Gozo

 Gozo, Malta
Nov 112019
 

November 10, 2019

Popeye Village is not on the island of Gozo, it is near the ferry terminal from Malta to Gozo, so a stop just before I hopped the ferry.  Quite obviously it began as a film set for the movie Popeye The Sailor Man along with the Black Pearl. Based on the comic strips by E. C. Segar, the movie is set around the fictional village of Sweethaven, where Popeye arrives in an attempt to find his long-lost father.

The construction of the film set began in June 1979. A construction crew of 165, working over seven months, was needed to build the village, which consists of nineteen wooden buildings. Hundreds of logs and several thousand wooden planks were imported from the Netherlands, while wood shingles used in the construction of the rooftops were imported from Canada. Eight tons of nails and 2,000 gallons of paint were also used in construction. Also a 197–246 ft breakwater was built around Anchor Bay’s mouth to protect the set from high seas during the filming.

While I would have thought it would have been left to deteriorate as a cliche eyesore, it is actually quite popular, especially with children in the summer, as it is a nice spot to catch cool breezes and go swimming in the bay.  In the winter they keep the place going with a very successful Christmas Theme.

Comino

The island of Comino and its Blue Lagoon

Comino is a small 1.4 square mile island of the Maltese archipelago between the islands of Malta and Gozo. Named after the cumin seed it has a permanent population of only three residents, following the death of the fourth resident in 2017. One priest and one policeman commute from the nearby island of Gozo. The island is a bird sanctuary and nature reserve.

Gozo

Ramla Bay in Gozo was named among the World’s 7 Most Beautiful Red Sand beaches by Travel and Leisure Magazine

Roman ruins lie beneath the sand and Calypso Cave overlooks the western side of the beach.

Looking down into the now collapsed Calypso Cave

According to tradition, this is the cave referred to by Homer in The Odyssey. The nymph Calypso lived in this cave and it is where she entertained Ulysses for seven years before he resumed his journey. Calypso Cave is, in fact, a series of caves that some say extend right down to the sea.

Victoria

The Cathedral of the Assumption inside the Citadel of Gozo built between 1697 and 1868.

The Cittadella of Victoria has been inhabited since the Bronze Age, and the site now occupied by the Cittadella is believed to have been the acropolis of the Punic-Roman city of Gaulos or Glauconis Civitas.

During the medieval period, the acropolis was converted into a castle which served as a refuge for Gozo’s population. A suburb began to develop outside its walls by the 15th century, and this area now forms the historic core of Victoria. The castle’s defenses were obsolete by the 16th century, and in 1551 an Ottoman force invaded Gozo and sacked the Cittadella.

Looking down at the Cathedral from the walls of the Citadel

A major reconstruction of the southern walls of the Cittadella was undertaken between 1599 and 1622, transforming it into a gunpowder fortress.

Today only a couple of families live within the Cittadella walls. Inside the walls you will also find an ancient jail, working Law Courts and the Bishop’s Palace.

A stunning series of arches found within the Citadel complex

There is an old prison still inside the Cittadella.  The knights made use of this by sending their more rowdier members to Gozo to “calm down”.  Their crimes varied but most common were dueling and murder.  Their stays varied from a few months to as long as ten years. The list of inmates is rather lengthy but the most famous being Fra Jean Parisot de La Valette, later grandmaster of Malta during the Great Siege.

* *The walls of the prison are literally covered with graffiti.  Most were discovered when the thick layer of lime whitewash, applied for hygienic reasons by the Brits, was removed.  The most common of these were ships, handprints, and various types of crosses.

Counting down the days

Walking Rabat in Gozo

Victoria is known among the native Maltese as Rabat. It is the capital city of Gozo.

The area around the town, situated on a hill near the center of the island, has been settled since Neolithic times. It received the name Victoria on June 10th, 1887 by the British government on Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.

The city’s streets are narrow with many dead-ending alleyways.

The balconies of Victoria/Rabat are unique and worth looking up for

The Parish of Rabat has two competing factors. Those that support Saint George and those that support Our Lady of Assumption

The theater paid for by the band of the supporters of St. George

Dwerja

Originally the Azure Window is what brought most tourists to this area.

What can be seen of what was originally The Blue Window which collapsed in a storm on the 8th of March 2017.

The Azure (Blue) Window before its collapse

The inland sea at Dwerja

The Inland Sea is one of the four sinkholes found in the Dwejra area. Measuring around 1000 by 1400 feet, it is the largest subsidence structure at this site. A 262-foot long channel (through the cave on the left) known as L-Ghar tad-Dwejra links the lagoon to the open sea.

