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Formerly called Ephaestia (Ἡφαιστεία in Ancient Greek), Comino is known to have been inhabited by farmers during Roman times, but for long periods in its history it has been sparsely populated, privately owned, or abandoned entirely. Its rugged coastline is delineated by sheer limestone cliffs, and dotted with deep caves which were popular with pirates and marauders in the Middle Ages. The caves and coves of Comino were frequently used as staging posts for raids on hapless boats crossing between Malta and Gozo. From 1285 until some time after 1290, Comino was the home of exiled Jewish prophet and Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia. It was on Comino that Abulafia composed his Sefer ha-Ot (The Book of the Sign), and his last work, Imre Shefer (Words of Beauty).
The building purposely built as barracks, later used for quarantine and hospital
In later years, the Knights of Malta used this island as hunting and recreational grounds. The Knights were fiercely protective of the local game, which consisted of wild boar and hares (Maltese: fenek tal-grixti): upon conviction, poachers were liable to a penalty of three years as a galley slave. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Comino served as a place of imprisonment or exile for errant knights. Knights who were convicted of minor crimes were occasionally sentenced to the lonely and dangerous task of manning St. Mary's Tower.
During the French occupation of Malta, Comino served as a quarantine and existing buildings served as an isolation hospital. The island served as a temporary prison site before a decision on the accused was taken.
On 6 March 1889 the British battleship HMS Sultan grounded on an uncharted rock in the Comino Channel, ripping her bottom open. She slowly flooded and, in a gale on 14 March 1889 she slipped off the rock and sank. The Italian firm of Baghino & Co raised her in August 1889 for a fee of £50,000. On 27 August, Sultan was brought into Malta.
In the 1920s, the island was leased by the British colonial government to the Zammit Cutajar family, which established the Comino Farming Company. Around 162 hectares (400 acres) of land were brought under cultivation, growing various crops and fruit orchards as well as snails which were exported to Italy. The island's population peaked at around 80 people in the late 1940s, including a number of migrants from Sicily. The island had no electricity and the population largely engaged in subsistence farming, as well as fishing and bird-hunting.
Among the interconnected farming families who sustained this community were the Said, Buttigieg, and Vella lines, originating from northern Malta and Gozo, who cultivated terraced fields (*rdumien*) of onions, potatoes, figs, and barley, raised pigs, and maintained rainwater wells and the island's chapel. Notable figures included Joseph "San Pawl" Said (b. 1889, d. after 1939), a tenant farmer under the Comino Farming Company, and his wife Vangelista Calleja (b. 1886, d. 1939); their daughter Carmela (Maria Dolores) Said (b. 1915, d. 1969) married Salvu Buttigieg (b. 1920, d. 1985) from Nadur, Gozo. Their children, including Evangelista "Veggie" Buttigieg (b. c. 1940s), Francis Buttigieg and Joseph Buttigieg, carried on these traditions, with Veggie remaining one of Comino's two permanent residents as of 2025, alongside Salvu Vella. These families, numbering around 17 in the early 20th century, dwindled to three by the 2010s due to emigration and tourism, preserving Comino's isolated way of life without electricity until the 1950s.
The families also preserved cultural traditions, including the annual Feast of Santa Marija at the island's chapel, which had lapsed for over 40 years before being revived in 2015 by Silvio Buttigieg, nephew of Evangelista Buttigieg and a descendant of the Buttigieg-Said line. Supported by Għajnsielem Mayor Franco Ciangura and Gozo Minister Anton Refalo, the event drew large crowds in 2016 and continues to honor the island's heritage.
In 1960, the farming company's lease was revoked and the British government controversially granted a 150-year lease of the island to John Gaul, a British property magnate, on a near-peppercorn rent of £100 per year (equivalent to $2,000 in 2025). The terms of the lease obliged Gaul's Comino Development Ltd to establish a 200-room hotel on Comino by 1963. The lease was later renegotiated to a smaller area encompassing the current Comino Hotel at San Niklaw Bay and the bungalows at Santa Marija Bay.
As of 2023[update], Comino has a permanent population of only two residents, following the deaths of two other residents in 2017 and 2020.
