HISTOR ICAL SOCIETY
PROCEEDINGS OF HISTORY WEEK
1984
edited by
STANLEY FIORINI
PROCEEDINGS OF HISTORY WEEK
1984
Edited by
STANLEY FIORINI
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
MALTA
1986
274397
CONTENTS
page
Editorial Preface
List of Plates
v
Vll
ANTHONY BONANNO
The Maltese Artistic Heritage of the Roman Period
RAPHAEL BONNICI CALI
Identification of the Bozzetto of Saint Paul's Statue
Enshrined in Valletta
13
MARIO BUHAGIAR
The Qormi Pala d' Altare and Artistic Patronage in Malta
During the 15th and Early 16th Centuries
21
EMMANUEL FIORENTINO
Edward Lear in Malta
33
STAN LEY FIORINI
Status Animarum II: A Census of 1687
41
ALBERT GANADO
The Siege Map of Malta by Francesco De Marchi
101
JOSEPH F. GRIMA
The Iconography of the Maltese Good Friday Processional
Statues: Their Development between 1960 and 1984
141
Index of Persons
Index of Places
Notes on the Contributors
149
154
!58
THE MALTESE ARTISTIC HERITAGE
OF THE ROMAN PERIOD
ANTHONY BONANNO
Studies on Roman Art in Malta
As for many other fields of the Maltese cultural heritage the study of Roman art
in Malta starts with the monumental work of the 17th century of which the Maltese
nation is justifiably proud: the Descrittione by Giovanni Francesco Abela.ttl More
than a century before the German scholar J .J. Winckelmann laid the foundations
for a history of ancient art,(2) Abela was already publishing in that work a series of
ancient artistic objects some of which he had acquired for his own personal
collection while others were scattered in different parts of the islands. (3) Abela hardly
ever attempted a stylistic appreciation of the works of art he published whereas he
was sometimes far too rash in his historical judgements, although his identifications
were generally correct.<4 > The art objects described and illustrated by Abela were also
included in the enlarged edition of his work by Giovanni Antonio Ciantar in the 18th
century ,<5> and in other descriptions of the Maltese islands written by both Maltese
and foreign writers in that same century and in the following one.<6l
Certainly the most precious treasure of Roman art in the possession of the Maltese
nation was unearthed all together in 1881 during the excavation of the well-known
Roman town villa (or house) at Rabat, just outside the fortifications of Mdina. It
consisted of a rich collection of polychrome mosaics, both geometric and figurative,
and a group of sculptures of a very fine quality. However, the gentleman who
conducted the excavation and published their report, A .A. Caruana, made only a
brief mention of the mosaics and sculptures and illustrated them with drawings and
a photograph without attempting an identification.(7) Albert Mayr, just after the
I. G.F. Abela, Della Descrittione di Malta, Isola del Mare Siciliano con le sue Antichitii ed altre
Notizie, Malta (1647).
2. J .J . Winckelmann, Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums, Dresden (1764); id. Monumenti Antichi
lnediti, Rome (1767).
3. Abela Descrittione, pp.36,153 - 4,156 -7, 172-83.192 -3.204.207,2!0 - 1.216 - 20.248. For the
circumstances in which Abela bequeathed his collection to the Jesuits see A. Bonanno, Giovanni
Francesco Abela's legacy to the Jesuit College, Proceedings of History Week 1983 (ed. M. Buhagiar),
Malta (1984) pp.27 - 37 .
4. In the case of the statue of Hercules, which is now generally accepted as a modern copy, Abela
(Descrittione, pp.l56 -7) betrays his ingenuity and inability to distinguish ancient from modern. Cfr.
A. Bonanno, Quintinus and the location of the Temple of Hercules at Marsaxlokk, Melita Historica
VII1.3 (1982) pp.l97 - 9
5. G.F. Abela - G .A. Ciantar, Malta Il/ustrata, Malta (1772 - 80).
6. E.G., J . Houel, Voyage Pittoresque des lies de Sicile, de Malle et de Lipari, IV, Paris (1787); I. de
Boisgelin, Ancient and Modern Malta, London (1805); V. Denon, Voyage en Sicile, Paris (1788); 0
Bres, Malta Antico l//ustrata co' Monumenti e co/1'/storia, Rome (1816); C. Vassallo, Dei Monumenti
Antichi del Gruppo di Malta, Valletta (1851); A.A. Caruana, Report on the Phoenician and Roman
Antiauities in the Group ofthe Islands ofMalta. Malta (1882).