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The layer of the island

This area is a wonderful way to see how the island is formed. The oldest layer is Globigerina Limestone, it is the thickest layer and contains fossils of mollusks, sharks, crocodiles and forams. It is the stone of choice for building construction on the Maltese islands.

A level up comes Blue Clay, a soft layer which again contains a variety of fossils from creatures that lived during its time of formation that include coral and forams.

Next is the rarest layer of them all, Greensand, which contains fossils of large animals such as whales and dolphins.

The topmost and most recent layer is the Upper Coralline Limestone that formed in shallow waters and counts sea urchins, mollusks and forams amongst its fossilized remains.

The Fungus Rock, known in Maltese as Il-Gebla tal-General or Hagret il-General, is a small limestone islet at Dwejra Bay.  It used to be connected to the mainland via an arch that collapsed hundreds of years ago..

The Fungus Rock as seen from Tal-Harrux. (Image: J. Caruana) via Dwerja.net

During the occupation of the Knights of Malta, unauthorized access to the tiny rock was punishable by three years’ oarsmanship in the galleys because the island grew an endemic fungus that was highly prized for its medicinal properties. Interestingly, it was all a mistake. Cynomorium coccineum, commonly known as the Maltese Fungus, gave the rock its name, but this nomenclature is a misnomer. The plant was mistaken as a fungus, probably due to its shape, but it is actually a parasitic plant. It is also known as the Maltese Mushroom, Desert Thumb, Red Thumb, Tarthuth (Bedouin) and Suoyang (Chinese).

Xewkija

The Church of Saint John the Baptist, commonly known as the Rotunda of Xewkija is a Roman Catholic church

A shot of the dome from the apse

Saint John the Baptist was built in the 20th century and designed by the Maltese architect Joseph Damato. Its dome’s internal diameter is 89 feet and it is 246 feet high with a calculated weight of 45,000 tons. The circumference is 279 feet and is supported by 8 large concrete columns covered with stone. It is the world’s third-highest unsupported dome.

The plans of Damato were based on the Santa Maria Della Salute church of Venezia, but on a larger scale. Interestingly the old church was left in place while the Rotunda was being built around it, allowing the local people to continue to worship

The old church was then carefully dismantled and the best sculptures were saved and rebuilt in an adjacent building under the church belfry. It is now known as the Sculpture Museum.

Lunch

This is a Ftira

Ftira is a ring-shaped, leavened, Maltese bread, usually eaten with fillings such as sardines, tuna, potato, fresh tomato, onion, capers, and olives.  It is truly delicious.  When it was set down in front of me, I thought I could not eat the entire thing.  I did, and happily.

I had it with a Kinnie

Kinnie Soda

Considered the national soda, Kinnie is a Maltese bittersweet carbonated soft drink brewed from bitter oranges and extracts of wormwood. It was first introduced in 1952 by the brewery Simonds Farsons Cisk, who also produces the national beer. It is very similar to Italian Chinotto, which I happen to love, but I understand from others is an “acquired taste”.

Gozo is a lovely island, very laid back compared to the main island of Malta, less traffic, and a smaller population, but rich in history and archeology.

Malta’s Neolithic Sites

 Malta
Nov 102019
 

November 2019

The historic timeline of Malta differed little from any other Neolithic society around the Mediterranean.  That is, until 3500BCE.  The sophisticated architecture of the structures from this period predates all other world cultures in the building of free-standing buildings in stone by almost 1000 years.

The megalithic temples of Malta have been dated back to the 4th Millenium BCE. The oldest of the major temple sites, Ggantija in Gozo, has been dated, on the basis of recalibrated radiocarbon dating, to 3600 to 3000 BCE, the “youngest”, Tarxien, to 3000 to 2500 BCE. This is, therefore, a civilization that lasted at least 1000 years. It is still not clear where it came from and where it disappeared to, and why.

The megalithic temples were made using large limestone blocks, hence the label “megalithic” or large stone.  They typically have circular features that have been called “apses” and are found to have held various quality carved figurines, pottery, and small artifacts.

Archaeologists have, to date, discovered at least twenty megalithic temples on Malta and Gozo, many are not open to visitors.  However, six of them are, and they make up the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A model of Mnajdra Temple in the museum

The best known are Mnajdra and Hagar Quim on the south-eastern coastline.

The Tarxien Temple was later used as a Bronze Age cemetery.  Within walking distance of Tarxien is Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, a subterranean rock-hewn cemetery complex discovered in the early 20th century where no photos are allowed, only 10 people may enter at one time and reservations need to be made at least one month in advance.  Although considered separate from the megalithic temples it was classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site in its own right in 1980.

In the north of the island are Ta Hagrat and the Skorba temples.

