MATTIA PRETTI

The Masterpieces in the Churches of Malta Sante Guido Giuseppe Mantella Photography

Enrico Formica

A commemoration of the fourth centenary of the birth of the ‘Cavalier Calabrese’

Published by

Miranda Publishers the publishing division of

Promotion Services Ltd, Sliema, Malta Tel +356 2134 3772/3 e-mail mirandabooks@onvol.net www.mirandabooks.com © 2012, Miranda Publishers, Sliema, Malta All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and publishers of this book.

Printing

Castelli Bolis Poligrafiche S.p.a.

November, 2012

Colour Scanning

Arti Grafiche Martinetto Photography

Enrico Formica English translation

Theresa Vella Design

Maria DeGabriele (Sense – San Paolo Services Ltd) Limited edition

ISBN 978-99909-85-46-7

Acknowledgement This book could not have been compiled without the cooperation and, above all, patience of the people whose privilege it is to be the guardians of Mattia Preti’s legacy on canvas, spread out as it is in churches in Malta and Gozo.

We thank them for their generous help.

Contents

MATTIA PRETI

BIRGU

Masterpieces for the Maltese Church 4

The Collegiate Church of St Lawrence 144

VALLETTA

The Church of St Anne of the Benedictine Monastery of St Scholastica 152

St John’s Co-Cathedral 18

FLORIANA

THE VAULT (1661–1666) 24

The Church of the Immaculate Conception of Sarria 158

THE CHAPEL OF THE LANGUE OF ARAGON, CATALONIA AND NAVARRE 36

LIJA

THE CHAPEL OF THE LANGUE OF CASTILLE, LEON AND PORTUGAL 48 THE CHAPEL OF THE LANGUE OF ITALY 56 THE CHAPEL OF THE LANGUE OF FRANCE 60 THE CHAPEL OF PHILERMOS 66 THE ORATORY 72

Patron Saint of the Italian Knights of the Order of St John 80 The Church of All Souls (formerly St Nicholas Church) 88 The Church of the Jesuit Order, or The Gesù 94 The Monastery Church of St Ursula 102 The Church of St Francis of Assisi 110 The Church of St Augustine 116

MDINA The Cathedral of St Paul 123 The Church of St Peter in the Benedictine Monastery 136

The Church of the Assumption, or ‘Tal-Mirakli’ 170

LUQA The Church of St Andrew 176

RABAT The Church of St Publius, the Grotto and the Collegiate Church of St Paul 184 The Chapel of Verdala Palace 196

ZURRIEQ The Church of St Catherine of Alexandria 202

SLIEMA Chapel of Our Lady of Graces 214

GOZO – RABAT The Collegiate Church of St George 220

BIBLIOGRAPHY 222

MATTIA PRETI

Right: Portrait of Mattia Preti at St John’s Co-Cathedral Museum

The Masterpieces in the Churches of Malta Fra Mattia Preti must be considered as being one of the main exponents of Italian and European art of the seventeenth century. This was a period that gave rise to various disparate schools of figurative art. Preti observed and studied the various trends and ultimately developed his own personal pictorial style. His paintings embody a dramatic tension and vivacious flourishes that are in part personal and in part testament to previous masters such as Veronese, Tintoretto, Guercino, Lanfranco and Poussin. He in turn became a protagonist and interpreter of the crucial transition to the art of the ‘high baroque’.

The widely unanimous recognition of his talent and his burgeoning fame enabled him to establish profitable relationships with the powerful personalities and families of that time such as the Barberini, the Rospigliosi, the Pamphilj and the Ruffo of Calabria thanks to whom he was made a Knight of the military and hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem, Cyprus, Rhodes and Malta. Preti moved to Malta in 1661 and remained on the Island until his death in 1669. During his stay in Malta he executed a large number of paintings for the Order as well as several works for Maltese and Italian churches and numerous works commissioned by lay and private collectors.

Ironically, out of the almost 450 works attributed to the Cavalier Calabrese, as Preti was known in seventeenth-century Italy, only a few are reliably dated, and documentation is limited. Similarly rare, if not completely missing, is any documentation regarding his frequent journeys (Venice, Milan, Florence, Bologna, Cento, Madrid, and Antwerp) as well as with regard to his interaction with other artists.

The lengthy biography written in Naples between 1742 and 1745 by Bernardo De Dominici is very confusing. It is replete with errors, wrongly dated annotations and relationships with historical figures whose biographical data is incorrectly dated and in some cases totally wrong as with dates that are known to be too early or too late.

Almost two and a half centuries after the first biography, thanks to the studies conducted by Roberto Longhi, Domenico De Conciliis, Riccardo Lattuada, Giuseppe de Vito, Edoardo Nappi, James Clifton, Federica Piccirillo and especially the fundamental work of John T. Spike, it is now possible to reconstruct with relative accuracy a near-complete biography as well as an exhaustive catalogue raisonnée.

Mattia Preti in Malta Mattia Preti’s arrival in Malta is strongly connected to the transformation of the large Conventual church – that ‘holds the specious and ancient title of High Church, ever since the time in Rhodes, and that competes for this title with the Metropolitan [Cathedral] church’1 – dedicated to St John the Baptist, patron saint of the Knights whose Order originated in the Holy Land with the first church founded by Pope Pascal II in Jerusalem on the 15th of February 1113. In 1573, two years after the inauguration of the new city founded by Grand Master Jean Parisot de Vallette (1557–1568), Grand Master Jean de la Cassière (1572–1581) placed the first building block of the Conventual church. The construction was completed in the four years between 1573 and 1577 as documented by one of the two stone inscriptions placed above the main doorway: HUIUS TEMPLI CA(LENDIS) NO(VEMBRIS) MDLXXIII IACTA SUNT FUNDAMENTA. QUOD AUSPICIIS ILL(USTRISSI)MI D. F(RATRIS) IOANNIS LEVESQUE DE LA CASSIERE IX CA(LENDAS). IUL(II) MDLXXVII AD SUMMUM FASTIGIUM PERDUCTUM EST. (‘The foundations of this temple which was completed on the ninth day of the month of July [in terms of today’s calendar, 23 June] 1577 under the auspices of the illustrious Fra Giovanni Leveque de la Cassière, were laid down on the month of November [1st November] 1573’).

The massive and austere building, designed by the Maltese architect Girolamo Cassar follows sixteenth-century tradition with a simple linear structure in the late mannerism of the Roman style with a flat façade – today featuring the bronze head of Christ the Saviour,2 by Alessandro Algardi – between two bell towers.

1

2

AOM 1953, Chapter XXX, descrizione della Chiesa – Conventuale di San Giovanni Battista di Fra Ottavio Garcin (1760); Scarabelli 2004, pp. 469ss.

Guido–Mantella 2004.

The interior consists of a single nave surmounted by a massive barrel roof without a transept and with absidal endings.3 The internal space consisted of bare-walled side-chapels decorated solely by simple stone altars with paintings dedicated to Saints who were associated with the Order’s devotion, such as St Catherine of Alexandria, St George and St Sebastian.

During the mid-seventeenth century the church underwent further modifications with the purpose of adapting the sobriety of the building towards a more modern baroque style so as to better reflect the prestige the that the Hospitaller Order of St John had acquired during the course of the century.

One of the first changes dates back to 1645, during the rule of Grand Master Juan de LascarisCastellar (1636–1657) when the Messinese sculptor Vitale Covati was commissioned to create a new alter in precious marble for the chapel of the so-called Madonna of Philermos. The precious icon was originally known as the Madonna of Bethlehem and was already in the custodianship of the Knights of the Order before their occupation of Jerusalem.4 In the years that followed shortly after, the renovation of the interior decorations had an impact on practically all the internal spaces. Amongst these were the Chapel of Philermos, the Chapel of the Langue of Provence and the Chapel of the Langue of Auvergne.5 Previously, prior to 1656, the transformations had most significantly affected the Chapel of the Langue of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre, which is dedicated to St George, as documented by the inscription on the border: SACELLUM HOC QUOD EMINENTISSIMUS AC REVERENDISSIMUS D. F. D. MART[INUS] DE REDIN OLIM PRIOR IN HONOREM D. GEORGIJ M. EXORNANDUM SUSCEPERAT IDEM NUNC M. M. SUMPTUOSIUS ANNO [MAGIS]TERIJ SUI SECUNDO PERFICIUNDUR CURAVIT AD MAIOREM DEI GLORIA MDCLVIII, (‘The most reverend and eminent Fra Don Martin de Redin had started to adorn this chapel in honour of St George during the time when he was Prior and he himself when elected Grand Master oversaw its completion during his second magistral year in a more sumptuous manner for the greater glory of God. 1658’).

Following De Redin’s initiative, the Chapel of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre became the model and template for all other chapels that had hitherto been bare and unadorned.

Martin de Redin wanted to intervene on the chapel whose altar was decorated with a canvas painting titled St George and the Dragon – a work by Francesco Potenzano dating back to 1578–1579 and considered to be too old and anachronistic. To do so De Redin sought paintings that went beyond Maltese vernacular of the time by seeking such works in nearby Italy.6 His predecessors in the second half of the sixteenth century had taken the same approach when it was decided to embellish the first buildings which had been completed in the new city of Valletta.

This was previously the case with the Hall of the Grand Council in the magistral palace when Grand Master Jean de la Cassière (1572–1581) invited Matteo Perez d›Aleccio (1547–1616) from Rome to Malta in 1576,7 with the commission to work on the creation of the twelve frescos depicting the Great Siege (1565) with allegorical figures in didactic composition executed in a late mannerist style.

The same artist was responsible for the altar pieces in the main churches in Valletta such as St Paul’s shipwreck in Malta that is found in the church of St Paul Shipwrecked, or the Baptism of Christ which used to be housed in the sacristy of the Conventual church and is now housed in the Museum of St John’s Co-Cathedral, altarpieces that were executed before his departure from Malta in 1581.8 In the course of a brief phase spent in Malta,9 the Palermitan artist Francesco Potenzano (1152–1601) had also painted large canvases in a style which was reminiscent of mannerism but with a provincial trait: The Martyrdom of St Catherine adorned the Chapel of Italy, while St George and the Dragon was to be found in the Chapel of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre and is now in the museum of the Co-Cathedral.

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7

8

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Scicluna 1955; Bonello 1956; Debono 2005; Sciberras 2004; Guido–Mantella 2008; Sciberras 2010; De Giorgio 2010.

Rossetti 2010.

Debono 2005, pp. 26–27; 57–58; Guido–Mantella 2008, p. 457.

Sciberras 2009, p. 93.

Ganado 1984, p. 127–159; Vella 2006, pp. 56 Ganado 1984, p. 127.

Mandarano–Muroni 2008, pp. 205–209.

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Grand Master Hugues Loubenx de Verdalle (1581–1595) had instead turned to the late-mannerist Florentine painter Filippo Paladini (1544–1614). Paladini had arrived in Malta in 1589 as he served a penal sentence as a rower in the galleys of the Grand Duke of Florence, and thus the Grand Master had to negotiate with the Grand Duke Ferdinand de Medici for Paladini to remain in Malta, where he stayed until around 1595. Paladini executed the fresco paintings in the Palace chapel with the scenes from the Life of John the Baptist as well as the altarpiece Mary and the Child Jesus with the Baptist, St Paul and other saints signed PH. P. P–1589, today found in the Palace of the Archbishop in Valletta.

Paladini also painted the ceiling frescos in the hall and vestibule of Verdala Palace. This palace is in Buskett, an inland location close to Rabat, and was used as the Grand Master’s summer residence. He also painted the large Circumcision of Christ canvas that is to be found in the Jesuits Church in Valletta.

In 1605, after Paladini’s departure Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt (1601–1622) had to once again turn to Florence in seeking an artist to complete the decoration of the magistral halls.