I. !d., Recent Discovenes at NotatJile, Malta (1881).
2
ROMAN ARTISTIC HERITAGE
turn of the century, dealt with both the mosaics and t'he sculptures but did not
provide illustrations. <8l He identified the subject of one of the small square mosaics
vaguely as "a mythological representation", whereas he was more specific in his
identification of the sculptures, in particular that of the male head which he
attributed to Claudius .
In his long article on 'Roman Malta' of 1915 Thomas Ashby compiled a catalogue
of all the pieces of Greek and Roman sculpture then existing in the state collection.
His descriptions are, however, disappointingly brief albeit more detailed than those
of Caruana and Mayr. Ashby treated the mosaics from the Rabat house much more
generously than his predecessors and described them with greater detail and some
comparisons.<9l An appendix to his article, signed by G. Me Rushforth, deals at
some length with the iconography of one of the emblemata found in the same
house. ooJ This subject was later taken up by the German Ernst Pfuhl. <11 > In his
monumental publication on Pompeian mosaics another German scholar, Erich
Pernice, presented a comprehensive appreciation of the Rabat mosaics and classed
them amongst the finest mosaics of the Roman world.< 12l
Five articles published by the Italian P .C. Sestieri in the 1930s are concerned with
Maltese sculpture of the Classical age. The most extensive one is about the theme of
the Doloneia, that is, the episode in the Iliad involving Odysseus and Diomedes who
ambush the Trojan Dolon, which is represented on a marble slab said to have been
found in the same house of Rabat.< 13 l Another article is inspired by the small draped
torso of Artemis reputedly found in Malta.< 14l The author makes a critical exposition
of this particular type of Artemis the Huntress and makes it derive from a prototype
of the third century B.C. In the third article Sestieri produced a valid stylistic and
iconographic appraisal of two Roman portraits, one of Antoninus and the other of
an unknown individual of the third century A.D .<15 l Also in the field of portraiture is
a study of four busts with common iconographic elements which the same writer
wrongly identifies as the product of Maltese Punic art under the influence of Roman
art. <16l Lastly in 1940 Sestieri returns to a theme from female mythological
iconography and discusses the Amazon attributed to the Greek artist Phradmon
taking his point of departure from a mutilated torso of an Amazon found in the
harbour at Marsa in 1865.< 17 l
8.
9.
10.
II.
12.
13.
14.
15 .
IIi.
17.
A. Mayr, Die Inset Malta im Altertum, Munich (1909) pp. 144-147. fig. 35 .
T . Ashby, Roman Malta, Journal of Roman Studies 5 (1915) pp.35- 8.
Ibid., pp.79-80. The same one vaguely identified by Mayr (note 8) .
E. Pfuhl, Zum Satyrmosaik in Malta, Romische Mitteilungen 52 (1937) p.275, with previous
bibliography.
E. Pernice, Die Hellenistiche Kunst in Pompeji, vol. IV: Pavimente undfigiirliche Mosaiken, Berlin
(1938) pp.6 -7, 9- 12, 125-8, 137. 141, 160, 165.
P.C. Sestieri, Un rilievo di Malta con Ia rappresentazionie della Doloneia, Atti deii'Accademia
Nazionaledei Lincei, Rendiconti 13 (1938) pp.21-43.
/d., Sculture Maltesi I. L' Art em ide di Malta, Archivio Storico di Malta 10 (1938- 9) pp. l53 - 63; id.,
Diana. Venatrix, Rivista de/1'/stituto Nazionale di A rcheologia e Storia deii'Arte 8 (1941)
pp.l07- 28; H. Marwitz, Anti ken der Sammlung Hermann Bunemann, Miinchen , Ant ike P/astik 6,
Berlin (1967) pp.50 - 4.
P.C. Sestieri, Due teste del Musco della Valletta, Bullettino del Museo de/1'/mpero Romano 7 (1936)
pp.67 -74.
!d.. Sculture Maltesi II, Archivio Storico di Malta IO (1938 - 9) pp.231 - 238.
/d ., Scultura Maltesi Ill. L' Amazzone, Archivio Storico di Malta II (1940) pp.65- 79.