The tall walls found at Ggantija in Gozo

On Gozo, the Ggantija temples are two temples that stand side by side encircled by one megalithic wall.  Due to the size of the boulders, much of this site is covered in metal girders and scaffolding to hold the parts of the temple in place, making the experience not as pleasurable as the others.

The two types of limestone as exhibited in the museum

There are two types of limestone found in Malta and used in the megalithic structures.  The Coraline Limestone on the left is considerably harder and therefore less subject to weather and usage.  The Globigerina limestone is very soft, great for sculpting, but does not hold up well to the elements.

The oval room of Hagar Quim

The oval rooms of Ggantija

The carefully-dressed stones and the building plans can not be matched in any other monuments.  The typical temple consists of a number of unique elements.  They are approached across an oval space, leveled up by terracing if the ground slopes, and possibly bounded on the outer edge by a set of stones.  This forecourt is overlooked by a temple facade that faces the south or southeast and composed of a row of large stone slabs on end. Where the cornerstones have survived they are taller than either end of the facade. Above the first row of stones, the wall is continued upwards in small blocks. The center of the facade is punctuated by the entrance doorway. The next element is a pair of D-shaped or ovoid chambers once you enter

Entryway of Mnajdra

Many of the sites have decorated stones.  Some walls were plastered and then ochred,  a substance that is not native, and most likely came from Sicily, Checkerboard patterns and spirals on the altar blocks were the overriding ornamentations.

In Taxia you will find a carved spiral pattern on the side alter.

There is also work that has been called pitting, which looks like a bird pecked its way across the entire surface.

Stone sculptures were also found inside several of the sites.

Sleeping Lady in Hal Saflieni now in the Archeology Museum in Valletta

The most impressive consist of the Sleeping Lady found in Hal Sflieni, a naturalistic human form modeled in clay and then baked to a hard ceramic. The other is one half of a giant sculpture in Tarxien.  The top half of this skirted figure was lost due to farming above the site, long before it was understood what was there.

The giant “goddess” of Tarxien

Figurines found in Gozo

Figurines found in Gozo

Figurines found in Gozo

Holes for what appears to be, tying up sacrificial animals, can be found throughout all of the sites

Ggantija

A representation of a temple facade engraved into a major upright on the left of the Central temple of Minajdra.

This stone is estimated to weigh approximately 20 tons

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An example of an “apse”

A finely decorated pedestaled alter from Hagar Qim

Tools used would have been hand-axes of flint and quartzite, (obtained from volcanic islands in the vicinity), knives and scrapers of obsidian, wedges of wood or stone, pickaxes made of branched horns of antlers or of flint, stone hammers, wooden rammers, wooden levers, and wooden or stone rollers.

*The discovery of large stone balls could have been a feature of the process of lifting upright the enormous megaliths, or in the transport of these same megaliths.

An excellent book for delving deeply into the construction and to understand each individual site is Malta Prehistory and Temples by David H. Trump.

Southern Malta

 Malta
Nov 092019
 

November 9, 2019

Mosta, Malta

The Rotunda of Mosta

The Rotunda of Mosta is built in the neoclassical style, and its structure is based on the Pantheon in Rome.

The church was designed by Giorgio Grognet de Vassè.  Grognet was of French descent but was a Maltese born architect-engineer and antiquarian with a prolific knowledge of the classics.

Much of what I read, and was told was that Grognet never received a formal education in either architectural or building engineering and, during the construction of Mosta Church, he consulted a member of the Sammut family.  This appears not to be true. His education in Frascati, a town south-east of Rome, was leading him towards priesthood. Later, Grognet enrolled in Napoleon Bonaparte‘s army where he spent 13 years at the Civil and Military Department of Engineers preparing and drafting drawings  After serving as a military engineer in the French campaign in Ottoman Egypt and Syria he returned to Mosa, quite obviously with a background more than sufficient to handle the design of the new church.

The church has a façade with a portico and six Ionic columns, flanked by two bell towers. Being a rotunda, the church has a circular plan with walls about 30 ft thick supporting a dome with an internal diameter of 122 feet. At one time, the dome was the third-largest in the world. The church’s interior contains eight niches, including a bay containing the main entrance and a deep apse with the main altar.