Following Caravaggio’s turbulent phase in Malta between 1607 and 1608, the embellishment project was eventually undertaken with the arrival in Malta of the Bolognese painter Lionello Spada (1576– 1622). Between 1609 and 1610, Spada, who was a student of the Academy of the Carracci, decorated three halls in the palace: the Assembly Hall, the Ambassadors’ Hall and the Pages’ Hall. By means of a large frieze with allegorical figures painted in fresco, Spada depicted the pictorial narrative in a didactic style, representing the history of the Order from its origins to the Great Siege, and in so doing completed the work which had been begun by Perez d’Aleccio thirty years earlier. This project brought to an end a period of great artistic fervour that was characterized by the commissioning of great works of art by the Grand Masters and Knights. The next thirty years witnessed a lull in this trend until the start of works on the Philermos chapel in 1645.

• Soon after being elected Grand Master in 1658, Martin de Redin was involved in the finishing works on the Chapel of Aragon, Castille and Navarre and, as his predecessors had done before him, he turned to Naples. He wrote to Marcello Spinelli, the Jesuit father provincial who was based in Naples,10 asking for his advice in the matter of a painting that he intended to commission to ‘the most qualified painter that lives in Naples’.11 He wanted to commission a portrait to be placed in the Chapel of St George that depicted the ‘glorious St Francis Xavier’,12 an illustrious Jesuit father of the Order to which De Redin had special connections that were well-known through ‘his particular affection for the Order of Jesus ... that is known to all the Fathers’.13 Furthermore, the Grand Master boasted of belonging to the family of the saintly missionary who was born in Navarre and canonized in 1622.14 He was so proud of his famous ancestor that he had this relationship recorded on his burial monument,15 which he planned on placing in the Chapel of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre: MAGNI MAGISTRI DON MARTINI DE REDIN / MAGNI XAVERII OB GENUS PROPINQUI [Grand Master Martino de Redin descendant of the family of the great Xavier].

De Redin’s intention was therefore to commission a portrait of the Iberian saint under Jesuit supervision during those months when Mattia Preti was completing his paintings on the doors of the city of Naples, with ‘the image of the Immaculate Conception with the child, the glorious St Januarius and on the right St Francis Xavier and on the left Santa Rosolea.’16 Furthermore, owing to the importance of this event in Preti’s future career, one must remember that the role of supervisor of the works on the seven gates of Naples was the Jesuit Felice Barberito, ‘a person of great talent and expertise in matters relating to painting’,17 and who therefore had a close professional relationship with the Calabrian painter. It is thus no surprise that when Grand Master de Redin turned to father Spinelli in order to commission a talented and able painter for the depiction of St Francis Xavier, it was Preti who at the time was working on such a painting of the Spanish Jesuit Saint on Naples’s city gates under the supervision of Father Barberito, whose name came up.18 One must also not underestimate as a factor in this choice the fact that by 1658, the Calabrian

painter had already been a member of the Hospitaller Order of St John the Baptist for sixteen years, with the secondary ranking of Knight of Obedience of the priory of Capua.19 This fact was probably considered when it was decided to give the artist such a prestigious commission. By means of the painting depicting St Francis Xavier, Fra Mattia was re-establishing a link with his brethren in the Hospitaller Order through his skill as a painter, his fame and the significant intercession of the Jesuit Order.20 A large number of documents bear witness to the various events surrounding the execution of the painting and its arrival in Malta, although it seems unusual that the author’s name never appears on any document that deals with the matter.21 In the painting that Preti executed for De Redin, the missionary saint is depicted as a full-length figure, clothed in dark robes as he turns his bearded face as he gazes towards the heavens. The composition suggests an apparition that takes place high amongst the clouds. The work was produced with great diligence, as shown by the recent conservation project,22 which has revealed a cautious execution starting with the choice of materials such as the thick preparatory ground layer up to numerous thin brush-strokes that define the minutest details of the rich palette where cinnabar reds and lapis lazuli blues dominate. Preti wanted to prove his talent so as to impress the Grand Master, and his brethren, the Knights of St John. He was very successful, leading to a strong relationship with De Redin based on mutual respect, and which resulted in new and important commissions for the chapel of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre which introduced the exuberance of seventeenth-century baroque art.

In the summer of 1659 Preti arrived in Malta after accepting the invitation of Martin de Redin who, around one year earlier, had written to the Jesuit Father General in Rome with reference to the painting of St Francis Xavier, ‘I entrusted the painting of the portrait of St Francis Xavier to a famous brush [artist] in Naples and it has been executed to my great satisfaction.’23 The Grand Master’s role as first contact and patron for the arrival of the painter on the island is engraved on Preti’s tombstone in St John’s Conventual church with the words: SUB AUSPICIIS EM[IMENTISSIMI] M[AGNI] M[AGISTRI] DE REDIN IN MELITAM VENIT. Within a few months of his arrival in Malta, the painter first executed the portrait of St Firmin Bishop,24 the second patron of the realm of Navarre, which was placed on the lateral walls of the chapel and St George and the Dragon, which replaced Potenzano’s altarpiece in the chapel. From the evidence contained in certain documents it results that in 1659 Preti also painted the lunettes that decorate the underside of the lateral wall arches with the stories of St Lawrence: St Lawrence meeting Pope Sixtus II and The Martyrdom of St Lawrence. The first of these works seems to have been the portrait of St Firmin Bishop, Patron of Navarre that can be taken as a companion piece to San Francis Xavier.

From documentary evidence, it seems that by 1658 the Grand Master had already expressed the wish to have a portrait of a ‘Bishop Saint’, when he wrote that the commission had not been assigned and was being postponed to a later date. ‘… it was unfortunate not to have expressed the name of the bishop Saint that I desired. However since fate has so decreed, not having as much haste for this painting as I do for the other [St Francis Xavier] I resolve that it be suspended until further notice’.25 The dating of the painting, as well as the context within which it was executed, have been the subject of a lively critical debate based on artistic and historical considerations. Hypotheses on its dating have been based on structural changes carried out on the entire chapel between 1660 and 1661,26 as well as on generic stylistic comparisons relating to works of 1670,27 that place the work to a later date, in relation to the magistry of two of De Redin’s successors: Grand Master Raphael Cotoner (1660–1663) and his brother Nicolò Cotoner (1663–1680). A more recent and accurate iconographic analysis makes it possible to date the work to the period of De Redin’s magistry,28 and thus to the time of Preti’s first stay in Malta in 1659.

In the first place, the context and close relationship that links the execution of the St Firmin as 19

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16

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18

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Spike 1998, p. 109–110.

AOM 1434, ff. 57–57v; Spike 1998, pp.109–110.

Ibidem.

AOM 1434, ff. 188r–189v.

Cosma 2008, p. 33.

Debono 2005, pp. 39–40.

Deliberazioni degli Eletti, 16 June 1656: ASMN, Registro 1410 delle deliberazioni, f. 202v; Spike, 1998, pp. 91–92.

ASMN Registro delle deliberazioni 1410, f. 218v; Spike 1998, p. 92.

Cosma 2008, p. 32.

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22

23

24

25

26

27

28

20

ASV, Segretaria dei Brevi Vol. 915, ff. 644r–644v.

Cosma 2008, p. 34.

Spike 1999, pp. 329,330; Cosma 2008, p. 32.

Restored by Giuseppe Mantella in 2010.

AOM 1434, ff.118r–189v.

Spike 1999, pp. 329–330. The canvas measures 238 × 175 cm.

AOM 1434, ff. 93r–93v; Spike 1978, p. 505.

Sciberras 2004, pp. 189–190, note 125.

Spike 1999, pp. 329–330.

Cosma 2008, pp. 27–40.

a companion piece to the St Francis Xavier must be taken into account. In a more general way, one must also consider the historical circumstances that relate to the recognition of both saints as patrons of Navarre and De Redin’s desire to see the creation of both works within a single iconographic programme spaced over a few months, and consequently prior to the death of the patron that occurred on 6th February 1660. Bishop Firmin was a great evangelizer who lived around the end of the third century. He died a martyr and had been venerated since the twelfth century in his native town of Pamplona. Francis Xavier had recently been canonized and had been proclaimed co-patron of Navarre

by Pope Alexander VII Chigi on the 14th April 1657. This was the year De Redin was elected Grand Master. It was thus a question of representing the images of the old patron and the new one for the first time in the Chapel of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre, and this was not done immediately because of ‘ the oversight of not having mentioned the name of the Bishop Saint despite my desire’.

The analysis of the compositional scheme of the Bishop Saint too demonstrates a repetition of the device used in St Francis Xavier and appears to confirm the link between the two saints from Navarre through their ideological, religious and celebratory qualities.

As seen in the documentary evidence, the St Francis Xavier was originally intended to be placed to one side of the chapel.29 Given the corresponding nature of the two paintings it can be deduced that the St Firmin was to be placed on the opposite wall so that the portraits would face each other. St Firmin is depicted against dense clouds surrounded by hovering putti in the midst of a grey mass of clouds, and who hold out the symbols of his martyrdom for the Christian faith; his face is turned to the heavens while his right hand points downwards towards the altar, mirroring the corresponding gesture of the Jesuit saint, thus giving rise to a harmonious movement within the chapel space. The technical analysis of the painting has brought to light new data that confirms 1659 as the most likely date of execution. Close observations carried out during the preparatory work for the restoration indicate totally different techniques used between St Francis Xavier and St Firmin. It almost seems as if Preti had little time to paint the Bishop Saint as indeed was the case during his brief stay in Malta during 1659, in order to fulfil the request of the Grand Master and thereby to complete the ‘diptych’ of the patron saints of Navarre. Observations carried out by means of an optical microscope reveal that the preparatory ground layer as well as the paint layer are thin, so much so that one can make out the underlying canvas. The artist used a technique similar to that used in mural painting, with which he had previously experimented in Italy. He used his skill and experience to reproduce the vivacious physiognomy of putti in flight, using models from his known repertoire, in the midst of thick clouds.

He applied near-transparent fields of near-transparent brushwork on the canvas as well as alternating dark and light areas. The palette is reduced to few pigments: lead white, natural earth colours and very diluted sky colour. The accurate particulars in St Francis Xavier were accomplished by means of brush-strokes consisting of skilfully toned down vivid colours and thin traces that had defined the highly accurate details of the painting of St Francis Xavier – such as seen in the bright flesh tones of the angels and in the drapes of shimmering fabric in vivid tints of lapis lazuli, yellow and red. On the other hand in St Firmin he uses a uniform field on which mass and volume were built up with rapid and vigorous brush-strokes and few tonal variations. Differences also abound in the definition of the two figures. Contrary to the silky smoothness of the cloth in St Francis Xavier, whose dark robes takes shape thanks to numerous tonal variations, the light-coloured vestment and golden cape in St Firmin contrast shimmeringly against the cloud background in a single colour that the artist uses to produce only light and shade with loaded brushstrokes. Greater attention is paid to the intense portrait of St Firmin with his realistically rendered expressive wrinkles and detail brought about by thick strokes of colour that highlight individual tufts of his beard. In these areas the consistency of the thickness of the paint layer also varies.

Recent scientific analysis has for the first time yielded an extremely important detail. Electron microscope observations have revealed that the preparatory layer on the canvas of St Firmin Bishop is not made up of one thick layer of calcium carbonate and drying oils and natural pigments – as discovered in the Francis Xavier that Preti had executed in Naples – but a compound made up of globigerina stone (Maltese limestone contains minute fossils of algae and sea shells), umber and lead oxide mixed with oil.

• Besides the St Firmin Bishop, globigerina stone dust used for the preparatory layer combined with pigments and oil has also been found on other paintings that have recently been studied, such as The 29

AOM 1280, ff. 172r–172v.

