the visual appeal, particularly
in the drapery and haloes of the standing saints.
The diptych contains in addition two empty
frames, which might never have carried images. A little box
in the lower left-hand corner contains relics, which, Paciaudi
suggests, are stone splinters from the Holy Sepulchre itself.
The copper engraving published by Paciaudi confirms that the
position of the steatites has remained the same since 1755.
Hetherington has convincingly argued that the order does not
make Byzantine theological or iconographic good sense (43).
This suggests that the position of the images must have been
altered in a Latin context, at an unknown period. It was perhaps
at this time that the diptych received its new red velvet covers.
An objet d'art of better quality and
costlier materials, is a tafelportatile, or portable
altar, which presumably belonged to a portable chest of the
type known technically as a kastenportatile, meant for
the celebration of the divine liturgy in places other than churches.
The stone, in the collection of the Cathedral Museum, Mdina,
has no documented history but is claimed by a tradition of unknown
antiquity to have belonged to a galley of the Knights. The cultured
sophistication of the work and the exquisiteness of its finish,
which give it a jewel-like appearance, suggest an aristocratic
origin and a level of informed patronage which in the Maltese
context points directly to the Knights. The probability is that
it reached the island from Rhodes in the baggage of the Knights.
The altar consists of a red marble slab within
a wide silver frame that has an outer border of chased acanthus
leaf scroll work and is richly ornamented with lucid Tuscan
enamels and miniatures protected under thin plates of rock-crystal.
There are in all twenty-eight images, fourteen miniatures, and
fourteen enamels. They depict scenes from the life of Christ,
Old Testament Prophets, Kings, Patriarchs, Apostles, three Evangelists,
and a Virgin and Child. The last image misfits both iconographically
and stylistically and is obviously a late interpolation, presumably
replacing an image of the Evangelist Mark which was either lost
or irreparably damaged. The bright gold-leaf backgrounds of
the miniatures and warm colours of the enamels charge the scenes
with almost heraldic intensity. |
Since, on the
one hand, no lucid Tuscan enamels are known before around 1290
when the Sienese master goldsmith, Guccio di Mannaia, produced
the famous gilt silver chalice for Pope Nicholas IV (1288-92),
and, on the other, there are no known examples of miniatures
under rock crystal after around 1350, the terminus post quem
and the terminus ante quem for the altar can be fixed
to the period between around 1290 and 1350. The centre of production
can, furthermore, be identified with Venice for the simple reason
that rock crystal miniatures were an essentially Venetian craft
and there is no evidence that they were produced elsewhere.
Moreover the Tuscan way of enamelling was well known in Venice.
What makes the altar more significant is the
fact that rock-crystal miniatures and lucid enamels are used
together. There is only one recorded other instance of such
a combination in the better known Cross of Assisi produced around
1337. The images of the latter are, however, in an entirely
western idiom while those on the altar, are a mixture of western
and Byzantine styles. Some scenes, such as, for example, The
Nativity, are in an entirely Byzantine idiom while others,
such as the Deposition or the Noli Me Tangere
are essentially western. Charlotte van der Heijden, who submitted
a thesis on the altar, to the University of Leiden, has proposed
that the closest parallels to the images, especially the miniatures,
are to be found in Venetian manuscript illuminations. This has
permitted her to date the altar to the second quarter of the
fourteenth century, which is very probable (44).
The apparently contemporary silver-gilt reliquary
of St. Peter, in the treasury of the conventual church, seeems
to be Tuscan, or, perhaps Umbrian. This is a splendid example
of the high degree of technical excellence that characterised
Italian metal work at the close of the Middle Ages. It is refined
and intricate, and wrought with an exquisite skill that speaks
the language of aristocratic sophistication. The stem is decorated
with two sets of six square plaques chased with allegorical
birds that retain traces of enamelling. Of greater interest
are the six roundels on the ornate central knop which are chased
with the images of St. Peter and five |