The general public opinion on the island was against the construction of a round church, lead by the bishop Francesco Saverio Caruana (1759-1847).  Caruana did not approve of the design as it did not comply with traditional ecclesiastical architecture of nave and apse creating the traditional Latin cross plan. He was against the Pantheon for its pagan associations and thus its form was not fitting for the Christian faith.  To the betterment of the future and Mosta, he did not prevail

During World War II, the town of Mosta was prone to aerial bombardment due to its proximity to one of the five airfields found on the island.  On April 9, 1942, the Germans dropped three bombs on the church, with one high explosive bomb piercing the dome and entering the church, where the congregation was preparing for the early evening mass. The bomb did not explode, and a Royal Engineers Bomb Disposal unit defused it and dumped it into the sea. This event was interpreted as a miracle by the inhabitants of Mosta, and a similar bomb is now displayed in the sacristy.

Rabat, Malta

This large provincial township now consisting of Rabat and Mdina was once part of the Roman city of Melita.  The town itself was where Rabat is today and that can be ascertained by the crypts that were found underlying most of the city.  Mdina would have been the consecrated area, thus no crypts.

On the lower left, you can see the loculi

The Catacombs of St. Paul and of St. Agatha were used in Roman times to bury the dead. The system of interconnected passages and rock-cut tombs covers an area of over 100,000 square feet, and appear to have been in use from the third century BCE until the end of the Byzantine period in the 8th century CE.

The catacombs of Malta are a unique example of indigenous underground architecture because their method of construction, hewn into the rock, is not found anywhere else.

There are sections for Pagans and Jews, as well as for Christians.

One feature of the catacombs of Malta is that the loculi appeared to be used primarily for children, while in Rome they were used for adults.  The large amount of loculi speaks to the commonality of infant and child deaths during this time.

Notice the two indentations for the head. This was a tomb for two people and would have been covered with a slab of rock once the burial had taken place

Here the adults were placed in either Window Tombs or Baldechinno.  These would have been covered with either a classic stone top or a saddleback cover.

An Agape Table

Another interesting feature in the Maltese Catacombs is the agape tables or triclinia. These were round tables with reclining couches used for meals in commemoration of the dead. While such triclinia were used throughout the Roman world, only here in Malta have they survived almost intact, and it is only here that they were hewn out of the rock.

This is a saddleback lid for a crypt, others were of simple flat stone.

This fluted column gives an indication that there might have been a Byzantine Church amongst the Catacombs

A demonstration in the museum of how the burial might have looked.

Small holes are carved throughout the catacombs for candles

The catacombs were used during WWII as bomb shelters, primarily by the people that lived in the port cities.

Mdina, Malta

The entry gate to Mdina, the walled city

The hill on which Mdina was built was already a fortified area dating from the Bronze Age. About 1000 BCE, the Phoenicians surrounded the place and parts of what today is Rabat with walls. It was called Malet, meaning refuge, the same name given to the island.
The Romans succeeded the Phoenicians in occupying Malta and called the island Melita. Under the Romans, the island and its city prospered. The likes of Cicero, Livy, and Diodorus Siculus, described Melita as a town with fine buildings and a prosperous way of life.
In the year 870 CE, the Saracens attacked the island, and the town took its modern name Mdina, meaning town surrounded by a wall. The structure and plan of the streets have barely changed in 1000 years.

Mdina’s Main City Gate had had different names and titles depending on its rulers and its role but two of its more regal names are ‘Citta’ Notabile’: the noble city or Città Vecchia: old city.

Its Baroque style was designed by Charles François de Mondion — a French architect and military engineer and member of the Order of St. John.

One of the grand homes that can be found within the walls of Mdina

A close up of the family crest

An archway showing the Roman Governor Publius, appointed by Saint Paul to be Malta’s first bishop, Saint Paul in the middle and Saint Agatha on the right. The Inguanez coat of arms can be seen on the right below the lunette.

Mdina has always been home to Malta’s noble families; some are descendants of the Norman, Sicilian and Spanish overlords who made Mdina their home from the 12th century onwards. Even today, the properties are usually passed down from generation to generation.  Mdina never regained its pre-1530 importance, giving rise to the popular nickname the “Silent City”.

Mdina is lit by lamps at night and amazingly beautiful palaces line its narrow streets.

Ornamentation on the rooftop of one of the many grand houses.

Over the door of the same house as pictured above is this stunning carving.

The Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Paul was founded in the 12th century, and according to tradition it stands on the site where Roman governor Publius met St. Paul following his shipwreck on Malta. The original cathedral was severely damaged in the 1693 Sicily earthquake, so it was dismantled and rebuilt in the Baroque style designed by Maltese architect Lorenzo Gafà between 1696 and 1705.

