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.