Mario Buhagiar, Professor of History of Art at the University of Malta, provides us with a synthesis of the art and the architecture of the Maltese Islands from the arrival of the Normans in 1091 until the islands were yielded to the Knights Hospitallers of St John in 1530. This study gives us the opportunity to emphasize Malta’s participation in a medieval Mediterranean culture, between Muslim Africa, Western Christendom but also Byzantium and, towards the end of the period, the Siculo-Aragonese world.
The work, which gives an important place to the extensive medieval patrimony of the bishopric town of Mdina, is divided into ten chrono-typological chapters. The first section goes back to the fourth century and presents the first evidence for a Christian presence with the catacombs in the vicinity of Melite, which show remarkably well-preserved triclinia. The Rabat catacombs still retain considerable remains of painted decorations. The Byzantine presence, effective as from 544, has left noticeable traces in Tal-Silg, where it is proposed to restore a basilica and an adjacent baptistery with a centred plan. The fortification of sites such as Melite is evidence of a defensive policy against the Muslims, who took the island in 870. Only one major site – Rabat cemetery – can still show evidence of the Muslim period, which otherwise left such a persistent mark on Malta, commencing with its language. Nevertheless, the descriptions of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century houses, and recent discoveries of the structure of dwellings, show the persistence of Islamic traditions in civilian architecture from rosette decorations through to the existence of baths, which remained in use during the Siculo-Norman period.
The second chapter evokes the reconversion of Malta to Christianity and the Latinization of its culture. St Anne’s Church in Birgu and the Santa Sofia palace in Mdina offer us local examples of meticulous rubble-stone constructions similar to Sicilian examples (Martorana in Palermo). The walls of Mdina and Birgu (Fort St Angelo) also constitute very carefully built complexes. Mdina Cathedral was probably the most important religious building on the island. Reconstitution of the medieval church, rebuilt after an earthquake, which damaged it in 1693, requires a certain amount of caution. It was probably a three-aisled basilica-type building; through older descriptions, we know that its bell tower was crowned by a dome (a qubbah), probably similar to those which crown the churches of San Cataldo or San Giovanni degli Eremiti in Palermo. Amongst other objects, the treasure of Mdina Cathedral still contains an important mid-twelfth-century Gospel book, in all likelihood imported from Sicily.
The third chapter deals with cave dwellings located in what are, at times, spectacular sites and with the dry-stone buildings that are found in the countryside. Installations associated with irrigation and water supply are not neglected. The fourth chapter deals with ‘Siculo-Greek’ monasticism, established in the island before 1300 for missionary purposes, as shown by Henri Bresc, and with cave churches. In Abbatija tad-Dejr, the most important foundation, the underground catacomb installations are particularly extensive. Remains of painted decoration, evidence of a ‘Siculo-Byzantine’ culture, still exist in some of these sanctuaries.
The fifth chapter deals with stone-built churches (San Cir in Bubaqra, Comino, Santa Maria tal-Baqqari near Zurrieq, San Bazilju in Mqabba, Gnien is-Sultan near Rabat, the church of the Annunciation, Hal Millieri, Santa Maria ta’ Bir Miftuh near Gudja, Santa Domenica, Zabbar, the church of the Annunciation à San Leonardu near Rabat and the church of the Nativity of the Virgin in Ta’Qali). From a statistical point of view, the author mentions the list of churches drawn up in 1575, which records more than 400 buildings, which, for a population estimated at the time to be 20,000, is equivalent on average to one church for fifty people.
The church of the Annunciation of Hal Millieri still contains the most important painted wall decoration; this cannot be dated earlier than the reconstruction of the church during the last two decades of the fifteenth century. Isolated depictions of saints are found on the sections of wall defined by the arc’s diaphragm (St George depicted twice either side of the west door, St Nicholas, St Augustine, St Lawrence and St Francis, St Andrew, St Agatha (?) and St Blaise, St Vincent, St Paul (?) and St Leonard). Difficult as it is to give the precise origins of this remarkable group, the role of the ‘romanesque’ hieratic tradition should not have been so overemphasized, given that these images placed relatively fluently within the space, with distinguishable features, bear the hallmarks of fifteenth-century art.