Atlas figures carved from the softer Globergerina Limestone of Malta have sadly lost much of their details

The narrows streets of Mdina

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Playmobile is located on Malta so you see the Playmobile Maltese Knights all around Malta

This section of the wall of Mdina was replaced after being bombed during WWII

Wandering the Harbors of Malta

Luzzu Boat of Malta

The dgħajsa can be seen all over Malta and easily recognizable by their colors.  The larger versions are called luzzu, both a symbol of Malta.  The boats once adorned the back of the Maltese Lira. Both are painted in the traditional colors of red, blue and yellow, in addition, the luzzu boats are sturdy and reliable and can be put to sea in almost every kind of weather.

Dgħajsa Boat

Many luzzijiet (plural) have the eye of Osiris painted on the bow, a symbol said to have been brought to Malta by the Phoenicians. This seems to suggest that this type of boat has been common in the harbor since the time of the Phoenicians and Carthaginians.

A small bit of history might be necessary here.

At around the year 750 BCE the Phoenicians settled in Malta. The Phoenicians were highly civilized people who used the Maltese islands as a stop on their trade routes.

The Carthaginian Period in Malta started at around the year 480 BCE Carthage, was a city founded by the Phoenicians on the north coast of Africa located in what is today Tunisia. The Carthaginians ruled Malta for about two and a half centuries.

The Carthaginians had to relinquish these islands to the Romans who seized control of Malta at the second Punic War in 218 BCE

 

A Saint and child standing in a Dgħajsa

The boats are also represented in art found around the island.

A statue in the harbor of a boy and his toy Dgħajsa

The day was rounded out with the traditional pastizzi of Malta. Pastizzi are diamond-shaped crisp pastry filled with ricotta cheese or mushy peas (honest, they are delicious!)  Two pastizzi (one of each flavor) and a cup of coffee, served in the traditional way, in a juice glass,  cost me 1 Euro 20.

I had the chance to try pastizzi at the Crystal Palace in Rabat.  It is often voted the best pastizzi shop on all of Malta, and when it went up for sale a few years ago it sent the entire nation into a panic.  The new owners had the good sense not to change a thing.

Protecting Malta

 Malta, Valletta
Nov 082019
 

Valetta, Malta
November 8, 2019

Protecting Valetta

A harbor tour is the best way to understand the massive undertaking humanity has done to protect the strategic islands of Malta.

Malta sits almost dead center in the Mediterranean Sea, making it a strategic point of interest, no matter what era you want to look at in history.

Fort Sant Angelo was the first fortress built, by the Knights of Malta, to protect the harbor and their establishment.  This fort was also strategic during the second World War. When the British took over Malta the fort was first used as a Wireless Station.   The British did not make any major modifications to the fort, although they converted No. 2 Battery into a casemated battery and built a cinema and a water distillation plant in the early 20th century.

During World War II, the fort again found itself under siege. In total, the fort suffered 69 direct hits between 1940 and 1943. When the Royal Navy left Malta in 1979 the Fort was handed to the Maltese government.

Lazzaretto Hospital

The Lazzaretto (Maltese: Lazzarett) saw a lot of use during the plague epidemic of 1813–14, the cholera epidemic of 1865 and the plague epidemic of 1937. It also served as a military hospital for British, French and Italian soldiers during the Crimean War. Several notable figures stayed in the Lazzaretto throughout its history, including Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, Horace Vernet, Benjamin Disraeli, and Alphonse de Lamartine.

Part of the Lazzaretto which was known as the Profumo Office was used to fumigate incoming mail. Disinfected mail was marked with red wax seals from around 1816 to 1844.

The Lazzaretto remained in use by the health authorities until 1939, when it was requisitioned by the Admiralty to be used for military purposes during World War II. Between 1941 and 1942, it was used as a submarine depot, and the buildings were bombed a number of times by Italian or German aircraft. Many buildings were destroyed by this aerial bombardment, and some other structures had to be demolished due to the damage they had sustained.

The Lazzaretto reopened as a hospital in 1949 and remained so until the departure of the Royal Navy from Malta in the 1970s.

Bighi Hospital

Bighi Hospital was a major naval hospital located in the small town of Kalkara. It was built on the site of the gardens of Palazzo Bichi. Bighi Hospital contributed to the nursing and medical care of casualties whenever hostilities occurred in the Mediterranean, making Malta “the nurse of the Mediterranean”.

The hospital’s first director (1827–1844) was Dr. John Liddell. He was later appointed director-general of the Royal Navy’s Medical Department, and during his office, Bighi nursed casualties from the Crimean War.

In 1863 the hospital looked after Queen Victoria’s son Prince Alfred who was ill for a month with Typhoid Fever while serving as an officer in the Royal Navy.

During the First World War, Bighi accommodated a very large number of casualties from the Dardanelles. During the Second World War, the Hospital was well within the target area of the heavy bombing since it was surrounded by military establishments. A number of its buildings were damaged or destroyed, including the x-ray theatre, the East and West Wings, the Villa and the Cot Lift from the Bighi Jetty to the Hospital.

