason that the honour of being the author of the first grammar goes to Canon Giovanni Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis for his "Della lingua púnica presentemente usata da Maltesi in Roma" (1750). It was only in the 1790s that Vassalli, alone among Maltese nationalists, took an interest in purifying the language of Italianisms and reviving it as a national language.