Virgin interceding for the Souls in Purgatory in the Church of All Souls in Valletta dating to 1659 as proven by a payment document dated 20th November 1659. This is also present in the case of the best known and outstanding amongst the first works executed by Preti for Malta: the large painting on the altar of the Chapel of the Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre, portraying St George and the Dragon the patron of Aragon, and foremost patron of the Knights,30 who was especially venerated as a noble warrior engaged in defeating Evil and to whom the victorious Crusades in the conquest of Jerusalem were attributed.31 The matter of the St Firmin and the St George, both paintings of uncertain date, are both closely linked to each other for the first time as a result of their date and place of execution. Since documents relating to the commission are as yet unknown the proposed date for St George varies between the second half of the 1650s and 1661. The oldest historical sources, such as the biography by De Dominici, place the painting between 1656–1657 and thus the location would have to be Naples and thus commissioned by Grand Master Juan de Lascaris-Castellar (1636–1657), De Redin’s predecessor.32 In the second half of the nineteenth century it was thought that the work was executed in Naples ‘as a demonstration of his skill as a painter when the decision had to be taken as to his painting the barrel vault of the church of St John’.33 Even more recently researchers have theorized that the altar piece was created in Naples between late 1656,34 and the end of 1658,35 or in the spring of 1659 and later sent to Malta together with the Martyrdom of St Catherine of Alexandria,36 the latter securely executed in Naples together with the ten canvases for the ceiling of the church of San Pietro a Maiella. Recently a careful iconographic study has brought to light elements that instead place the date in summer 1659 during Preti’s first journey to Malta. The background composition, that depicts St George leading the knights to the conquest of Jerusalem so as to liberate the city from the infidels,37 could be linked to Martin de Redin’s intention of spurring the west to embark on a new crusade to liberate the Holy Sepulchre. De Redin did so by means of an intense diplomatic initiative towards Pope Alexander VII,38 the Spanish court and cardinal Mazzarino in the first months of 1659. Researchers have recently determined that the background scene represents St George leading the Christian army in the taking of a fortress manned by Muslim warriors.39 Thus it is a pictorial reference to the Knights of St John’s defence of the Holy Land,40 and the scene celebrates the project proposed by De Redin who was a new Godfrey of Bouillon as explicitly stated in his funerary inscription: DUCIS BULLIONII EXEMPLUM SECUTUS, EXPEDITIONIS HIEROSOLYMITANAE / PRINCIBUS EUROPAE SESE ULTRO VEL DUCEM VEL COMITER OBTULIT. It is therefore the Grand Master who is thinking of substituting the didactic and traditional painting created a century earlier by Francesco Potenzano with a new altar painting in the baroque style as well as giving Preti precise instructions about a composition with strict links to the Langue of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre. What at first glance might appear to be a reference to the patronage of St George so as to honour the langue to which the chapel was dedicated is in fact an exhortation in defence of the Faith by invoking the saintly soldier as a paladin and guarantor.

The location of the painting suggests that the artist must have had precise knowledge of the architectural context in which the work was to be placed, thus confirming that the painting was created in Malta. The painting is placed on the axis of the fulcrum of the entire chapel accompanied by the gestures of both Navarre patron saints that point towards it from the lateral walls. Thus the scene is placed at a perfect height so as to enable the viewer to make out even the minutest detail, such as the knights in the background who, in battle, raise the tiny Aragon flag as well as that of Navarre which is slightly less visible.41 The more recent and more accurate dating for the execution of St George and the Dragon to 1659 during Preti’s brief stay in Malta is due, as was the case with St Firmin Bishop, to an analysis of the pictorial technique that contrasts with the sophisticated and meticulous colouration of St Francis 30

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34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

31

Bosio 1594–1602, Vol. III p. 219.

Spampinato 2005, p. 47.

De Dominici (1742–1745), 1840–46, III, pp. 349–350, 353–354.

Ferris 1900, p. 63.

Buhagiar 1987, p. 91.

Debono 2008; Sciberras 2005, p. 30.

Sciberras 2010, pp. 126–127; Costanzo 2011, pp. 56–58.

Giordano 2005, pp.125–126; Cosma 2008, pp. 35–37.

AOM 1435, f. 39r. (19 March 1659); Cosma 2008, p. 40, nota 57.

Debono 2006, pp. 68–72, and Ibid. 2008.

Cosma 2008, pp. 34–37.

Sciberras 2004, pp. 30 and 101; Cosma 2008, nota 20, p. 38.

7

Xavier that was created in Naples. In fact, as revealed by the restoration of the St George42 and as already observed in St Firmin, the pictorial field is characterized by a ‘rapid but effective technique that uses few brush-strokes to render perfect images’.43 This rapidity is also highlighted by the fact that ‘It is not possible to see traces of preparatory phases such as drawing, engraving or sketched-in brush-strokes’ and ‘the various modifications visible on the surface manifest a rapid technique that gradually evolves during the work’. Scientific investigations on the St George have also revealed the same traits as have already been noticed in the St Firmin with regard to the preparatory layer on the canvas: ‘The preparatory layers [applied on a support] consisting of two linen cloths sewn vertically [as in St Firmin] are relatively thin and of a red brown colour [simply] obtained by pigments of lead and umber mixed with oil’44 and not as with Preti’s works that were created in Naples and then shipped to Malta.

Finally a crucial piece of data that is presented here for the first time substantiates the hypothesis that the work was carried out in Malta. The stratigraphic analysis undertaken by electron microscope on samples taken in 2002, conducted during the investigative stage of the restoration work which was later undertaken by the Istituto Centrale di Restauro di Roma during 2004–2005, has shown that the preparatory layer contained dust from globigerina stone, Maltese limestone that is full of marine micro-fossils bound with oils and natural earths, thus excluding the possibility that the painting was created in Naples.

• Thus, towards the end of 1659 the Chapel of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre became the richest and most ‘modern’ place within the entire Conventual church thanks to the magnificent new altar piece and the two paintings dedicated to the patron saints of the realm of Navarre. This is also due to the wall decorations and the arches that are partially painted and gilt. The lunette paintings that Preti completed for the lateral arched walls can be considered to be part of De Redin’s ambitious project dating to the summer of 1659. The two canvas paintings are dedicated to episodes from the Life of St Lawrence, as had been narrated by St Ambrose (De Officiis, Ch. 41: 205–206–207),45 a fellow Aragonese born in Osca and nominated archdeacon of Rome by Pope Sixtus II (257–258). Both men were martyred in that city in 258 during the reign of Emperor Valeriano.

On the right lunette is a depiction of the meeting between St Lawrence and Pope St Sixtus II being led to his Martyrdom. The action is concentrated on the foreground with the protagonists surrounded by numerous secondary figures that observe the scene taking place amongst ancient ruins. The holy deacon lies down on the ground thus bringing to a halt the procession that is led by the executioner with his sword. In this canvas, well-known physiognomic traits and compositional elements demonstrate a speed of execution that is also evident in the building up of the figures. These are created by means of large masses of colour and given contours by means of a skilful play on light and shade with a technique that is very similar to the one seen in St Firmin Bishop.

The kneeling Lawrence’s robes as well as those of the elderly priest are surfaces loaded with yellow ochre enlivened by a few darker strokes to enhance volume: on the other hand the faces of the protagonists are drawn with greater attention while the crowd in the background is barely discernible against the cloudy dark horizon. This has been created by leaving large swathes of the dark preparatory ground layer visible.

The opposite lunette is characterized by a greater complexity in its composition due to the striking angle of perspective that gives the ensemble greater depth. A more daring approach places the pale body of the saint at the centre of the scene while being surrounded by his tormentors who are intent on stoking the flames on the scorching pyre. When viewed from below, one can observe that beyond the foreground an obstinate priest at the saint’s side is trying to offer him earthly salvation by means of a golden idol while further back towards the left, one can observe Emperor Valeriano looking on at the torment from his elevated throne. This scene displays a greater detail pertaining to the figures, particularly notable in the deacon who is endowed with shapely musculature and an intense, rapt but detached facial expression as he turns his gaze towards the two putti who point to the heavens as a reassuring sign of the eternal glory that awaits him. Nonetheless, even in this case all the areas in shadow are achieved using the technique of leaving the preparatory layer visible, which was composed of natural earth, globigerina and oils, so as to create varying chiaroscuro effects in a shorter time.

42

44

45

43

Mercalli 2005.

Marcone–Giralico 2005, pp. 58–59.

Marcone–Giralico 2005, pp. 58–59.

Banterle 1977, pp. 148–151.

Right: The Papal Bull by which Pope Alexander VII confirmed Mattia Preti as Knight of Grace

8 MP_intro pages.indd 8

30/10/2012 17:05

Due to the absence of documentation that refers directly to the two lunettes featuring St Lawrence in the chapel of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre and owing to the fact that stylistic and contextual considerations date the works to the mid-1660s,46 experts have linked them to a commission by Cotoner. On the contrary, the careful study of certain documents permits the consideration that Grand Master de Redin’s design was completed in its entirety, that is, including the two large canvas paintings dedicated to St Lawrence, during his lifetime and during Preti’s first stay in Malta. From a reconstruction of the events that led to the renovation of the nearby Chapel of Castille, Leon and Portugal it has been possible to verify a hitherto unknown circumstance that provides a precise ante quem for the creation of the St Lawrence paintings: the death of Balì di Lora Tommaso de Hozes on the 3rd March 1661. De Hozes had undertaken the refurbishment of the chapel of the langue to which he belonged, with the intention ‘to adjust the altar to the design of that of St George, commissioning a new painting and two others to be displayed over the doorways or as lunettes similar to those in the above-mentioned chapel of St George of the Venerable Langue of Aragon’,47 as revealed by a later document regarding works on the Chapel of Castille, Leon and Portugal. In a letter by Grand Master Raphael Cotoner who towards the end of 1661 decided to delay the payment of the commissions for the Chapel of Castille, Leon and Portugal, there are detailed indications of what Balì di Lora’s exact instructions consisted of, namely ‘that no other works be carried out in the chapel at the expense of the Treasury except for the Venerable Balì di Lora’s express intentions, that is, the two paintings for the arched walls’.48 Thus, well before 1661 the two lunettes of St Lawrence in the chapel of Aragon must have already been completed since they provoked such a desire for emulation that Hozes wanted similar works for his own chapel.

Fra Mattia Preti left Malta in November 1659 in order to travel to Naples and later to Rome where it is documented that he attended a meeting with the Congregazione dei Virtuosi del Pantheon on 12th December 1660,49 as well as on the 7th January 1661 when he finalized a contract with the Theatine Fathers for retouching works on his paintings and frescos in the cloister of the Sant’Andrea della Valle Church, binding himself to ‘complete the works within six months’.50 In March Preti was in Valmontone for the decoration of the Stanza dell’Aria in the Palazzo Pamphilj, thus he could not have returned to the island before late 1661. Subsequently the rendering of the St Lawrence lunettes must date back to the summer of 1659 when the artist was in Malta busy with working on Grand Master Martin de Redin’s project for the chapel of Aragon which must have also included the two beautiful scenes dedicated to the Iberian saint from Osca.

• Grand Master de Redin’s commission of the St Francis Xavier gave Preti the opportunity to establish a relationship with the brethren of the Langue of Italy with the objective of increasing his rank within the Hospitaller Order: from simple Knight of Obedience to that of Knight of Grace, with its associated increase in prestige and remuneration. On 11th of August 1659, Fra Fabrizio Cagliola presented to the gathering of the Knights of the Italian language a memorial that ‘Mattia Preti, Knight of Magistral Obedience, humble servant of the reverend lords, proposes that, in order to engage himself more in the service of their Holy Order, he desires to be admitted to the state and rank of Knight of Grace of this Venerable Italian Langue’.51 A section of the assembly proposed accepting him as a ‘Conventual servant-at-arms’ as a token of appreciation for his artistic skills and suggested conferring an honorific title to Preti as ‘a reward for the gift that he has made to the Venerable Langue with his painting of St Catherine’.52 This is the large painting (365 × 267 cm) depicting the Martyrdom of St Catherine, patron saint of the Knights of the Italian Langue that the Calabrian painter had created in Naples for the brethren as a special ‘gift’ that was later shipped to Malta on the 10th June 1659: ‘in the Hall of the Venerable Admiral one can find the painting of St Catherine that was donated by the Knight Preti’.53 Thus by the end of Spring 1659 a second work by the Cavalier Calabrese that was more complex in comparison to the novelty of St Francis Xavier that had generated great interest in Preti even before his arrival on the island.

46

48

49

50

51

52

53

47

Spike 1998, p. 330; Cosma 2008, p.31.

AOM 121, ff. 219v–220r (24 October 1661).

AOM 121, ff. 221v (3 December 1661).

Spike 1998, p.133.

ASR, 30 Not. Cap., Uff. 33 (Notary Florellus), vol. 240, ff. 267r–267v; Spike 1998, p. 134.