Old Canons were used as mooring for British ships offloading patients at the Bighi Hospital

Fort Manoel

Fort Manoel is a star fort on Manoel Island in Gżira. It was built in the 18th century by the Order of Saint John, during the reign of Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena, after whom it is named.

The fort first saw use during the French invasion of Malta in June 1798, in the French Revolutionary Wars.  The fort surrendered after Grand Master Hompesch officially capitulated to Napoleon

The fort saw use again during World War II when a battery of 3.7-inch heavy anti-aircraft guns was deployed there. The guns were mounted in concrete gun emplacements and deployed in a semicircle in and around the fort. The fort suffered considerable damage to its ramparts, barracks, and chapel as a result of aerial bombing during the war. The fort was eventually decommissioned in 1964

A bastion at San Salvatore

Fort San Salvatore is a retrenched fort in Birgu built in 1724. It was used as a prisoner-of-war camp during the Greek War of Independence and World War I, and as an internment camp and kerosene depot in World War II. Notice the Eye and Ear.  It is said that comes from an old Maltese proverb, the wind has eyes and the walls have ears.

The ditch of Valetta covers much of the island. Valletta’s ditch was cut across the Sceberras Peninsula after the Great Siege of 1565 to protect the city from a land invasion. The other main forts and harbor areas were extensively damaged after the siege, and, fearing further invasions, Pope Pius IV commissioned the renowned architect Francesco Laparelli to design and reinforce the defense of the islands.

These are just some of the fortifications around the harbor. Today, the architectural and historical value of Malta’s fortifications is widely acknowledged.  All fortifications were included on the Antiquities List of 1925, and virtually all surviving Hospitaller fortifications are now listed on the National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands, Malta’s national heritage register. The fortified city of Valletta has been listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1980.

Some other interesting sites in the harbor:

Saint John Paul II is a high-speed catamaran ferry owned and operated by Virtu Ferries. Built by Incat in 2017–18, the vessel entered service as a ferry between Malta and Sicily in March 2019. It is the largest vessel of its kind in the Mediterranean Sea, and the second-largest in the world.

The Black Pearl schooner was originally built in Sweden and called the Black Opal. She once carried merchandise in the Baltic and later was used as a luxury yacht. It entered Malta following an accident when its engines caught fire. Because of the expenses required to fix it, its owner abandoned it and eventually it sank down 70 feet at Marsamxett Harbour.

It was later used in various scenes for the Popeye movie starring Robin Williams and now serves as a restaurant.

These historic warehouses were originally built by Grand Master Pinto in 1752. Today they are stores and restaurants with their iconic doors being reinterpreted by artists.  The colors of the doors represent what was once sold from them, blue for fish, green for produce, yellow for wheat and red for wine.

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A new way to protect Malta is to be aware of climate change, this is an island.  People protesting in old town Valetta.

Fortifications throughout Malta

Hamrija Tower near the archeological site Mnajdra

Towers like the Hamrija Tower encircle most of Malta and Gozo.  They vary in construction and size, but the purpose was to function as a watchtower.

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A map of the military airports that protected Malta and Gozo, especially during World War II

Caravaggio and Malta

 Malta, Valletta
Nov 082019
 

November 8, 2019

Basket of Fruit in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan c1599

Bacchus by Caravaggio in the Uffizi c1595

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Caravaggio is a painter with a range that stupefies.  These innocent paintings, while filled with sexual inuendos, are what many expected of the Italian painters of his time, and yet, his brilliance really showed in his ability to capture the macabre and make it still-life as well.

Caravaggio trained as a painter in Milan before moving in his twenties to Rome. He had a reputation for provocation and violence.  Caravaggio murdered Ranuccio Tomassoni in 1606 and was forced to flee to Naples.  He became an instant success in Naples receiving at least ten commissions including a number of very large and prestigious altarpieces.

However, on the 12th of July 1607, Caravaggio left for Malta at the behest of his patroness Constanza Colonna.  It is possible that the Colonna family who had strong links with Malta and the Knights felt that joining the Order would give Caravaggio immediate protection and aid in procuring a Papal pardon for his eventual return to Rome.

St. Jerome Writing hangs in the St. John’s Co-Cathedral. This image is from Wikimedia.  Notice the sign of the Knights of Malta on the bottom right-hand corner.

The image as it hangs in the Oratory of St John’s Co-Cathedral

Soon after establishing himself on Malta Caravaggio painted a devotional painting for Ippolito Malaspina titled St. Jerome Writing, one of two Caravaggio’s that hang in St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valetta.

