The Treasure of
the Knight Hospitallers in 1530
Reflections and Art Historical Considerations
Mario Buhagiar
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In
1530 the crusading brotherhood of the Hospitaller Knights of
St. John of Jerusalem accepted the offer of the Emperor Charles
V to occupy the Maltese Islands and hold them against the Ottomans
who were seeking to control the Central Mediterranean. Seven
years previously, on January 1st, 1523, the Knights had evacuated
their convent on the island fortress of Rhodes, in the Dodecanese,
after surrendering on terms to the great sultan, Soleyman the
Lawgiver, whose invading army hopelessly outnumbered them. Their
tenacity and heroism during the protracted siege earned them
the admiration of their great enemy and they were permitted
to take with them, in addition to a substantial part of their
archives, their personal armour and weapons. They were also
allowed to ransom, for jewels and plate, allegedly worth 30,000
ducats, the liturgical furnishings of the conventual church
(1). These consisted of a rich
collection of holy relics, icons, church-plate, tapestries,
sacred vestments, and miscellaneous objets d'art. Other valuables,
including the two holy icons of the Damascus and Eleimonitria
Madonnas were successfully smuggled out of the island. The accumulated
treasure reflected the special and, in many ways, unique character
of the haughtily chivalric Order as well as its wealth and prestige.
The treasure packed in several boxes accompanied
the Knights in their seven years of wandering from one Latin
Christian court to another before they set up a permanent convent
on Malta. There are clear suggestions that it was, in the interval,
enriched by new acquisitions, but not all of it managed to reach
Malta. At Viterbo, where they languished for almost four years
(1523-27), they left behind them, in the church of Sts Faustino
and Giovita, which served them as a temporary |
conventual church, various objets
d'art, among which were a Byzantine icon of the Madonna and
Child, several reliquaries, and a chest decorated with armorial
shields and painted allegories of the cardinal virtues (2).
Other paintings including a triptych of the Virgin and Child
with Sts John the Baptist and Sebastian were, subsequently,
in 1529, left behind in Nice (3).
The treasure was also depleted as a result
of petty thefts and sundry misadventures (4).
The tapestries had a particularly unfortunate history. Some
were stolen in Rome during the Spanish sack of 1527, while others
were, in that same year, captured at sea by the Turks while
being transported to Nice (5).
A Flemish tapestry, in silk and wool, in the Museos de Arte
de Barcellona, may, perhaps, be a survivor. It represents the
Siege of Rhodes of 1480 and is emblazoned with the arms of the
Master Émeric d'Amboise (1503-1512) suggesting that it
could have been woven for the magistral palace. It was bought
in Barcelona, in 1589, by the Taula de Canvi, or, municipal
bank, for 150 livres, but its provenance is not recorded
(6). The possibility is that
it reached Spain in the baggage of an adventurer who had taken
part in the Sack of Rome.
The intrinsic, artistic and religious worth
of the Rhodes treasure was well appreciated and, upon its arrival
in Malta, steps were taken to have it adequately protected.
The Order's historian, Giacomo Bosio, refers to the building
in Fort St. Angelo of a strong-room, which he calls a tolo,
intended for the safe-keeping of the holy relics and of the
most precious and revered objets d'arts (le cose...piu pretiose
e care). Its key was under the custody of the Master and the
piliers of the eight Tongues (7).
Its appearance and exact whereabouts are unrecorded but the
choice of the |
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[1] A.T. Luttrell,
"The Rhodian Background of the Order of St. John on Malta",
in J. Azzopardi (ed.), The Order's Early Legacy in Malta, Malta 1989,
13.
[2] O. Tencajoli, "Il Soggiorno a Civitavecchia e a Viterbo
dell'Ordine di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme di Rodi: 1523-1527",
Roma, vii (1929), 487-489.
[3] O. Tencajoli, L'Ordine di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme a
Nizza, Turin 1929, 22-23. The painting was emblazoned with the shield
of Phillipe Villiers de l'Isle Adam, which suggests either a very
late Rhodian work, or, more probably, that it was painted after the
loss of Rhodes, possibly in Nice itself.
[41] G. Bosio, Dell'Istoria della Sacra Religione et ill.ma
Militia di San Giovanni Gerosolimitano, iii, Rome 1602, 16. A relic
of St. Sebastian was, for example, stolen at Baia, near Naples, by
a Greek-rite cleric who reportedly took it to Mallorca.
[5] G. Bosio, ii. (2nd. ed. Rome 1630), iii. 58, 79, 111. The
latter were, apparently, recaptured by the Knights in 1530.
[6] The Order of St. John in Malta (ed. Council of Europe),
Malta 1970, 278, pl. 33.
[7] Bosio, iii, p. 89. |
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