AOM 2130, f. 251r; Spike 1998, pp. 121–123 Ibidem.

AOM 2131, f. 239v.

9

The Martyrdom of St Catherine, a true ‘baroque machine’ characterized by an articulated compositional perspective must have been viewed as a truly exceptional painting when compared to the pictorial styles prevalent in Malta at the time. Such paintings consisted mainly of staid characterizations and repetitive idioms in the late mannerist style or at times in naïve expressionism that Preti’s genius and the small number of his emulators had temporarily interrupted. The new painting by Preti depicting the Saint’s decapitation constitutes the epilogue of the hagiographic event whereby the futile attempt

by Massimino, the Roman Governor of Egypt and Syria to have the young woman renounce her faith, even under torture at the wheel, ends with the violent act of her decapitation. The canvas painting shows the scene as seen from below with a sharp foreshortening that leads in stages to the central scene of the martyrdom. Bathed in divine light, Catherine faces her death with the steady and profound serenity that had characterized the significant moments of her life. The subject matter and its interpretation by the Cavalier Calabrese led to the creation of several copies based on this canvas painting. As previously mentioned this canvas is a variation on the contemporary paintings that adorn the transept at San Pietro a Maiella that represent the same subject. Preti had not privileged the depiction of martyrdom scenes as central images in his works until the mid-1650s. However after 1656 ‘his unique ability to evoke the mysticism of the soul enabled him to excel with these themes, having been struck by these powerful figures that he increasingly depicted from that time on’.54 Thus, the mystically heroic life of St Catherine of Alexandria and her agonising martyrdom must have been particularly inspiring to the artist.

During the meeting of the council of the Langue of Italy held on the 11th August 1659, together with the request to promote Fra Mattia to the rank of Knight of Grace, the brethren discussed another matter regarding the painter that has never been given prominence. The subject was ‘to provide for work on the coarsely-executed painting by the hand of a skilled painter who is at the service of the Knight Fra Mattia’55 A document dating to the following November reveals that ‘the improvement of the painting in the chapel [will be carried out] in conformity with the advice given to the painter Leonardo Romeo by the Knight Matthia.’56 These decorative works refer to the Church of Italy, that is, the Chapel of the Auberge of the Langue of Italy that consists of a large domed octagonal hall and a small but deep domed sacristy. Works were in hand to transform and embellish the structure. The embellishments, which were unique in the Maltese artistic landscape, were based on the model which was developed from Bernini’s prototypical ‘bel composto’. This model glorified the blending of artistic styles within a deceptive illusion, as is visible in the traditional decoration of domed surfaces that was the rage in the first half of the seventeenth century in Rome. The large surface is decorated by a complex monochromatic ornamentation that was achieved by simple means as revealed by recent restorations. The technique made use of oil paintings based on only two pigments – black and white lead (lead carbonate) as well as the warm tones of the stone blocks. The dome is enriched by eight ovals that portray the Life of Catherine: Her birth, The meeting with the hermit, Her baptism, The dispute, The reclusion, Martyrdom on the wheel, The transfer of the Martyr’s body. The phytomorphic and architectural decorations painted to appear like stucco reliefs are rendered with careful schematic precision and are devoid of personification, thus contrasting with the eight scenes that on close inspection are produced by a few and fast brush-strokes in which black defines the drawing, white adds detail and the neutral stone colour acts as an intermediary for the various tonal hues. It is the work of a very capable ‘freshman’ who is aware of the effect of tonal contrasts, reminiscent of a charcoal drawing and that from a distance appear perfectly adequate with a descriptive and naturalistic approach.

Documents hitherto discovered do not support the hypothesis that Preti was the artist responsible for these works which are far removed from the master’s style.57 We can however imagine that he was a central figure in directing the intervention, zealous in suggesting compositional structures that are articulated in ornamentation, playful putti and illusional architectural elements but above all he was a fundamental inspiration for the Life of St Catherine found in the ovals, and for the monochromatic aspect that had matured in the artist while working on the Neapolitan site at San Pietro a Maiella.

The iconographic compositions there are in part replicated in the illusional reliefs found on the Maltese dome.

His large canvas altar painting portraying the Martyrdom of St Catherine is an integral part of the monochromatic story narrated in the ovals and represents the most significant episode whereby the dome’s chronological episodes are interrupted and continue on the altar to resume with the transfer of the body of the Saint to Mount Sinai as the epilogue. The Cavalier Calabrese is certainly responsible for the decoration of the small dome in the presbytery of the Church of Italy since the God the Father in Glory surrounded by Angels is in all respects similar to the one found on the Conventual church’s vault with episodes from the Life of St John the Baptist.

• Preti’s stay in Malta in the summer of 1659 comes to an end with another great work that can be compared to the Martyrdom of St Catherine owing to its great originality in respect of the context in which it was created. In addition to the main commissions that Preti had undertaken for the Grand Master and the knights of the Langue of Italy during his brief stay in Malta during the summer of 1659, the artist was also contacted by other buyers. This is proof that viewing his masterpieces in person provoked great enthusiasm and widespread consensus. In this sense, the solemn procession wished for

by Grand Master de Redin on the occasion of the arrival in Malta of the St Francis Xavier towards the end of the preceding year must have been most remarkable. De Redin had wished that all ‘religious and lay’ should be able to admire the painting in the Church of Jesus at the Jesuit College in Valletta before the painting was taken to its final location in the chapel of Aragon in the Conventual church.58 At the same time as Preti’s stay in Malta, works had started on the installation of decorative and liturgical drapes for the Church of All Souls, the former church of St Nicholas that had been entrusted to the Confraternity of All Souls on 17th August 1639 and subsequently rebuilt after 1652.59 The cosmopolitan and wealthy community of merchants who worked in Valletta, around the Grand Harbour, were gathered as members of the Confraternity of All Souls, and in the summer of 1659, commissioned the Cavalier Calabrese to depict The Virgin interceding for the Souls in Purgatory over a large canvas measuring 350 by 221 cm to be placed on the high altar of the new church. That the large canvas painting of the All Souls is the first work produced to a commission that did not originate from the Grand Master or the rich, noble Knights, but by the residents of the city and port, had escaped notice. The sum needed to present to the painter was probably raised by means of a public collection or through charitable gifts. Having seen the modern style of the Cavalier Calabrese, the wealthy citizens of Valletta also wished a sumptuously scenographic painting, a true ‘baroque machine’ for their church, built at the outer edge of the city facing the port. With this commission, they offered the painter the remuneration of 298 scudi, which they paid on 20th November 1659, by which time Preti had presented the painting and had sailed from the island to return to Naples. With this large painting, Preti demonstrated his artistic maturity and skill, not only by means of the complexity of the composition but also in his great technical skill and his expressive fluency seen in his use of few but essential brushstrokes of vivid, bright colours, that today are diminished by a thick layer of dust and grime. In its entirety the painting is a construct of rhetorical perspective that doubtlessly had great resonance amongst the inhabitants of Malta who could enter the church with ease, unfamiliar with the novelty of the complex pictorial narrative when compared to the conservative artistic production of Maltese artists who, as has already been shown, painted in the simple and monotonous style that was an echo of late mannerism.

Having departed from Malta in the autumn of 1659, Mattia Preti returned to Naples. Once he was back in the Partenopean city, in the course of 1660 Preti received and deposited a number of payments between the months of January and June, from the administrators responsible for qualifying the works that he had undertaken, as in the case of the project of the City Doors which had been overseen by the Jesuit Father, Barberito,60 or that of the paintings in San Lorenzo Maggiore, with the two large canvas paintings dedicated to Franciscan Saints.61 At the end of 1660, Preti left Naples and was once more in Rome. The purpose of his return to the city was to intervene, ‘by mending and reducing in better shape’,62 the frescos which he had executed ten years earlier for the Theatine Fathers in the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle. The paintings had been presented on 8th April 1651 and although the commissioners had greeted the frescos ‘with great applause’, immediately after differing opinions on Preti’s work were raised, pointing out the

54

58

55

56

57

10

Spike 1999, p. 17.

AOM 2131, f. 241r.

AOM 2131, f. 242r (10 November 1659).

Refer to the forthcoming publication by the present authors, Mattia Preti e il suo arrivo a Malta. La chiesa d’Italia e altri lavori.

60

61

62

59

AOM 1434, ff.188v–189r; Spike 1998, p. 113.

Ferris 1866, p. 195.

ASBN, Banco del Salvatore, Giornale copiapolizze di cassa, matr. 84, f. 39v, 29 January 1660; Spike 1998, p. 130.

Spike 1999, pp. 216–217.

ASR, Notai Capitolini, Office 33, Notary Florellus, vol. 240, ff. 267r–267v; Spike 1998, p. 134.

inadequacy of the final work in comparison with the frescos of Lanfranco and Domenichino.63 In January 1661 Mattia Preti was engaged on ‘retouching with fine colours [...] the paintings that [he] had executed within the three spaces of the choir’, intervening by using oil painting techniques to modify the paintings, completing the works within six months.64 Furthermore, at the end of that winter, the artist was also engaged on a commission for Prince Camillo Pamphilj.65On 17th March 1661, the Cavalier Calabrese was in fact working on concluding the entire vault of the Stanza dell’Aria, a painting that had close links with the vault of the Conventual church that was about to be initiated only a few months later. The painting was executed in a series of sections of the surface and undertaken in seventeen large areas, or giornate, in fresco, without the aid of preparatory designs – no trace of these appeared in the course of the 1996 conservation project – and in a very short time, utilising an extremely swift painting technique, ‘confirming thus the great ease and superb skill of the artist’.66 On the Valmontone fresco, Mattia Preti conceived of a painting in subtle colours creating a rarefied atmosphere with a cloudy sky in which allegorical figures in movement were depicted: at the centre is the personification of Air, placed in a gilt clypeus and surrounded by the figures of the Winds while, above the large frame, he depicted the carriages with the allegorical representations of the four stages of the day between nymphs and winged putti. Preti’s concept is made up entirely of allegorical personages without any narrative structure, in the perpetually circular movement of the rhythm of time. The Valmontone frescos certainly point to an innovation in Italian art that is however little known, but about which important scholars have written: ‘Pevsner has recognized the Allegory of Air as the first fresco to be executed in the style known as high baroque. This judgement has also been held by Waterhouse and Wittcower.’67The latter connoisseur of baroque art wrote of this painting that it ‘was here that for the first time the baroque method of employing venerated concept of organization of volumes and light and incisive structure, as well as in foregrounding the individuality and compactness of each single figure, was abandoned and substituted by the method of randomly marking the entire ceiling with figures that appear to be placed there for no particular reason, such that the viewer looks in vain for a centre or a spot where to rest one’s eye.’68 It is necessary to recall at this point that the Valmontone painting was the last major commission undertaken by Preti before transferring to Malta, and was executed just a few months before the start of the works on the Life of St John the Baptist. A great masterpiece by the Cavalier Calabrese, the Valmontone project has been given little attention in respect of the later development of Preti’s art in the Maltese context: little has been made of the fact that without his experience on the vault of Palazzo Pamphilj, Preti’s paintings of angels in flight robed in flowing garments, little putti holding heraldic devices, foreshortened horses, figures in contorted poses as seen from below, on the vault of the Conventual church that same year, would all be unimaginable. Furthermore, some of the figures depicted in the contemporary altarpieces or in the lunettes of the Chapel of Castille are equally linked to that successful experiment, having originated in the frescos of Valmontone.

On 15th September 1661 Preti is back in Malta, and, in the presence of Grand Master Raphael and the Venerable Council, ‘the knight Fra Matthia Preti, of the Venerable Priorate of Capua, moved by the desire to serve the Holy Order, offered to paint and gild, at his own expense, the entire vault of our high Conventual church of St John’.69 That same day, not by accident, the Chancellory of the Order finally ratified the artist’s promotion to the rank of Knight of Grace.