3
ROMAN ARTISTIC HERITAGE
In the pre-War years another Italian scholar, Luigi Maria Ugolini, directed his
interest to Maltese Classical sculpture. In the Maltese context Ugolini is much better
known for his extensive and partially published study on Maltese prehistory,< 18> and
his contribution in the field of Roman sculpture is not entirely a happy one because
he made the wrong identification which is still repeated at the present time. In his
article on the beautiful head of a Julio-Claudian Emperor discovered in the 1881
excavations at Rabat, Ugolini identifies it with Tiberius rather than with
Claudius.< 19> In another short article he publishes five pieces of sculpture which must
have been imported into Malta from the Greek East in modern times, as the author
rightly guesses.<20l At that time the sculptures were kept in a private villa in Malta.
Today their whereabouts are unknown, except for one which has been traced by
pure coincidence by the present writer early in 1984 in a private garden in Gozo.
For a couple of decades after the war the attention of students of Maltese
antiquities was directed almost exclusively to the Island's prehistory, and the
archaeology of the Roman period was totally neglected. A revival of the studies of
Roman antiquities took place in the 1960s with the inauguration of the Missione
Archeologica ltaliana from the University of Rome which conducted yearly
excavation campaigns between 1963 and 1970 on three major sites. <21 > Of these, the
Tas-Silg site turned out to be identifiable with an important sanctuary referred to in
Classical literature - thejanum lunonis of Cicero - but revealed also a PhoenicoPunicjacies of unprecedented importance for Malta's ancient history, as well as a
prehistoric temple which must have played a determining role in the choice of the
site for subsequent religious establishments. Lastly, the Palaeochristian church,
equipped with an external baptistry, planted over the remains of the Roman temple,
opened up a new chapter for the history of late-Roman to Byzantine Maltese
architecture which had so far been represented only by underground collective
graves. The second site investigated by the Missione, the Roman villa at San Pawl
Milqi, was found to have Punic remains underneath it and later assumed religious
significance connected with an early Pauline tradition. The third site, the sanctuary
at Ras il-Wardija in Gozo, seems to have been in operation in the mid- to late-Punic
period.
As part of his course leading to the Laurea in Lettere Classiche/ Archeologia at the
University of Palermo, the present writer compiled, in 1970-71, a catalogue of
Greek and Roman sculpture housed in Maltese collections, both national and
private.<22> For various reasons, mostly because attention had to be directed to other
18. L.M . Ugolini, Malta, Origini della Civil/a Mediterranea, Rome (1934).
19. !d., Ritratto di Tiberio trovato nella Villa Romana di Malta, Bullellino del Museo dell'lmpero
Romano 2 (1931) pp.21- 9.
20. /d. , Di alcune sculture esistenti nella Villa A pap a Malta, Archivio Storico di Malta 7 (1935 - 6)
pp .463 - 7, figs. I - 5.
21. Missione Archeologica /taliana a Malta, Rapporto Preliminare della Campagna 1963 - 1970, Rome
(1964 - 1971).
22. A. Bonanno, Sculture Creche e Romane dei Musei e delle Collezioni di Malta, unpublished doctoral
thesis, Facoltil di Lettere e Filosofia, Universitil degli Studi di Palermo (1969 - 70).
~
--------
- - - - - - - -
4
ROMAN ARTISTIC HERITAGE
problems affecting Maltese archaeology, this catalogue has still not been published.
Two homogeneous groups of Maltese sculpture have, however, been published in
learned journals abroad: a group of six funerary portraits whose origins have been
traced in Cyrenaica, Libya,( 23 > and a group of small decorative herms.( 24 >
A Historical Outline
No problems present themselves for fixing the date of the beginning of the
Roman period in Malta. It is fixed for us at 218 B.C. by the Latin historian Titus
Livius in his account of the military operations at the very outset of the second Punic
war. The passage in question recounts how Malta was taken over by the Romans in
that year when the consul Ti. Sempronius Longus sailed from Lilybaeum to these
islands in search of the Carthaginian fleet. The island, Livy tells us, was surrendered
to him together with the city and the garrison of a little less than 2000 soldiers under
the command of Hamilcar, son of Gisco.(25 >
Livy's information implies that Malta had been till that fateful date enemy
territory in spite of the fact that during the first Punic war, probably in 255 B.C., the
island had been attacked by the Roman fleet on its way back from a naval expedition
in Africa, as we learn from the early Latin poet Naevius in his epic account of the
first long-drawn conflict between Rome and Carthage.(26> It appears that after that
lightning raid, in which the land was devastated, the crops burnt and possessions
plundered, Malta re-entered immediately in the political and military sphere of
Carthage. It also appears that that experience had served as an eye-opener to the
Carthaginians as to the importance of safeguarding Malta against enemy action.