Chapter 6 deals with town houses at the end of the Middle Ages (fifteenth and early sixteenth century), mainly on the Mdina site, which has recently been surveyed extensively, particularly the palaces (Palazzo Gatto-Murina, Palazzo Falsone, Palazzo Inguanez and Casa Isabella), as well as some medieval houses in Birgu and Rabat. This gives us the opportunity to draw up the typology of the representative elements formed by the bays, which adds to our knowledge of this type of opening within the sphere of influence of Sicily.
The seventh chapter returns to Mdina Cathedral, rebuilt in the eighteenth century, but preserving important medieval furnishings. A bell, commissioned in Venice in 1370, is signed with the effigy of St Paul by the bell founders Victor and Nicolaus. Another bell was cast in 1499 in Tortello, in southern Italy. White marble column fragments may possibly originate from the bell tower of Mdina’s medieval cathedral, which we know was decorated in 1462–3 with eight figures, probably statues, which were acquired in Palermo. Funerary monuments, paintings mostly from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, are mentioned, as are the choir stalls acquired in 1487 by the cathedral clergy from the Rabat Dominicans, who had commissioned them five years earlier in Catania, from the workshop of the brothers Parisio and Pier Antonio Calachura, as is proved by the surviving legal contract. The intarsia decoration suggests contacts with the best Italian artists, as illustrated by the Nativity scene, for which the author suggests knowledge of the art of Antonello da Messina’s workshop.
After the Benedictine foundation of St Nicholas Tal-Merhla near Qrendi, the church of which was rebuilt in the seventeenth century, the eighth chapter deals with the mendicant orders. Malta’s first contact with the mendicant movement originated with the Third Order Franciscans. From this there issued the foundation of a hospital with a church in Rabat, before 1372, but the buildings, both church and hospital, were rebuilt later. The church of Santa Maria di Gesù originated with the Observant Franciscans; the Augustinians also established themselves in Malta, as did the Dominicans, the latter in the church of Santa Maria della Grotta, but also in Birgu. The Carmelite White Friars, the Benedictines of St Peter and the nuns of St Scholastica complete this picture of monastic foundations in Malta.
The ninth chapter deals with the rural and parish churches of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, which were considerably extended at the time, a factor relevant to the ecclesiastical architecture scene well into the seventeenth century. They still have extremely rich decorations, as shown in wall paintings (Rabat), retable parts and liturgical objects (ciboria, chalices, censers) mostly made of silver, as well as crucifixes.
The final chapter studies works of art, paintings or sculptures, with respect to the Siculo-Catalan focus of the late Middle Ages. The works in question are a panel with superposed images of the archangel St Michael, the Dormition of the Virgin and the Resurrection of Christ (Mdina Cathedral Museum) from the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, again strangely labelled as ‘Romanesque’, and the retable of St Paul (also in the museum), which decorated the main altar of Mdina Cathedral until the end of the seventeenth century. This major work of the Maltese heritage is relocated within the sphere of influence of Luis Borassa. As for the end of the period, artists connected with Sicily are mentioned, such as Giovanni Salibe – probably the Giovanni of Saliba or Resaliba documented between 1469 and 1510 who had married a younger sister of Antonello da Messina – and his two sons Pietro and Antonio of Saliba. From the latter artist (1466/7–c 1535) are preserved two panels of a retable disassembled in the church of Santa Maria di Gesù in Rabat. The Gagini’s prolific workshop also supplies a fair number of sculptures in Malta, which gives us further evidence of the particularly close artistic links with Sicily.
A list of the artists, architects and craftsmen mentioned in the book for the late Middle Ages is found at the end of the volume together with brief biographical notes. An index of places and people makes it easier to refer to this book, which will undoubtedly become the standard reference source for art and architecture in medieval Malta.
Malta has suffered important losses since the end of the nineteenth century, not only as a result of bombardments during World War II, but also because of urban development and building pressures that are particularly sensitive for this island of a few hundred square kilometres which, sitting at a cultural crossroads, presents a very rich and astonishingly diverse heritage. We should thank Mario Buhagiar for having drawn a highly accessible picture of an art which enjoys an important place in a diversified European cultural landscape.