The proposal for the decoration of the vault was accepted on 30th September 1661, with the provision that the Treasury was to provide the artist with the gold, the pigments ‘and all the oil that was judged to be necessary for painting in oil, and not in fresco, to ensure its long-term preservation’.70 In order to increase the light entering the interior space, they consented to the enlargement of the window on the façade and in the passageways between the chapels. Fra Mattia immediately set about executed his ambitious cycle and on 19th December, the sculptors Pietro Burlo and Domenico Gambin were engaged to carve the arches and the frames of the windows on the walls of the nave, as directed by

the Cavalier Calabrese.71 The first phase of the decoration of St John, which had commenced on the walls of the concave apse,72 was brought to a conclusion on 2nd January 1662, when the Grand Master presented Mattia Preti with a ‘chain with a cross, to the value of six hundred scudi’.73 The concave apse, with the sober Apotheosis of the Baptist, the climax and conclusion of the pictorial narrative of the mural decoration, was executed first: ‘Preti started to paint the pedestal of St John, where he depicted the Holy Trinity in glory with the most beautiful angels surrounding the Eternal Father who was majestically seated, and who held out the flag of the Hospitaller Order to St John who was kneeling in front of him’.74 The immaterial space of the sky is imbued with the presence of angels who confer a mood of suspended levity to the ensemble. The colourful winged figures who accompany the consigning of the flag to the Baptist with lutes, violas, trumpets, cornets and harps – that had been previously depicted in the church of San Biagio in Modena, ten years earlier – were inspired by the decoration of the Oratorio di Santa Silvia within the complex of San Gregorio al Cielo in Rome, where identical musical angels are similarly placed over an illusionary lower frame of the concave apse, depicted by Guido Reni between 1608 and 1609.

On 17th June 1663, the artist granted a further attestation of the honour with which his work was received from the Grand Master who ‘in the name of the Order’, presented him with a ‘Cross and gold chain to the value of around three hundred scudi’.75 A few months later, on 20th October 1663, while Mattia Preti was working on the decoration of the vault, Nicolò Cotoner succeeded his deceased brother Raphael.

In order to ensure continuity and coherence between the different parts, on 3rd March 1664, it was decided to extend the gilding of the cornice along the length of the nave, which had already been gilt in the area of the apse,76 and to proceed with the enlargement of the window on the interior façade.77 The decoration of the vault of St John is expressed in a complex pictorial narrative that presents the Life of the Baptist divided into eighteen episodes, with three different scenes depicted over each arched vault section. Fra Mattia depicted large figures that stand out against skyscapes and architectonic framing devices in sharp angles seen from below, focussing the scenes in the foreground. The large surfaces of open background sky, which is amplified and distorted by the viewpoint from below, recall the grand compositions with a strong scenographic component in the Venetian tradition, with particular reference to the paintings of Paolo Veronese (as in for example the large canvas painting The Banquet in the House of Levi, executed for the Dominican convent of Saints John and Paul, today in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice). In the scene of Herod’s Banquet, which is framed by classical architectonic stage sets, Preti depicted the sumptuous table of the king who, together with his sophisticated guests, watches the dance of Salomé: the composition, as in the Veronese tradition, is embellished with details that are not directly essential to the narrative, but that enhance the context with realistic elements such as pages, dogs and furnishing, to evoke a lifelike, contemporary atmosphere. The serene mood and light colours also define the dramatic scene in which Salomé shows the head of the Baptist as she leans over a balustrade surrounded by the blue background of the sky, as though the sacrificial dimension was materially sublimated into the pervasive light that radiates around the disembodied head of St John.

All the episodes and figures depicted on the vault are contained within a series of rigorously designed architectonic frames, defined in bulky arches, ashlar surfaces, balustrades and corbels, large telamones and carved reliefs which, in the monochromatic treatment of the illusionary grey stone, foreground the colourful scenes to great effect. Large figures of flying angels suspended in mid-air are depicted between the painted vaults and archways; their colourful garments and foreshortened view seem to be inspired by the angels depicted by Tintoretto, confirming the presence of other Venetian sources in Preti’s paintings of this phase. The decorative project was concluded with pairs of figures of Saints of the Order placed to the sides of the oval windows along the springing of the vault at the cornice.

As the decoration of the vault was drawing to a conclusion in August 1666, Preti also completed his proposals for the area of the interior façade.78 More than the window, it had also been agreed

63

71

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

Coliva 1999, p.68 e p. 69 nota 13.

Spike 1998, p. 134.

Spike 1999, pp. 349–351; Fabjan 1999, pp. 71–77.

Fabjan 1999, p. 71.

Spike 1999, p. 351.

Wittcower 1972, p. 283.

AOM 260, f. 106v.

Ibidem.

73

74

75

76

77

78

72

NAV, Notary M. Ralli, R412/26 (1661–63), ff. 90–91; Debono 2005, pp. 66–67.

De Dominici 1742–54, p. 355.

The Ruffo family archive, Sicily, 2 January 1662.

De Dominici 1742–54, pp. 355–356.

AOM, 260, ff. 159v–160r.

AOM 261, ff. 16v–17r.

AOM 261, ff. 16v–17r.

NAV Notary A. Dello Re, R. 227/16 (1665–1667), ff. 153r–153v –154r (19 August 1666 ).

11

to change the entire architectonic ensemble of the entrance not only by adjusting the window, but also by pulling down the wall which held up the base of the passage between the two church towers and changing it into a cantilevered balcony over large corbels.79 This was intended to create a perfect setting to enclose the painting that the artist was about to execute on the wall above, with the Triumph of the Holy Religion, the Order of St John. At that point, Preti could undertake the concluding part of his labour, giving shape to the large figures to be depicted over the interior façade. The large paint surface encircled the large central window which was enclosed by decorative frame that served as the pedestal for the allegorical figure that tramples over the Infidels, under the watchful eye of the two Cotoner Grand Masters, Raphael and Nicolò. The two Cotoner figures, both connected to the commission for the painted decoration of St John, represent the two principal roles of the Order which were based in the mission of the Order, the protection of the Faith through its military arm as well as charitable works with the sick and infirm. A study of the pictorial paint layer in the course of the present conservation (November 2012), has shown how the Cavalier Calabrese proceeded with great technical skill and extreme caution up to the thinnest brushstrokes in order to fade away the colour and to vary the tints. Yet he also executed the larger surfaces with remarkable speed using oils on the surface, exploiting the amber stone as part of the tonal variations of the more shaded colours up to the point of using it as an actual ‘colour’, working ‘with economy’, by leaving the light yellow colour of globigerina visible.

On 20th December 1666, Preti concluded the paintings of the interior façade and since the work was ‘completed to the entire satisfaction of His Eminence, of the Venerable Council and to the general applause of all the Convent’, the occasion was concluded with the decision of the Treasury to present the artist with ‘a gift to the value of one thousand scudi in precious stones, or in any way which pleased the artist most’.80 With the completion of the interior façade, the project for the Conventual church of St John the Baptist that was proposed to the Council of the Order in 1661 was entirely finished after about five years of works.81 The entire decorative cycle was executed by Preti using oil techniques and painting directly onto the porous surface of the stone that had been previously soaked in oil. Over centuries, the state of preservation of the mural paintings was partly compromised by seepages (especially over the area of the apse) and by the high hygroscopic quality of the stone itself. In an attempt to remedy the problem of the widespread whitening that diminished the legibility of the compositions, between 1868 and 1874, Ignazio Cortis, a pupil of Tommaso Minardi, worked on the entire painted cycle, painting over the original brushwork of Mattia Preti with extensive repaintings. The incongruous accretions were removed between February 1959 and December 1962 in the course of a conservation project led by the Istituto Centrale del Restauro, under the direction of Cesare Brandi.82 Overall, much has been lost of the original intensity of the illusionary grey architectural elements and of the brilliantly splendid colours of the compositions, which today appear weakened in shaded tones.

With his involvement on the decoration of the vault, the Calabrian artist became the author and interpreter of the radical transformation of the entire Conventual church, ‘distorting’ its original appearance. Contemporaneously with the works on the nave in fact, always under Preti’s direction, the chapels and other spaces of the building were renovated, by carving, painting and gilding all the stone wall surfaces,83 with decorative phytomorphic motifs in high relief, festoons intertwined with heraldic symbols and coats-of-arms of the nobility. In the years that followed shortly after, Fra Mattia received commissions by the Councils of the various langues or made by individual knights as patrons in their own rights, thus executing several more paintings for the completion of the new apparel of the chapels and the altars: besides the above-mentioned paintings for the Chapel of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre, between 1662 and 1664 he executed the altarpiece of St James, together with two large lunettes representing St James near the Madonna of Pilar and St James defeating the Moors at Clavijo, for the Chapel of the Langue of Castille, Leon and Portugal. Subsequently, between the 1660s and 1670s, he executed the altarpiece with the Conversion of St Paul for the Chapel of the Langue of France, as well as the Mystic Marriage of St Catherine, inspired by the sixteenth-century canvas painting on the same theme by Paolo Veronese (today in the Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice)84 for the Chapel of the Langue 79

81

82

83

84

80

12

Bonello 1970, p. 460.

AOM 261, f. 61.

Baldinucci 1694 (ed. 1847, pp. 572–573); Pascoli 1736, II, pp. 108–109.

Spike 1999, p. 321; Guido–Mantella 2011,s Guido–Mantella 2008, pp. 67–72.

Buhagiar 1987, p. 102.

Right: The National Library of Malta, Valletta

13

of Italy. Finally, for the Chapel of Philermos, but today hanging in the first lateral area on the left-hand side of the nave that makes up the passageway to the Sacristy, the lunette depicted The Birth of the Virgin. Together with the above-mentioned canvas paintings, one may add the altarpiece of the Chapel of the Langue of Provence with the depiction of St Michael Archangel that was executed around 1670, a copy of the original by Guido Reni for the church of Santa Maria della Concezione in Rome, although its attribution is as yet uncertain.85 While he was engaged on the decoration of the vault of the Conventual church, which he had committed to painting without remuneration, Preti was constrained to execute paintings that could then be sold, as he had no form of income from the Order of St John. Amongst the examples of works that he may have executed on his own initiative with the intention of putting them on the market, one may cite Pilate washing his hands, today in the Metropolitan Museum of New York. This painting has been dated to the end of 1663, being quoted in a letter sent by Preti to Don Antonio Ruffo in Messina, to whom he suggested the possibility of acquiring the painting for his collection: ‘one of the best works that I have painted … the price is one hundred and fifty scudi’.86 Yet these were also the years when Preti received some major commissions such as that from the Rosselli spouses in Valletta for the three canvas paintings dedicated to St Peter in the Jesuit Church between 1662 and 1664, or the altarpieces for various churches in Maltese towns and villages. The St Stephen of 1661 was the first of a long line of paintings executed for Zurrieq – that ended with the Martyrdom of St Catherine in 1671 – as well as the St Andrew painted between 1665 and 1667, on the model of the statue executed in 1640 by Francois Duquesnoy (Basilica of St Peter, Vatican, Rome).87 The Zurrieq series of paintings includes the Visitation which is comparable to the Assumption which was executed between 1665 and 1667 for the Church of St Andrew in Luqa, a singular example from the artist’s oeuvre which was specifically dedicated to this theme and executed for the altar which was dedicated to the Virgin. In the same years, even Grand Master Nicolò Cotoner entrusted Preti with commissions for the altarpieces of a number of Maltese churches, such as that intended for the renovated chapel of Verdala Palace or that for the Marian sanctuary of Lija (the latter painting has been significantly altered owing to a past restoration that removed much of the pictorial layer – through the blue mantle of the Virgin can be seen the preparatory layer in dark colours that disturbs the flesh tones of the painting). The paintings that were executed for such commissions are mainly characterized by vivid luminous colours, even though in some instances the chromatic values may be thinner and more attenuated, for the purpose of creating a more intimate mood and thus, inspiring a greater sense of devotion in the viewer – as in the case of the Martyrdom of St Andrew in Zurrieq – without turning to the pictorial rhetoric or decorative exuberance of scenographic effects.

In 1671, Preti executed the St Luke painting the Madonna and Child, produced for the ‘Confraternity of Painters, Sculptors and Gilders’, which was founded in that same year in the church of St Francis of Assisi in Valletta. The canvas painting constitutes one of the rare instances that include the artist’s signature and date of execution: F(ecit) M(atthia) P(reti)–1671 [Executed by Mattia Preti – 1671], next to the artist’s coat-of-arms.