Alof de Wignacourt was the Grand Master of the island at the time and ruled with an iron fist and answered only to the Pope.  Wignacourt found himself the ruler of a brand new city, and the opportunity to enhance its position by utilizing such a well-known painter as Caravaggio was not lost on him.

There were two conditions to becoming a Knight one is that the candidate must spend a full year on the island and second was to pay a tribute known as a passaggio.  Caravaggio had little or no money and Wigancourt wanted an altarpiece for the newly completed co-cathedral of St. John, Caravaggio agreed to do a painting in lieu of his passaggio.  The subject was specified as the Beheading of St. John.

The Beheading of  St. John the Baptist hangs in St. John’s Co-Cathedral. This image is from Wikimedia

The Beheading of St. John in the oratory of St. John’s Co-Cathedral

According to Andrea Pomella in Caravaggio: An Artist through Images, The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist is widely considered to be Caravaggio’s masterpiece as well as “one of the most important works in Western painting.” Jonathan Jones (British art critic for The Guardian) has described The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist as one of the ten greatest works of art of all time: “Death and human cruelty are laid bare by this masterpiece, as its scale and shadow daunt and possess the mind.”

Unfortunately for Caravaggio, once the painting was complete the full scale of his commitment came clear.  The strict observances of the order were more than he could obey and he was thrown in jail. Early biographers are vague on exactly what went wrong but the assumed cause was an instance of Caravaggio insulting a knight of higher ranking.

According to one of Caravaggio’s earliest biographers – Giovanni Pietro Bellori “He lived in Malta in dignity and abundance.  But suddenly, because of his tormented nature, he lost his property and the support of the Grand Master. On account of an ill-considered quarrel with a noble knight, he was jailed and reduced to a state of misery and fear”

Caravaggio was detained in an underground cell cut directly into the rock of the Castel Sant Angelo a bell-shaped chamber eleven feet deep sealed with a heavy trap door and reserved for knights who had been guilty of serious offenses.

However difficult a feat Caravaggio managed to escape the cell get off of Malta and by October of 1608 he was in the Sicilian port of Syracuse.

If you are interested in delving deeply into the life of Caravaggio I recommend the tome Caravaggio by Andrew Graham-Dixon.

The Oratory is, in itself a stunning room.

The marble balustrade in front of the alter

An image on the top of the balustrade

Saint Johns Co-Cathedral

 Malta, Valletta
Nov 082019
 

Valetta, Malta
November 8, 2019

Looking down upon the Nave and Apse from the balcony

Recognized as one of the most incredible examples of the high baroque style, Saint Johns Co-Cathedral defies explanation. The exterior is so plain as to be mistaken for any other building in the neighborhood, and then you step inside.

The Cathedral in the 1870s

St John’s was commissioned in 1572 and built by the Knights of Malta between 1573 and 1578. It was commissioned by Grand Master Jean de la Cassière as the conventual church of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller of St John, known as the Knights of Malta. The Church was designed by the Maltese military architect Glormu (Girolamo) Cassar who designed several of the more prominent buildings in Valletta.

For the first century of its existence, the church’s interior was modestly decorated. In the 1660s, Grand Master Raphael Cotoner ordered the redecoration of the interior to rival the churches of Rome. This new interior was largely decorated by Mattia Preti, a Calabrian artist, and Knight. Preti designed the intricately carved stone walls and painted the vaulted ceiling and side altars with scenes from the life of St John. The carving was all undertaken in-situ rather than being carved independently.  The Cathedral is built of Maltese limestone that uniquely lends itself to such intricate carving.

In 1666, a project for the main altar by Malta’s greatest sculptor, Melchiorre Gafà, was approved and begun. Gafà intended a large sculpture group in bronze depicting the Baptism of Christ. Sadly Gafa was killed in a Roman foundry accident while working on the installation forcing the church to abandon their plans.

In 1703, Giuseppe Mazzuoli, Gafà’s only pupil, finished a marble group of the Baptism of Christ which might have been influenced by his master’s undocumented designs.

The whole marble floor is an entire series of tombs, housing about 375 Knights and officers of the order.

*There is also a crypt containing the tombs of such Grandmasters as Philippe Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, Claude de la Sengle, Jean Parisot de Valette, and Alof de Wignacourt. The gravestones, all in marble, show the knights and grand-masters that are buried in this cathedral.  On the top of each column is a plain white cross on a red background as, when the Order was formed, it adopted the Benedictine habit, which is a white cross on a red background – the cross of peace on the blood-stained fields of war. The eight-pointed cross, now known as the Maltese cross, came much later. Some historians say that the eight points signify the eight langues (languages) from where the Knights of St John came, while other historians say that, being a Religious Order, the four triangles are the four virtues and the eight points are the beatitudes coming out of the four virtues.