This transpires from the fact that the island, or its main town - the historian does
not specify - was defended by a sizeable garrison.
The size of that contingent, however, did not deter the Roman army from landing
and, in actual fact, capturing the islands the second time round. The verb 'traditur'
used by Livy with reference to the episode of 218 B.C. has given rise to several
hypotheses of favours awarded by the Roman conqueror to the islands, such as, a
privileged political status within the Roman commonwealth and a relatively
autonomous internal administration.( 27> Although the element of treason cannot be
excluded from that episode there are no solid arguments in its favour. The verb
23. /d., Cyrenaican funerary portraits in Malta, Journal of Roman Studies 66 (1976) pp.39-44,
pls.II-111.
24. /d., Un gruppo di ermette decorative a Malta, Archeologia Classica XXIX, 2 (1977) pp.399 - 410,
pls.CXII- CXVI.
25 . Livy XXI, 51.
26. Naevius, Bellum Punicum IV, 37; supplemented by the fifth century A.D. Christian writer Paulus
Orosi us, IV, 8.5, who names Atilius as the consul at the head of the fleet in that operation. For a
discussion of the sources referring to this event see F.P. Rizzo, Malta e Ia Sicilia in eta romana:
aspetti di storia politica e costituzionale, Kokalos 22-23 (1976 -77) pp.l83- 9. Rizzo reaches the
conclusion that the only occasion Malta was en route for the Roman flee( was on the latter's return
after a victory conducted in Africa by consuls Servius Fulvius Petinus and Marcus Aemilius Paulus.
27 . Ph . Cluver, Sicilia antiqua, cum minoribus insu/is ei adjacentibus, item Sardinia et Corsica, Leiden
(1619) pp.433-4; Abela, Descrillione, pp.l69,204 - 5; 0. Bres, Malta Antica. pp.306-8; A.
Bartolo, History of the Maltese Islands, Malta and Gibraltar, (ed. A. Macmillan) London (1915),
pp.37 - 8; Rizzo, Malta e Ia Sicilia, p.l91. Cfr. Mayr, Inset Malta, pp.95 - 7; A. Vella, Storj a ta'
Malta, Malta (1974) p.40.
ROMAN ARTISTIC HERITAGE
5
'traditur' as used by the Roman historian implies only a surrender and not necessarily a betrayal. It is, on the other hand, fairly certain that after the second Punic
war Malta and Gozo came to form part of the province of Sicily. From then on the
archipelago was destined to share for centuries the same fate with the larger island .
Romanorum enim esse incepit quum et Sicilia; semper eadem post iure iisdemque
praetoribus usa. With these words, fashioned according to his typical florid
Ciceronian style, the Frenchman Jean Quintin expressed in 1534 the common
destiny of the two islands: "Malta passed under the Romans at the same time as
Sicily; after which it had the same laws and the same government''. 128 >
Before 218 B.C. no cultural influence can be said to have reached the islands from
the Roman direction; this is confirmed, by the way, by the archaeological record.
The Romans then were still strictly on the receiving end in the cultural field, even
more so in the artistic field. On the other hand, the Semitic dominators of the
islands, the Carthaginians, did not only trade in and appreciate the aesthetic
qualities of products of Greek art and craftsmanship,l 29 > but had also succumbed,
during the whole of the third century, to the overwhelming process of hellenization
of the eastern and central Mediterranean; a cultural process to which the Romans
themselves were subjected as a direct consequence of their conquests.t 30>
This is practically all that the written sources reveal on the historical vicissitudes
of the first two, if not three, centuries of Roman domination. The long silence is
interrupted by the Latin orator Cicero who, in his prosecution speeches against the
notorious Caius Verres, provides us with precious pieces of information on various
aspects of the life of the Maltese inhabitants in the first century B.C.: their textile
industry the products of which were held in high esteem in the international
market;t 31 > the use of Maltese harbours by pirates for wintering; 132 > the international
veneration of the Maltese temple dedicated to Juno which was despoiled by Verres
of precious works of art among which two statuettes of Victory (Nike) in ivory historically part of the ancient artistic treasure of Malta. 133 > Cicero relates also of a
certain Diodorus Melitensis who had a residence also in Lilybaeum, in western
Sicily, and who in his house in Malta had a collection of silverware including two
silver cups, known as 'Thericlia', the work of Mentor, a well-known Greek
silversmith. These too attracted the uncontrollable greed of the rapacious Verres.t 34>
They too form part of the artistic - albeit lost - heritage of Malta.