The virulent plague that hit Malta in 1676 apparently led to a change in Mattia Preti’s style, as can be seen in the series of paintings for the church of Sarria in Floriana – the only known design by Preti as an architect – which were all executed by the master between 1677 and 1679. The Sarria paintings were largely modelled on works he had created twenty years earlier, when the artist happened to be in Naples during the plague epidemic of 1656 and the paintings executed on the seven Doors to the City: the Holy Virgin amongst miracle-working Saints. The monumental altarpiece of the Immaculate Conception and the two large lunettes in the arches that present the struggle between Good and Evil, St Michael defeating the Devil and the Allegory of the Order of St John, still have a number of colour accretions of previous years that are being revealed in the course of the present conservation project.

Together with these canvas paintings are others which represent Saints who are traditionally invoked as protectors against the plague – St Roque, St Sebastian, St Rosalia and St Nicholas of Bari – showing the use of shaded colours that draw attention to the figures of the saints in prayer. These are to be considered as true and proper icons, almost ex-voto paintings, where the devotional element prevails over any other virtuosistic rendering of the composition. The compositions present a new formulation that becomes increasingly evident in Preti’s oeuvre of the following years, as in the case of the St George in Gozo, executed by 1678 for the high altar of that Saint’s church, that appears to be distant from the 85

Spike 1999, pp. 402–403.

Spike 1998, pp. 167–168.

87 Buhagiar 1987, p. 105.

86

14

version that the artist had executed twenty years earlier for the Chapel of Aragon in the Conventual church of St John in Valletta in 1659.

In the years between 1679 and the early 1680s, Preti received the commission for the altarpiece of the Holy Family with the Saints Scholastica, Benedict and Paul for the altar of the Church of the Benedictine convent in Birgu. This presents an original composition, executed with great caution and characterized by warm, luminous colours, especially in the central group of Mary and Child with St Anne, who are imbued with an intense light. Even in his choice of colours, Preti preferred pure, bright tints such as in the red mantle of St Paul, or in the gold-yellow of the angel in the foreground. A similar combination of effects of light and dark shades and varying chromatic ranges is also seen in the magnificent altarpiece of St Publius in Rabat. Once more, Preti calibrated the art of his composition in terms of the final location of the painting: in the Birgu canvas painting which was executed for the cloistered nuns who were dedicated to a life spent in prayer yet were nearly always born to wealthy families and thus were more familiar with a life of ease than one of spiritual mortification, there was no need to apply dark tones or emotionally incisive moods of piety or devotion; however in the second painting, bright colours foregrounded the public message of the work, which was linked to the commission, as well as the political value of the representation: the end to the conflict between the Maltese clergy and the Hospitaller Order on the ownership and title to the Collegiate church of Rabat and the Church of St Publius for which the altarpiece was intended at the wish of Gregorio Carafa.

With the nomination of Carafa to the magistry in 1680, a new phase started for Mattia Preti with important commissions. Fra Gregorio was born to a noble Calabrian family and thus enjoyed a relationship of deep friendship and respect with the artist, his compatriot and leading artist of the Order. The first major commission which took place in 1681 was linked to the renovation of the Oratory of the Beheading of St John the Baptist: the large rectangular hall had been built in 1602 on the righthand side of the nave of the Conventual church, which was already endowed with the extraordinary painting of the Beheading of John the Baptist by Caravaggio, executed during the artist’s brief stay in Malta between 1607 and 1608. The Oratory, for which Carafa had also commissioned a new altar and a precious monstrance for the sacred relics of the Baptist,88 was completely redecorated, including the installation of a new ceiling, and paid for by the Prior of England, Fra Stefano Lomellini. For this area, Mattia Preti designed the ornamental structure of the new ceiling to include spaces with gilt frames within which to insert a series of paintings of depictions from the Passion of Christ: the Ecce Homo, the Christ crowned with Thorns and the Crucifixion; in the area of the choir he painted the Christ at the Column, and the Agony in the Garden, executed in oil over the stone wall; on the side walls he executed ten paintings of portraits of the Saints and Blesseds, predecessors and heroes of the Order. Preti’s new paintings introduced a theme that does not appear in any other part of the Conventual church, that of ‘Passio Christi’, transforming the iconographic and devotional title of the Oratory towards a more sacrificial, Christological theme.89 The comparison between the large altarpiece of the Beheading by Caravaggio and the suggestive ‘tenebrism’ of that painting must have partly influenced the pictorial treatment of the cycle of canvas paintings in the Oratory. The paintings reveal relatively mute tones in the figures of the Saints of the Order and seemingly also in the Crucifixion, that is blurred by a heavy layer of patina, that actually contains bright vivid colours, at least, in the principal figures, such as in the sharp red of Christ’s mantle, the orange of the executioner’s clothes and the ray of light that illuminates the scene, thereby contradicting the notion of painting in dark, muted tones ascribed to Preti’s late phase. On the other hand, one can observe how, in the canvas paintings of the Saints of the Order, this phase presents a pictorial style that is focussed increasingly on the devotional and introspective quality that is arrived at by means of defined rays of light and colours that foreground the protagonist or the emblematic gesture of the represented figure, leaving the rest of the background scene in the shade.

Carafa was also the source for the commissions in other Maltese churches that were enhanced by the works of Fra Mattia, such as the church of St Augustine with the painting of St Nicholas of Tolentino in prayer. The Grand Master had financed the rebuilding of the church of the Franciscans in Valletta and also commissioned a series of paintings to adorn the altars as well as a ceiling with an original pictorial cycle dedicated to the figures of Francis of Assisi and Anthony of Padua, bearing witness to his own devotion to the two Saints. The canvas painting that was destined for the high altar represents the Miracle of St Anthony of Padua, while the side altars include the Ecstasy of St Francis, and the Apparition of the Virgin presenting the girdle to St Francis; the painting of the Apotheosis of St Francis, 88

Guido–Mantella 2003, pp. 33–49; Sciberras 2004, pp. 90–94, 176–182.

De Vertot 1728, p. 136; Stone 1997, pp. 169–170.

89

which also forms part of the Franciscan series, is currently displayed in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Valletta. In the church of St Francis of Assisi, the altarpiece of the Madonna and Child with St Anne, St Gregory the miracle-worker and the portrait of Gregorio Carafa is dedicated to the Grand Master, whose portrait is represented within a frame as part of the composition.

The main altarpiece depicting the Martyrdom of St Andrew in the church of St Andrew in Luqa was executed in 1687 (the date is written at the bottom of the canvas). This painting reveals a Preti who in his full maturity reverted to the same compositional structure that he had used forty years earlier when painting the same subject for the Roman church of Sant’Andrea della Valle. However, Fra Mattia re-interpreted that composition by animating with a new artistic concept: by drastically reducing the number of figures, he darkened the tones and livened up the contrasts of light and dark shades, thus imbuing the Saint’s face with intense expressivity. Once more, as happened in his mature paintings – as in the St Stephen in Rabat in the early 1680s as well as in the paintings which he executed during the same period for the Cathedral of Mdina – the artist preferred to place the focus of the painting on the devotional message rather than on the attention to particular details or on the compositional crowding of persons and objects.

In 1689, Fra Mattia, at the age of seventy-six, executed with the help of his studio assistants, a grand painting of extraordinary dimensions: the largest of all his works. The Martyrdom of St Lawrence – four metres long by more than five metres wide – is a veritable masterpiece which some scholars believe to be comparable only to the Beheading of the Baptist painted by Caravaggio for the Oratory of St John’s in Valletta. The forcefulness of the pictorial narrative showing the last moments of the Saint as he is being subjected to martyrdom induces a strong evocative moment in the devout believer.

The warm colours and the diffused light of the first version of this theme, painted by Preti during his first sojourn in Malta in 1659 for one of the lunettes of the Chapel of Aragon in St John’s in Valletta, are here replaced by dark shadows that envelop the background, while a bright light and vibrant splashes of colour draw the attention to the centre of the scene where the Saint is being burnt alive on a gridiron (although the entire painting, in this case more than others, appears to be diminished by the thick patina of wax and oils). In order to re-evoke the classical setting of Imperial Rome, which is easily recognizable in the scenic props and background, Preti re-worked a very particular model drawn from his youthful memories, identifiable in the altarpiece which he had certainly admired in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, painted in 1628 by Nicolas Poussin. The painting shows the Martyrdom of St Erasmus and is today found in the Vatican Museums. The statue of Hercules on the right as well as the peremptory gesture of the hooded priest who points at the idol while exhorting the deacon to denounce Christ, are identical to the original. This fact leads one to reflect on the artistic isolation of the Calabrian artist who had been residing in Malta for thirty years, far away from the artistic developments occurring in the main centres in contemporary Europe and relegated to the periphery of that world, compelled to resort to models and memories of the past probably entrusted to notes, sketches, designs or prints which he had brought with him and which by then constituted the only pictorial resource from which he could draw inspiration.

The large Birgu canvas may be considered to be one of the commissions made to the Cavalier Calabrese by Canon Antonino Testaferrata who had also commissioned Preti to produce some important paintings for the Cathedral of Mdina between 1682 and 1688. In fact, when the newlyconstructed area of the apse of the old Episcopal See was inaugurated in 1682, Preti at first painted The Conversion of St Paul as the main altarpiece, flanked by two smaller canvases, the Martyrdom of St Peter (inspired by the famous masterpiece of Guido Reni, today at the Vatican Museums) and the Martyrdom of St Paul. The altarpiece, currently under restoration, was evidently originally painted with brighter colours which by time have darkened under a thick coating of varnish and a confusion of colours. By 1688, Fra Mattia also painted four scenes from the life of St Paul in Malta – The Miracle of the Viper and The Healing of the Father of St Publius for the lateral walls of the choir and The Baptism of St Publius and the unusual and extravagant St Paul liberating Malta from the Turkish siege in 1427 for the transept area. This is a series of works in which the narrative synthesis and Preti’s recourse to previously used types and models enabled him to compose a structured decorative cycle characterized by expressive force and communicative immediacy. Here the ‘bottega pretiana’ [Preti’s studio assistants] plays a determining role which would be so fundamental for the artistic development in Malta until the second half of the eighteenth century.

The 25th of January 1689 saw the inauguration of the grandiose mural painted in the concave apse, executed in oils on stone. Heavily altered by numerous restoration interventions carried out over the centuries and today by an almost total repainting, the mural depicts the Shipwreck of St Paul on Malta.

It is a very original rendering of raging waters in tempest, so intense that ‘such proto-romantic evocative power of the indomitable forces of nature would not be seen in European painting until Delacroix’.90 Following the reconstruction of the entire Cathedral after the earthquake of 1693, between 1698 and 1702 the Calabrian artist (together with his studio assistants, who completed the unfinished works left at his death in January 1699) was once more commissioned by the Mdina Cathedral Chapter to work on the decoration of the building. The end of the century thus witnessed the execution of the altarpiece for the first altar to the right of the nave showing the Madonna and Child with St Luke and four Bishop Saints and the altarpiece for the second altar featuring the Madonna and Child with St Cajetan and other Saints, as well as the altarpiece showing the Martyrdom of St Publius for the right transept. Other canvases painted for the Cathedral today hang in nearby places such as the sacristy where one finds The Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and The Guardian Angel with the Trinity and the Souls in Purgatory, while the Cathedral Museum conserves the Annunciation, originally designed to hang over the altar in the left transept.

This brief excursus through a few examples of the vast artistic production of Preti in Malta was unfortunately limited for reasons of space to the works commissioned by religious entities. That excluded the many, often excellent, works that he sent to Italy, for example to Siena between 1673 and 1680, but especially the over fifteen paintings dating from the end of the 1670s onwards made for his native town of Taverna. The subjects treated in this essay have enabled us to verify how the presumed darkening of the tones and the dampening of the colours in favour of the prevalent use earth of colours, ochres and dark yellows which would connote the so-called ‘dark period’ of the full artistic maturity of the artist, does not conform to the actual facts. Rather than proceeding with the analysis of the paintings in an effort to trace the parameters of a progressive evolution towards an everincreasing darkening of the tones, it would be more appropriate to distinguish between the intentions and motivations at the basis of the concept of every painting. One should not overlook Preti’s great ‘craft’, of being capable, during this cognitive period, of assimilating various ways of expression and of experimenting with new solutions adapting himself or re-interpreting diverse artistic forms. It suffices to recall how many ideas resulting from models, styles and different prototypes could be found in his overall production dating back to his youthful period. So when he arrived in Malta, he was the only great artist, acclaimed and in demand by the most diverse components of the island’s society, who showed himself to be capable of satisfying the most different exigencies, and always with great success.