St John’s Co-Cathedral has nine chapels – four on the right and five on the left.  These include:

  • Chapel of Our Lady of Philermos,
  • Chapel of the Langue of Auvergne
  • Chapel of the Langue of Aragon
  • Chapel of the Langue of Castile, Leon and Portugal
  • Chapel of the Anglo-Bavarian Langue,
  • Chapel of the Langue of Provence
  • Chapel of the Langue of France
  • Chapel of the Langue of Italy
  • Chapel of the Langue of Germany

Chapel of the Langue Auvergne

Chapel of the Langue Provence

The oratory contains two paintings by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, and they are discussed in another post.

St John’s was raised to a status equal to that of St Paul’s Cathedral in Mdina – the official seat of the Archbishop of Malta – by a papal decree in 1816, hence the term ‘co-cathedral’.

The domed ceiling

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Malta and the Knights of Saint John

 Malta, Valletta
Nov 072019
 

November 7, 2019

The Maltese Islands went through a golden Neolithic period.  Later the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Romans, and the Byzantines, all left their traces on the Islands.

In 60 A.D. St. Paul was shipwrecked on the island while on his way to Rome and brought Christianity to Malta.

The Arabs conquered the islands in 870 A.D. and left an important mark on the language of the Maltese (a Semitic language written in Roman characters). Malti is thought to derive from the language of the ancient Phoenicians who arrived in Malta in 750 B.C. with roots closely tied to Arabic.

Until 1530 Malta was an extension of Sicily: The Normans, the Aragonese and other conquerors who ruled over Sicily also governed the Maltese Islands.   However, it was the Knights of St. John that formed the island as we see it today.

The Knights of St. John established a vast network of hospitals and fortifications throughout the pilgrim routes from Europe to Jerusalem. This network lasted over 200 years until the Siege of Acre in 1291 when the Muslims forced the Christians from the Holy Land.

The Knights eventually landed on the Greek island of Rhodes and soon transformed themselves from an army to a naval force. They were a brutal and marauding horde wearing their monastic uniforms of black robes emblazoned with a white eight-point cross on their chest.

The entrance to the Harbor of Malta

In 1552 Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent conquered Rhodes and expelled the Knights.  In 1530 the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V gave them a new home on Malta, at that time, part of the Two Kingdoms of Sicily, all for the annual stipend of one falcon.

Fort Saint Angelo (Castle Sant Angelo) as seen from across the harbor in Valletta

The Knights chose to settle in Birgu renovating the partially ruined and abandoned Fort St Angelo (Castel Sant Angelo) making this the primary fortification.  After the renovation, it became the seat of the Grand Master.

In 1565 the Turks once again laid siege to the Knights, known as the Seige of Malta it lasted for months and is remembered for the fierce fighting and the atrocities committed by both sides. The siege ended with the defeat of the Turks, but it left only 50 of the original 7,000 Knights of St. John alive.

In the aftermath of that siege, the Knights built the fortified city of Valletta on Mount Sciberras on the other side of the Grand Harbour, and the administrative center for the knights moved there

Valetta is named after Jean de la Valette, Grand Master during the siege. Valletta was laid out on the Renaissance model of an ideal city.  The principal architect responsible for the design of many of the buildings was Malta born, Rome educated, Girolamo Cassar. The buildings suggest the Christian ideals of sobriety and military discipline and are made of rusticated stones sitting on streets laid out on a grid.

The streets of Valletta

The British ruled in Malta from 1800 until 1964 when Malta became independent. The Maltese adopted the British system of public administration, education, and legislation and English is spoken by most everyone on the island.

Modern Malta became a Republic in 1974,  joined the European Union in May 2004 and the Eurozone in January of 2008.

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The Tritons Fountain sits near the City Gates of Valletta. It was designed and constructed between 1952 and 1959 by sculptor Chevalier Vincent Apap and his collaborator draughtsman Victor Anastasi.

Malta’s Saluting Battery, in Valletta,  is perhaps the oldest saluting battery still in operation anywhere in the world. For almost 500 years, its guns protected the harbor against naval assault. Its prominent position also ensured it became the island’s principal saluting platform. From here, gun salutes were fired on occasions of state, to mark anniversaries and religious feasts, and also to greet visiting dignitaries and vessels. From the 1820s a gun was also fired at mid-day to signal out the exact hour of the day by which Ship Masters would calibrate their chronographs on board. These timepieces were used up to the early part of the 20th century to find the longitude at sea.