2!!. J. Quintin, Insulae Melitae Descriptio, Lyon 1536, f.A3; H.C.R . Vella, The Earliest Description of
Malta (Lyons 1536), Malta (1980) PP.-18 - 9.
29. The archaeological record of the Phoenico-Punic period in Malta·(725- 218 B.C.) is in fact marked
by the presence of numerous objects produced in the Greek world. See A . Bonanno, The tradition of
an ancient Greek colony in Malta, Hyphen IV, I ( 1983) pp.l - 17.
30. S. Moscati, The World of the Phoenicians, London 1968, pp.l45- 74; P. Grima!, Hellenism and the
Rise of Rome, London (1968) passim; R. Bianchi Bandmelli, Rome the Centre of Power, Roman Art
to A.D. 200, London (1970)pp.l-50.
31. Cicero, Verr. II, 2, 176; II, 2, 183; II, 4, 103-4; II, 5, 27. See also Hesychius 1027; Diod . Sic. V, 12;
Varro, Sat . Men. 433; Silius Italicus, Punic. XIV, 274; Novius (apud Non.) 540, II. See A . Bonanno,
Distribution of villas and some aspects of the Maltese economy in the Roman period, Journal of the
Faculty of Arts VI, 4 (1977) pp.76 -7; J. Busuttil, The Maltese textile industry, Melita Historica IV,
3 (1966) pp.215 - 9.
32. Cicero, Verr. II, 4, 103. See J. Busuttil, Pirates in Malta, Melita Historica V, 4 (1971) 308 - 10.
33. Cicero, Verr. ll,4, 103 - 4.
34. Ibid. IV, 18 - 20. See J . Busuttil, Diodorus Melitensis, Melita Historica V, I ( 1968) pp .32 - 5.
6
I
I
ROMAN ARTISTIC HERITAGE
Another first century B.C. writer, Diodorus Siculus, mentions weaving among the
many crafts Malta's inhabitants excelled in. But he also praises their houses adorned
as they were with stucco and cornices.< 35> In midst of this long silence of the written
sources the archaeological sources come to our rescue and fill in many gaps in the
reconstructed picture of our past, in particular the cultural background. They
reveal, for example, a syncretism, the encounter and resultant fusion of three diverse
cultures that determined the artistic and artisan production of the succeeding
centuries. For a couple of centuries the Punic substratum continues to survive in the
forms and production technique of the ceramic utensils .< 36> The survival of the Punic
religious cults is documented by several inscriptions .< 37 > The Punic language seems
to have survived even longer, at least for a further century, till the coming of Saint
Paul to the island in A.D. 60. On that occasion Luke, the writer of the Acts,
describing the Maltese as 'barbaroi' clearly shows the extraneousness of their
language to Greek and Latin with which he was familiar.< 38 > Above the Punic
substratum the Roman component superimposes itself as a matter of course, as a
result of the new political reality. The new culture manifests itself in the introduction
of new forms in the ceramic kit, in the architecture, both religious and domestic, and
in the internal decoration. The more intense and more frequent relations with
neighbouring Sicily resulting from the new political status reinforces the presence of
the third artistico-cultural influence, the Greco-Hellenistic one, which was already
present in the two other cultures.