His strength lay certainly in his talent, but also in his ability to adapt his means of expression and to calibrate the tones of his paintings to suit the most diverse demands of those who commissioned the works, resorting to grand tones of bright colours and to ‘theatrical strokes’ of great visual effect for sumptuous Baroque representations of a public nature, or else choosing a quiet, intimate medium when he wanted to communicate ‘a different state’, establishing a bond with the spectator based on meditation rather than on amazement.

If one had to pin down an element which made itself felt more and more as the artist matured and which he expressed with sincerity, it is perhaps that component related to his personal religious feelings, always very strong and genuine, which the experiences and course of his life had strengthened and channelled in a remarkably perceptible introspective attitude in some of his paintings. The works of the last period of Preti, a professed Knight of the Military Hospitaller Order of St John the Baptist, were in fact often pervaded by a profound religious feeling which emerged in his paintings as a distinctive element.

We recognize in his character that which remains inscribed on his tombstone in the Conventual Church, where the memory of his generous and ardent soul stirred by Christian piety became associated with the outstanding example left by his paintings as an inheritance to those who imitate him: SEVERIORIS MOX PIETATIS STUDIO INCENSUS / INGENTEM PECUNIAM, TABULIS QUAESITAM / EROGAVIT IN PAUPERES, / RELICTO PICTORIBUS EXEMPLO / QUO DISCERENT PINGERE AETERNITATI, ‘he left his riches to the poor, and his example to the artists who wish to learn to paint for eternity’.

90

Spike, 1999, p. 174.

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VALLETTA

St John’s Co-Cathedral THE VAULT THE CHAPEL OF THE LANGUE OF ARAGON, CATALONIA AND NAVARRE THE CHAPEL OF THE LANGUE OF CASTILLE, LEON AND PORTUGAL THE CHAPEL OF THE LANGUE OF ITALY THE CHAPEL OF THE LANGUE OF FRANCE THE CHAPEL OF PHILERMOS THE ORATORY Left: The Nave

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VALLETTA

St John’s Co-Cathedral

The Co-Cathedral of St John the Baptist was originally the Conventual church of the Knights of the Sovereign, Military, Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem, Cyprus and Rhodes, and Malta, located at the very centre of the fortified city of Valletta. The church served as the religious headquarters of the Knights until 1798, when the Order of St John was ousted from Malta by Napoleon. In 2003, the church was entrusted to the Foundation of the Co-Cathedral of St John.

The church foundations were laid in 1573 to the design of the Maltese architect Fra Girolamo Cassar and the whole building was completed within four years.1 The church interior is made up of a large central nave and a series of eight side chapels. After 1604, the chapels were entrusted to each of the eight ‘Langues or Nations’ to which the Hospitaller knights belonged. The langues represented the geographic origins of the knights and were symbolically represented by the eight points of the Cross (the number also coincides with the spiritual mission of the Order which is based on the eight Beatitudes, taught by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, according to the Gospel of Matthew).

The original building was somewhat sober and sparse in appearance, as befitted a military Order.

Towards the mid-seventeenth century, it was completely transformed with new and elaborate embellishments on the Baroque style, with Fra Mattia Preti, the Cavalier Calabrese, acting as the protagonist at the centre of the project for nearly forty years. The interior surfaces of the walls of the Co-Cathedral appear to be entirely decorated – mainly on the designs of Preti himself – in stone carvings of ornamental motifs and heraldic symbols on the walls. The ground was coloured in paint while the relief sculptures were gilt in thin layers of gold leaf created by means of hammering and thinning out of the precious metal from thousands of Hungarian zecchini, the coin that at the time had the highest amount of gold in it.2 The first works by Mattia Preti were commenced in 1658 and were commissioned by Grand Master Martin de Redin (1657–1660) for whom he completed the paintings for the Chapel of Aragon, Catalunya and Navarre with the portraits of St Francis Xavier and St Firmin, as well as the remarkable altarpiece of St George and the Dragon. The renowned artist had already executed a number of masterpieces in Rome and Naples in the 1640s and 1650s, before creating the magnificent ceiling painting cycle which has been described as the ‘Sistine Chapel of the Baroque age’, and which he executed between 1661 and 1666.3 Painting in the unusual technique of oil on stone, Preti represented the following themes: on the curved apsidal wall, the triumphal scene of the Apotheosis of St John the Baptist, over the large barrel vault the Life of the Baptist subdivided into eighteen episodes, and finally, on the interior façade, the Triumph of the Order of St John. During the same period in the 1660s, Fra Mattia completed other masterpieces that were commissioned by knights of the various langues for the purpose of embellishing their respective chapels: for the Chapel of Italy – the langue to which the artist himself belonged as a Knight of Grace – which was completed, restored and decorated between 1660 and 1662, the artist painted the altarpiece of the Mystic Marriage of St Catherine of Alexandria, patron saint of the Italian knights. The painting, which was completed by 1670, is characterized by a sophisticated chromatic range and is permeated with a diffused light which illuminates the whole scene. In 1659, in addition to the above-mentioned paintings of the Chapel of Aragon, Catalunya and Navarre, two more paintings were made for the lunettes of the chapel, representing St Lawrence meeting Pope St Sixtus II on his way to Martyrdom, and the Martyrdom of St Lawrence. Between 1662 and 1663, for the Chapel of the Langue of Castille, Leon and Portugal, Preti painted the altarpiece of St James as well as two large lunettes representing St James and the Madonna of the Pillar and St James 1

3

2

Scicluna 1955; Cutajar 1993; Sciberras 2004; Guido–Mantella 2008; De Giorgio 2010.

Guido–Mantella 2008.

Spike 1999, pp. 321–323.

defeating the Moors at Clavijo. Between 1667 and 1668, Preti completed the Conversion of St Paul for the Chapel of the Langue of France. Finally, in 1669, he executed the lunette representing the Birth of the Virgin, which was originally placed in the Chapel of the Madonna of Philermos, on the right hand side of the church, and is today located in the passageway that leads to the Sacristy. Furthermore, the large altarpiece in the Chapel of the Langue of Auvergne, representing St Michael the Archangel, is an exact copy of the painting by Guido Reni for the Church of Santa Maria della Concezione in Rome, executed in a technique that is identical to that of Preti and acknowledged by scholars to be by his hand.4 Between 1680 and 1690, the Oratory of the Beheading of the Baptist was also completely refurbished: the large rectangular area was built in 1602, annexed to the right hand wall of the nave of the Conventual church. It was intended for meetings of knights and for ceremonies of knighthood and had earlier been enhanced by the remarkable composition of the Beheading of the Baptist painted by Caravaggio during his brief sojourn in Malta between 1607 and 1608.5 For the Oratory, Mattia Preti designed a new, carved gilt ceiling into which were inserted a series of paintings on the Passion of Christ: the paintings in the nave are the Ecce Homo, Christ crowned with Thorns and the Crucifixion.

The paintings in the choir are Christ at the Pillar and the Agony in the Garden. The walls of the Oratory are differently decorated with a series of paintings of Saints and Blesseds, ten portraits of former knights, heroes and heroines of the Order.

When Fra Mattia Preti died in 1699 at the age of eighty-six years, he was buried in the place that best represents his life and his art. This was inscribed in his funerary tombstone in polychrome marble on the floor of the Conventual church of St John, to the left hand side of the nave, near the entrance to the Sacristy.

DOM / HIC IACET MAGNUM PICTURAE DECUS / COMMEND(ATOR) FR(A’) MATHIAS PRETI, / QUI POST SUMMOS HONORES, PENICILLO COMPARATOS / ROMAE, VENETIIS, NEAPOLI / SUB AUSPICIIS EM(INENTISSIMI) M(AGNI) M(AGISTRI) DE REDIN MELITAM VENIT, / UBI AB ORDINE HIEROS(OLYMITANO) ENCOMIIS ELATUS, / AC INTER EQUITES V(ENERANDAE) L(INGUAE) ITALIAE EX GRATIA ADLECTUS / HANC ECCLESIAM SINGULARI PICTURA EXORNAVIT / SEVERIORIS MOX PIETATIS STUDIO INCENSUS / INGENTEM PECUNIAM TABULIS QUAESITAM / EROGAVIT IN PAUPERES / RELICTO PICTORIBUS EXEMPLO / QUO DISCERENT PINGERE AETERNITATE / AD QUA EVOLAVIT NONAGENARIO MINOR QUATUOR ANNIS / TERTIO NON(AS) IANUARI 1699 / FRATE CAMILLUS ALBERTINI PRIOR BARULI / AMICO DESIDERATISSIMO HOC MONUMENT(UM) / POSUIT. [Here lies the pride of the art of painting, the Commander Fra Mattia Preti who after acquiring several honours, thanks to his paint-brush, in Rome, Venice and Naples, finally arrived in Malta under the patronage of the most Eminent Grand Master De Redin, when, having joined the Hierosolimitan Order and being elected Knight of Grace by the Knights of the Venerable Langue of Italy, he decorated this church with remarkable paintings. Moved by a fervent and pious spirit he was liberal in his charity with the poor, thereby setting an example to artists on what it meant to paint for eternity, to which he arrived four years short of his ninetieth year of age, the third day of the None of January 1699. Fra Camillo Albertini, Prior of Barletta, placed this memorial for his dearest friend.]

4

5

Spike 1999, p. 402.

Stone 1997; Sciberras-Stone 2006.

Right: The great inlaid marble floor

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VALLETTA

St John’s Co-Cathedral THE VAULT Left: The apsidal wall

21

The Vault: The Life of St John the Baptist

Valletta St John’s Co-Cathedral

THE VAULT (1661–1666) On 15th September 1661, in the presence of Grand Master Raphael and the Venerable Council, ‘the knight Fra Matthia Preti, of the Venerable Priorate of Capua, moved by the desire to serve the Religion, offered to paint and gild, at his own expense, the entire vault of our high Conventual church of St John’.1 That same day, the Chancellery of the Order finally ratified the artist’s passage to the rank of Knight of Grace.

The plan for the decoration of the vault with the Episodes from the life of St John the Baptist from the interior façade to the apse ‘for the embellishment of our high Conventual church’,2 was given a favourable recommendation by the examining commission on 30th September 1661, affirming that the painter would be responsible for his own handiwork, while the Treasury would carry the cost of the gilding, the pigments ‘and all the oil which will be necessary, seeing that the painting was to be executed in oil and not in fresco to ensure its longevity’.3 Furthermore, in order to light the interior space better, the commission agreed that ‘the window above the main door be widened and raised higher in order to illuminate the Church better’, according to the suggestions put forward by the painter.

Mattia Preti set about the execution of this ambitious cycle of paintings between October and December 1661, in keeping with the agreed plan, even though at the start, some problems surfaced with regard to the carved decoration of the stone arches, which slowed down the progress of the work.4 Only on 19th December in fact were the stone-carvers Pietro Burlo and Domenico Gambin engaged to ‘carve the six arches, [...] the twelve windows, executed in an horizontally oval shape in the said Church, which sculpture has to be finished according to the model, which will be given to him by the knight Matthia, painter of the said Church’.5 A first stage in the decoration of St John which had been initiated on the curved wall of the concave apse was brought to a conclusion by 2nd January 1662,6 when Mattia Preti proudly declared that the Grand Master, who had gone to St John’s to examine the oeuvre, ‘in the middle of the Church, in front of all those present, presented me with a chain and cross, to the value of six hundred scudi, stating that he would remain obliged to me’.7 In the Spring of 1663, work on the painted decoration continued, even though Preti declared his bitterness at the difficulty with receiving the pensions to which he was entitled: ‘it’s already two years since I started to work hard for the Church of St John and for His Eminence and I have not had any sign [...] in the belief that the applause for my oeuvre would suffice’.8 Shortly after, on 17th June of the same year, the painter obtained a great sign of respect for his work on the part of the Knights and, besides the promise of some new annuities, he was given a ‘Cross and gold chain to the value of around three hundred scudi’.9 While Mattia Preti proceeded with the decoration of the vault, painting one picture after another on the six archways with the episodes on the Life of the Baptist, on 20th October 1663 Nicolò Cotoner succeeded his recently deceased brother, Raphael.

