stroyed in the Second
World War, but photographs taken at the time of the restoration
point to a provincial, possibly Sicilian, artist. They also
suggest a work of limited artistic interest (16).
A painting of the Adoration of the Magi which in the early seventeenth
century decorated one of the walls of the church of St. Anne
in Fort St. Angelo, was, on the other hand, of sufficiently
high calibre, to attract the attention of the informed connoisseur
Cardinal Scipione Borghese who skillfully exploited his political
influence with Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt to secure it
for his prestigious collection. The painting, which could have
reached Malta with the Knights in 1530, enjoyed an apparently
well-known reputation as a work by the great German Renaissance
master Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).
Wignacourt was approached through Cardinal Verallo. It was a
request that he could not ignore given the tremendous prestige
of Scipione Borghese as the powerful nephew of the then reigning
pope, Paul V, the supreme head of the Order. On 10th July 1610,
the Grand Master addressed two dispatches, one to his ambassador
in Rome, Fra Francesco Lomellini, and the other to his ricevitore
in Naples, Fra Vincenzo Carafa, giving detailed instructions
on the transportation of the painting to the Borghese collection
together with important information on its careful packaging.
This last information permits us to form an estimate of its
measurements as being, approximately, 125 x 100cm. (17).
The subsequent history of the painting is unknown but it should
be pointed out that paintings by Dürer are listed in inventories
of the Borghese collection (18).
It has recently been proposed that there are good iconographic
arguments for identifying it with the famous Uffizi Adoration
of the Magi which is signed and dated 1504, and has roughly
similar measurements of 113.5 x 099cm., or, possibly, with a
now lost replica (19). This
hypothesis is not easy to maintain especially in view of the
fact that the Uffici painting is usually, although certainly
not universally, associated with the Jabach Altar which Dürer
painted, in the period between his two Italian visits, for the
Schlosskirche of Wittenberg.
There is a sideline to the story. By an ironic twist of fate
the departure of the Dürer painting |
from Malta coincided with the last
illness and death at Porto Ercole, on 18th July 1610, of Caravaggio,
whom both Wignacourt and Scipione Borghese had befriended and
greatly admired. Caravaggio died tormented by the thought that
the paintings he was carrying in his luggage to Rome, to donate
to Cardinal Borghese in a final effort to secure papal pardon,
had been lost. Three of them, two St. Johns and a Mary Magdalene
were located a few days later at Chiaia, in the country palace
of the artist's protectress, Costanza Colonna, Marchesa of Caravaggio,
but Wignacourt's ricevitore, Vincenzo Carafa, sequestered them
on the grounds that they belonged to the Order of St. John,
of whom Caravaggio had been a member (20).
Considering the fact that Caravaggio had been unceremoniously
defrocked, nearly two years earlier, it is difficult to find
justification for Carafa's action. The great question is whether
he was acting on his own personal initiative, or whether he
was obeying instructions from Malta. Unfortunately we may never
know the answer. Scipione Borghese did, however, succeed in
getting hold of one of the St. Johns which is still in the Borghese
collection in Rome. The fate of the other two paintings is unknown.
The fact that the Dürer painting was displayed in the church
of St. Anne, which had previously served the Grand Master as
his private chapel, has been interpreted as an indication of
its superlative prestige (21).
The painting was, however, left behind in Fort St. Angelo when
Grand Master Pietro del Monte moved the convent to Valletta
in 1571, and none of the other Grand Masters between him and
Alof de Wignacourt bothered to have it transferred to the new
palace chapel. This honour was, instead given, perhaps because
of its greater post-Tridentine devotional appeal, to another
work, which was also piously believed to have come from Rhodes
(22). This painting, a triptych
of the Lamentation over the Dead Christ with Joseph of Arimathea
and Mary Magdalene, is fortunately still on the island, and
is currently on display in the picture gallery of the conventual
church. Painted in oils on panel, this is a work of reasonable
high quality, which has for a long time been vaguely ascribed
to the Netherlandish School. In 1989, I argued that there are
good stylistic and technical grounds
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[16] M. Buhagiar,
"The Artistic Heritage", in L. Bugeja, M. Buhagiar, S. Fiorini
(eds.), Birgu A Maltese Maritime City, vol. ii, Malta 1983, 467-471.
[17] The dispatches in NLM, AOM 1389, f. 198v-199, ff. 200-201rv,
were first published in S. Macioce, "Scipione Borgese e un'Adorazione
dei Magi di Albrecht Dürer. Notizie d'Archivio", in Storia
dell'Arte, vol. 88 (1996), 287-300.
[18] S. Macioce, op. cit.
[19] Ibid.
[20] H. Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life, London 1998, 390.
[21] S. Macioce, op. cit.
[22] NLM AOM 1953, f. 241. The painting was also claimed to
have served as an icona on one of the galleys but of this there is
no real evidence. |
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