Mattia Preti 1613-2013. The masterpieces in the Churches of Malta. A commemoration of the fourth centenary of the birth of the Cavalier Calabrese (original) (raw)
Related papers
In the footsteps of the Master: The followers of Mattia Preti in Malta
Mattia Preti from Drawing to Colour, ed. by Erminia Corace, Edizione D'Arte, 1995
Very little is known of the bottega followers of the great Italian Baroque painter of the seventeenth century - Mattia Preti, particularly those who were close to the master during the second half of his life spent entirely in Malta. The present essay is an attempt to fill this gap, identifying the followers of his Maltese years, most of whom hardly feature in previous literature.
Paintings for the Knights of Malta. Mattia Preti and the Celebration of Martyrdom
Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art - VI, St. Petersburg 2016, pp. 468-473, 2016
Upon arriving on Malta in 1660, Mattia Preti progressively became the official painter of the Knights of St. John radically changing their way of understanding and using the images. From this point of view, the scenes of martyrdom represent a privileged field of investigation: for the knights, in fact, these particular images were not only the result of specific devotions, but the representation of something that often summarized their aspirations and hopes. The paper deals with: • the works made by Preti for the Langue of Italy, offering a comparative reading of two paintings dedicated to St. Catherine, one made for the Church of the Langue and the other for their chapel in St. John’s Cathedral. • the two lunettes in the Chapel of the Langue of Aragon dedicated to the martyrdom of St. Lawrence including them in the original commission by Grand Master Martin de Redin (1657-1660) related to his — failed — project of crusade. • the role played by the two Grand Masters, Raphael (1660-1663) and Nicolas Cotoner (1663-1680), in guiding the choice of the subjects for the paintings in the Chapel of the Langue of Castille, a prelude to the great celebration of their role in the history of the Order painted by Preti in the vault of the cathedral and, above all, in the allegory of the Order painted on the counterfacade.
Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 61 (Heft III), 2019
On the basis of previously unpublished inquisitorial documents, this article reconstructs and discusses the genesis, iconography, functions, and removal of two altarpieces dedicated to the Messinese Madonna della Lettera, respectively in Rome (1642) and in Malta (1668). While the first painting is lost at present, it is possible to identify the latter with the Madonna della Lettera attributed to Mattia Preti and now preserved in the Museo Regionale Interdisciplinare di Messina. The essay demonstrates that this painting – whose provenance and date were previously unknown – was executed in 1664 for an altar in the church of Saint Francis in Valletta, which was dismantled in 1668. In both instances, the contestation and censorship of the altarpieces arose as a reaction to the multi-directional Messinese attempts to spread their hometown cult through the creation of new images that prominently visualized the letter, which is a lost and controversial contact relic. The combined examination of these two new cases offers material for a discussion of the normative role of painting and the visual arts in establishing a local cult in distant places – from Messina to Rome, Malta, and as far as China.
B.A. in History of Art (Honours) dissertation, 2017
This undergraduate dissertation analyses Suor Maria de Dominici as an artist and a member within a religious order, and will evaluate her life and works in Malta and in Rome. Her significance, both as an artist within Preti’s bottega and independently, together with her fortuna critica and literature written about her, is analysed. The methods of research carried out in this dissertation include a formal and technical analysis of the works of art attributed to the artist in Malta, which included viewing and studying the paintings physically. Historical analysis, including tracing patronage patterns and studying iconography of the image within its context, was also carried out. Of significant importance was also the research carried out in various archives in Malta and also in Rome, as, although unfortunately not much is documented or still exists, it helped to differentiate between what is factual and what is traditional. This was also done through the evaluation of stories generated about the artist, both that which has been published over the years as well as oral tradition, which exists even today in small Maltese towns, especially in churches. This was of essential importance for the scrutinization of the biography of Maria de Dominici and the works of art attributed to her. The significance of Suor Maria de Dominici as an artist and tertiary, as well as gender issues will be studied throughout the dissertation.
A typical Baroque Node: Mattia Preti and the Sarria Church in Floriana, Malta
This paper focuses on the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art ) in the Baroque and shows how this idea was put into practice in a typical Baroque node, the Sarria Church of Floriana on Malta . It is the only church of Malta that the famous painter Mattia Preti (1613-99), here as architetto, is known to have designed in a tempietto-like shape and for which he and his bottega were commissioned to also produce a cycle of seven paintings at the same time. The historic presence of the commissioners, i.e. the Order of St. John, and the patron of the church, Grand Master Nicolas Cotoner (1663-80) can be felt in two of the paintings: In the patron´s name-saint St.Nicholas of Bari and the lunette called “Allegory of the Order”. The other paintings recall the very fact that this church was conceived as an ex voto fulfillment by the Order of St John during the height of the plague, as they depict the plague saints of St. Sebastian, St. Roque and the plague saint St. Rosalie who had been introduced from Sicily and whose relics in form of a silver bust were placed in St. John´s CoCathedral in June 1676 . The titular of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception and the other lunette called “Archangel Michael and other Angels fighting the Demons” depict plague victims very directly. Scholarly critical analyses of all the artworks and the architecture of the Sarria church have already been carried out in great depth and they are prerequisite to this study, not its target. Instead, a few aspects that seemed to have been neglected so far will be highlighted as they contribute to the overall notion of the baroque Gesamtkunstwerk, which was at the core of the Baroque “propaganda machine” in defense of the Catholic belief against the Reformation. The essay will conclude with placing this node into the international context and show that, in fact, Preti´s unified concept for the Sarria church is an excellent example in a discussion of the typical baroque Zeitgeist.
2020 IMEKO TC-4 International Conference on Metrology for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Trento, Italy, October 22-24, 2020, 2020
The paper presents the results of scientific investigations carried out in support of a professionally executed restoration on two paintings by Mattia Preti, located in the Church of the Immaculate Conception of Sarria in Floriana, Malta. In particular, the attention was mainly paid on a combined approach, using 2D/3D survey in order to formulate hypothetic reconstruction, and XRF spectroscopy in order to get more information on how the master prepared the various types of materials, with particular regard to the painting preparation, the pigments palette and the formulation of shades and highlights.