To endow the parts with continuity and cohesion, on 3rd March 1663, it was decided to proceed along the length of the nave with the gilt cornice which was built in the apse (‘for the large cornice to be continued along the façade of the main doorway and to encircle the whole Church, and that the remainder is gilt in the manner of the niche of the high altar of St John, in order that it all corresponds’10) and to knock down the high part of the interior wall of the atrium, to make visible the length of cornice which ran along the side of the interior façade in such a way as not to permit any interruption to the gilt band. Also, always in the context of the holistic interventions intended to enhance the new paintings and the entire building, it was decreed that ‘the windows above the main entrance to the church be raised as high as possible with the

required ornamentation’,11 – in keeping with the projected plans of the Cavalier Calabrese of 1661 – and one set about executing a new balustrade for the balcony above the entrance passageway.

On the same day, the prodomi had gathered and established a fundamental intervention to preserve the paintings by Mattia Preti which had already been executed on the vault of the Conventual church: in fact it had been decided ‘that an order from Flanders of a large quantity of lead in thick sheets, in order to cover the roof of the vault to prevent the penetration of damp which is estimated to be needed for the conservation of the painting’.12 The sculptor of Florentine origin, Vitale Covati, who had moved to Messina and later was based in Malta around 1665,13 was entrusted with the responsibility of executing forty-five balustrades in carved stone. About one year was to pass for the definitive conclusion of the intervention to complete the interior façade which was intended to support the large painting with the Triumph of the Religion as by then the decoration of the large painted arches was nearing completion.

On 8th July 1666 in fact ‘His Eminence and the Venerable Council unanimously voted that the large window above the main door into the Church of St John would be executed to the design shown to the Venerable Commissioners’,14 with the stipulation immediately after the contract with the sculptor and stone carver from Senglea Domenico Gambin, who took over the carving ‘in keeping with the requests of Sir Knight Fra Matthias Preti to complement the painting on the ceiling of the same Church. The same tradesman also takes on the task of dismantling the entire façade of the internal wall of the said door, from the balustrade down’.15 More than the window, it had also been agreed to change the entire architectonic ensemble of the entrance by pulling down the wall which held up the base of the passage between the two church towers located above the entrance and transforming it into a cantilevered balcony over large corbels.16 Even though this is not spelt out in archival sources, it is evident that Preti had a determining role in the architectural modifications from the first designs which he himself had devised: once the entrance wall was dismantled, the entire area facing the interior façade would have appeared lighter with the elimination of the bulky and massive closed wall which appeared to lean over the entrance and with the completion of the hanging balcony which would have given a lighter appearance to the new ensemble,17 thereby creating a perfect setting for the painting which the painter was about to execute over the wall above. At this point Preti could undertake the concluding part of his project, giving shape to the large figures which were to be designed on the interior façade.

In the following month, while Fra Mattia rapidly completed the large allegorical composition on the larger part of the wall, on the lower part he set about the finishes to the new front of the entrance.18 On 20th December 1666 Preti finished the paintings on the interior façade, thus his oeuvre was ‘concluded to the entire satisfaction of His Eminence, the Venerable Council and general approval of the whole Convent’. The event was concluded with the decision by the Treasury to favour the artist with ‘a gift to the value of one thousand scudi in precious stones, or in any way which pleased the artist best’.19 The vastness of the wall surface and the complexity of the subject which was depicted, enlivened by dozens of personages, makes the speed with which the Cavalier Calabrese concluded the final part of the mural decoration in St John’s, all the more astonishing, by painting the entire wall in under three months; with the completion of the interior façade, the designs for the Conventual church of St John which were presented to the Council of the Order in 1661 were definitively executed within five years of works.20

1

11

2

12

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

AOM 260, f. 106v.

AOM 260, ff. 108–109.

Ibidem.

Archive of the Ruffo Family, Sicily, 17 December 1661.

NAV, Notary M. Ralli, R412/26 (1661–63), ff. 90–91; Debono 2005, pp. 66–67.

De Dominici 1742–54, p. 355.

De Dominici 1742–54, p. 355.

Archive of the Ruffo Family, Sicily, 27 March 1663.

AOM, 260 , ff. 159v–160r.

10 AOM 261, ff. 16v–17r.

24

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

AOM 261, ff. 16v–17r.

AOM 261,f.17r.

NAV Notary Aloisio Dello Re R. 227/16 1665, ff. 30r–30v–31r (3 November 1665).

AOM 261, f. 53r (8 July 1666).

NAV Notary A. Dello Re, R. 227/16 (1665–1667), ff. 153r–153v–154r (19 August 1666 ).

Bonello 1970, p. 460.

AOM 261, f. 58r (16 October 1666).

NAV Notary A. Dello Re, R. 227/16 (1665–1667), ff. 153r–153v: annotations added on 18 February 1667.

AOM 261, f. 61.

Baldinucci 1694 (ed. 1847, pp.572–573); Pascoli 1736, II, pp. 108–109.

VALLETTA

St John’s Co-Cathedral THE CHAPEL OF THE LANGUE OF ITALY Left: Detail of the Mystic Marriage of St Catherine of Alexandria

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54

The Chapel of the Langue of Italy

55

VALLETTA

St John’s Co-Cathedral

THE CHAPEL OF THE LANGUE OF ITALY

On 25th November 1604, the fourth chapel to the left of the Nave of the Conventual church of St John, jointly dedicated to St Catherine of Alexandria and to the Immaculate Conception, was formally assigned to the Langue of Italy.1 The original sixteenth-century altar appeared rather bare, its sole embellishment being the painting Martyrdom at the Wheel endured by St Catherine, executed between 1578 and 1580 by the Florentine artist Francesco Potenzano, when a start was made to renovate the chapel in the new style of Baroque. From 1660 onwards, at the wishes of Fra Francesco Sylos and in keeping with the design of the Chapel of the Langue of Aragon, Catalunya and Navarre as a model, the sculpture, painting and gilding of the mural surfaces and the stone dome commenced, as recorded in the inscription inserted in the length of the running cornice: F(RA) FRANCISCI SYLOS PANORMI ET AGRIGENTI COMMENDATARII EXCULTA PIETAS DECORAVIT AN(NO) MDCLX MONIMENTUM HOC VIRGINI DEIPARAE IMMACULATAE CONCEPTAE ET DIVAE CATHARINAE SACRATUM [Inspired by a noble wish, Fra Francesco Sylos, Commander of Palermo and Agrigento, in the year 1660 embellished this Chapel dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, the Mother of God and to St Catherine]. In the same year, the Commander of Palermo and Agrigento also commissioned the two large canvas paintings inserted into the lateral lunette walls, the St Catherine disputing with the Philosophers and the Beheading of the Saint, which were added to the two easel paintings from the Malaspina collection entitled St Jerome, a work by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, and The Magdalene.2 The altar structure was to be renovated around 1730 by the architect Romano Carapecchia, a pupil of Carlo Fontana. On the right-hand side is the sepulchral monument of Grand Master Gregorio Carafa (1680–1690) which he had commissioned before his death.3

The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine of Alexandria On 19th May 1670, the Langue of Italy authorised the payment for the gilding ‘of recently carved stone around the painting of St Catherine’.4 This concerns the altarpiece with the ‘Mystic marriage of St Catherine executed with great attention on the style and composition of Paolo Veronese and with great delicacy of colour’;5 the work ‘representing the kneeling saint in front of the Holy Virgin and Child Jesus who places the ring on her finger, painted by the Knight Mattia’.6 No other document is known which refers to the commission for the painting that, in the absence of any other information, is dated to around 1670,7 being contemporary to the gilding of the stone frame. Preti’s altarpiece replaced The Martyrdom of St Catherine, executed by Francesco Potenzano between 1578 and 1579,8 representing the moment of torture on the wheel which was inflicted on the saint. The composition of Preti’s painting is articulated in an indefinite location which results in an incongruous combination of personages that disturb the naturalistic treatment of the surroundings.

In his choice for the new altarpiece, the Cavalier Calabrese did not repeat the dramatic scene of torture on the wheel, opting instead to represent the Mystic Marriage of St Catherine, a theme that 1

3

4

5

6

7

8

2

56

Guido–Mantella, 2008 Mandarano–Muroni 2008, pp. 205–228.

Sciberras 2004, pp. 111–117; Guido–Mantella, 2008, pp. 185–204.

AOM 2132, f. 325. Spike 1998, p. 195.

NLM Libr. 1123, ca.1770, f. 43; spike 1999, p. 333.

AOM 1953, ca. 1770, f. 131.

Spike 1999, p. 333.

Mandarano–Muroni 2008, pp. 205–209.

is derived from the life of the Saint and that had previously already been depicted by Preti in one of the canvas paintings for the transept of the Church of San Pietro a Maiella in Naples in 1658, exactly before his brief journey to Malta in the summer of 1658 at the invitation of Grand Master de Redin. For the Chapel of Italy, Mattia Preti continued to elaborate on the plan of his composition with a diagonal perspectival view, recalling his experience of Venetian renaissance painting, and representing the instance in which the young Catherine accepts to become the bride of Christ. The painting is directly inspired by the altarpiece by Paolo Veronese on the same theme, executed for the Church of St Catherine in Venice around 1575 (and today kept in the Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice), which is defined by its refined elegance and vibrantly luminous effects. The legend described the encounter during which the Child Jesus is accompanied by the Virgin, seated on a Classical pedestal in shimmering red robes and covered in a transparent veil. The Child places the wedding ring on the Saint’s finger ‘attended by beautiful angels’.9 The artist did not refrain from hinting at the young woman’s destiny, which was an outcome of her choice of faith: the looming of her imminent sacrifice which is prefigured by the broken wheel which a naive putto brings to the scene. The sky is crossed by dark clouds which provide a contrast to the pearly luminosity of the foreground, which is pierced by a warm ray of light; the robe of the young ‘Cataros the Pure’, is woven with shimmering reflective silver threads. The colours, rendered slightly opaque by yellowing varnish, are soft and in perfect harmony, leading to the creation of a tranquil, idyllic atmosphere. In the words of De Dominici ‘and this painting is executed in such a vague manner that is it a marvel to consider it a work by the Calabrian, whose nature is rather inclined towards a determinate manner, almost terrifying in its chiaroscuro, executed in vague tints.’10 The perfect harmony of colours and the modulated tonal instances appear to repeat the expressive language used in the St James in the Chapel of Castille, Leon and Portugal in 1662–1663: the same dark sky is pierced by a gilt ray of light which acts as a background to the protagonist in the foreground, clothed in rich drapery and immersed in a warm, enveloping light which illuminates the expression on his serene, almost ecstatic face.

The clear values of the colours and the entirely venetian atmosphere of the piece inspired by the ‘style and composition of Paolo Veronese’, in close proximity to the mural paintings on the vault and to the chromatic combinations of the St James, render improbable the dating of the painting to 1670. The location too would seem to contradict such an advanced dating especially if one considers the fervour to renew the various chapels, prompted by Preti’s work, having already executed the paintings for the Chapel of Aragon and, contemporaneously with the execution of the vault, also engaged on the execution of the canvas paintings for the chapel of Castille in 1662. The dating to 1670 would also appear to be unusual for the execution of the new altarpiece of precisely the Chapel of the Langue of Italy to which Preti belonged. Its decoration in contemporary baroque forms which emulated the Chapel of Aragon directly ahead, had been immediately undertaken and completed by 1660, at nearly the same time as the conclusion of the works and the completion of the paintings of St George, St Firmin and St Lawrence executed by Preti, having been commissioned by De Redin in the summer of 1658.

9

De Dominici 1742–45, III, p. 365.

Ibidem.

10

The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine of Alexandria

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