An Appreciation: George Serracino Inglott – Roger Vella Bonavita

AN APPRECIATION GEORGE SERRACINO INGLOTT (1941 – 2021)

by Dr Roger Vella Bonavita

Afew years after Malta became an independent country, Judge Maurice Caruana Curran, then president of the newly established Din l-Art Ħelwa, asked me to call on him one evening in 1967. I was at the time lecturer in history at the Royal University of Malta. He said that the Association was formed to muster public support for the protection and appreciation of Malta’s built and natural environment as well as of its artistic heritage. However, he went on, it was also very necessary to inculcate a love for our artistic, cultural, architectural and natural patrimony in Malta’s up-and-coming generation. And thus, in the fullness of time, as a new generation took the place of the old, he hoped there would be ongoing and ever stronger love and support for all aspects of our heritage.

He then asked me to help him establish a youth section for Din l-Art Ħelwa and he hoped that my wife Judith (then teaching history at the School of the Convent of the Sacred Heart) would encourage some of her young ladies to join. I must confess that, while we saw the merit of his plan, neither I nor Judith had any idea as to precisely how we would establish the youth section (and still less how to achieve its lofty aims). A newspaper notice inviting youths to join the planned Youth Section of Din l-Art Ħelwa was enthusiastically taken up by scores of young men and women—they flocked to the Din l-Art Ħelwa offices in what was then called Britannia Street in answer to a notice in the Times of Malta.

Shortly afterwards the Judge introduced Judith and myself to two young teachers: Mario Buhagiar and George Serracino Inglott—then a novice of the Jesuit Order and teaching history at St Aloysius College. Both had formed interest groups among the young students in their schools, concentrating on archaeological sites. George was also undertaking serious archaeological research on the Salini Paleo-Christian necropolis. Sadly, he was not in a position to publish his findings. We sincerely hope that this work is still among his papers and that his research will finally be published after so many decades. The two teachers were also very interested in the art and architecture of Malta’s then very obscure mediaeval period and particularly the wall paintings in the chapel of the Annunciation at Ħal Millieri, near Żurrieq. The Din l-Art Ħelwa committee decided to seek the support of Archbishop Sir Michael Gonzi, which he readily gave, for a modest programme by the youth group to clean the precinct of the chapel and to make it presentable.

Over many Sundays over the next months, George, Mario, Judith and I worked with ‘Teenagers Din l-Art Ħelwa’, as the youth section quickly became known. Some thirteen truckloads of rubble were cleared from the precinct. The project caught the imagination of everyone. George’s charisma and commitment kept the youth group together. His erudition, drive and dedication were an inspiration to all. He broke the stereotype of a prospective young priest and the youngsters were fired by his accessibility and enthusiasm. Furthermore this group, made up of male and female youngsters, and driven by a fledgling priest, was quite an innovation and certainly an attraction in Malta in the conservative 1960s. On the initiative of the mediaeval historian Dr Anthony Luttrell, Din l-Art Ħelwa brought an English archaeologist and an Italian art restorer to Malta. A groundbreaking (for Malta) book, Medieval Malta: Studies on Malta Before the Knights, edited by Dr Luttrell, by then lecturer in history at the University of Malta, was published in 1975. This was followed in 1976 by Luttrell’s Ħal Millieri: a Maltese Casale. Soon after the teenagers started work on the chapel, George and Mario Buhagiar had written a short monograph on Ħal Millieri, circulated in cyclostyled form. The teenagers’ next project was a similar programme of works at the old mediaeval parish church of Santa Maria ta’ Bir Miftuħ which also has mediaeval wall paintings. Again, the teenagers worked like Trojans, removing rubble and making the place tidy, and again Din l-Art Ħelwa supported the teenagers by engaging a restorer—a Maltese expert on this occasion. Din l-Art Ħelwa also brought out the renowned Oxford academic Fr Gervase Mathew to give a public lecture on the chapel at Ħal Millieri to a capacity audience in the Manoel Theatre.

Work on the two mediaeval churches (to which George Serracino Inglott contributed so much and so profoundly) eventually culminated in the establishment of the Ħal Millieri and Bir Miftuħ Trust. The two churches were placed in the care of representatives nominated by the government, the Church and Din l-Art Ħelwa.

Sadly for archaeology and our cultural heritage, George left Malta to settle in Chile. There he had a very distinguished career both as academic and archaeologist. I kept in touch with him via Facebook when I too left Malta for Australia in 1982, some ten years after his departure.

His work in South America is summarised by his son Jonathan in the following paragraph written to me on the afternoon of George’s burial on 13th October 2021, a few days after his death in Santiago Chile:

‘Formerly a Jesuit teacher in Malta and later a missionary priest in Chile, George was trained in archaeology. He studied in Rome and Cornell University as well as the University of Chile. He renounced his religious vows and worked as an archaeologist and an anthropologist in South America. He took part in many excavations and sites and wrote various papers on the subjects. He continued to teach students at Chilean universities. He founded and edited for five years the Estudios Atacameños (a scientific review), and created the Museums of Caspana, Ayguina and Calama. His latest post was of Professor of Anthropology at the Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educación in Santiago, Chile’.

George was a remarkable man, a very remarkable man, and respected and loved by all.

RIP

photo courtesy of Clementina Pisani