The most evident testimony of this syncretism is provided by the locally struck
coinage of the second and first centuries B.C. in which Greek legends coincide with
iconographic motifs from the Punic repertory, having substituted Punic legends; at
a second stage Hellenistic iconographic motifs appear together with Latin legends.< 39 >
Another evidence of the symbiosis between the Punic and Greek components is
found in the well-known pair of identical candelabra, of Hellenistic sculptural
tradition but carrying dedications· inscribed in Punic and Greek.< 40 >
An event of great importance for the history of the Maltese archipelago which is
recorded in a written source - the only one for the first century A.D. and for the
following four centuries - concerns the shipwreck of the Apostle Paul on the coast
of Malta.< 41 > It is an event of such importance because it has given birth to a whole
series of 'historical' traditions - traditions that are documented in Maltese
historiography from the 16th century onwards and which claim support from the
writings of Saint Jerome and the Venerable Bede - relating to the conversion to
Christianity of the whole Maltese population and to the consecration of Publius, the
first citizen of Malta, as the first bishop of the island by the Apostle of the Gentiles,
35. Diod. Sic. V, 12, 2.
36. See, in particular, the pottery recovered from tombs dating between the second and first centuries
B.C. The pottery of this period on exhibition in the National Museum of Archaeology has, in fact,
been classified by W. Culican and T. Gouder as 'Punico-Roman'.
37. M. Guzzo Amadasi, Le lscrizioni Fenicie e Puniche delle Colonie in Occidente, Rome (1967)
pp.23- 52.
38. Acts XXVlll, I- II.
39. E. Coleiro. Ricc:rche niJllliSm'ltiche. Missione. . /964. pp.ll7- 27; id., Maltese coins of the Roman
penod, Numts. Chron. 7th series, d (1971) pp. 67-91.
40. Bonanno, Quintinus ... , pp.200-3; id., Tradition, fig . I.
41. See note 38, above.
ROMAN ARTISTIC HERITAGE
7
as well as to the uninterrupted continuity of Christianity on these islands. <42 l One
must admit, however, that for the first four centuries of our era there is no evidence,
not even archaeological evidence, of the practice of the Christian religion. Such
evidence emerges for the first time in the fifth century, perhaps even later, and
consists of a group of incised stones unearthed during the excavations conducted by
the Missione Archeologica Ita/iana mentioned above on the site of a Roman villa at
San Pawl Milqi.< 43l One of these stones seems to represent a very sketchy and
primitive portrait of Saint Paul, another is said to reproduce his name. They are held
to testify the presence of a Pauline devotion on the site on which a church was later
constructed. The other testimonies of Christianity, much more tangible and
monumental, are the catacombs the Christian identity of which can be considered to
be solidly established. These catacombs have preserved for us precious gems of
palaeochristian art. <44 l
The end of the Roman period in Malta is placed by some at the end of the fourth
century (A.D. 395), that is the Theodosian division of the Empire,< 45 l by others - in
our view more appropriately - at the beginning of the sixth century (A.D. 535)
when the islands would have passed, together with Sicily, to form part of the
Byzantine Empire. <46 l
Architecture
The almost total absence of relics of Roman public and religious buildings in the
Maltese islands is, to say the least, surprising, the more so when one realizes that
they lie in the very midst of a geographic zone littered with cities which during the
Roman domination experienced the erection of numerous and magnificent public
and religious buildings of which ample relics survive. One need only mention the
cities of Syracuse, Catane and Tauromenion to the immediate north of the islands,
and Sabratha and Lepcis Magna to the south. No traces of temples, basilicas or
porticoes, not even of a single triumphal arch, however, survive in the ancient city of
Melite, nor in that of Gaudos. It is possible that both towns were subjected to the
same fate of devastating urban development as that experienced by another ancient
town in neighbouring Libya, Oea, the third city of Tripolitania, which has been
engulfed by the present Tripoli. Even so, in Tripoli one can still see .the standing
triumphal arch of Marcus Aurelius.
42. Quintin, ff.C2v - C2v; Vella, Earliest Description, pp.40 - 7; Abela, Descrittione, pp.221 - 40; A.A.
Caruana, Frammento della Storia Fenicio-Cartaginese, Greco-Romana e Bisantina, Musulmana e
Normanno-Aragonese delle /sole di Malta, Malta (1899), pp.242- 56. See also references in 1. Cassar
Pullicino, Pauline tradition in Malta, Scientia [Malta) 10 (1944) pp.l9 - 31; A.T. Luttrell, Girolamo
Manduca and Gian Francesco Abela: tradition and invention in Maltese hi storiography, Melita
Historica V11, 2 (1977) pp . l14 - 32.
43. See section on 'San Pawl Milqi' in Missione .. . 1963- 68; M. Cagiano de Azevedo, Testimonianze
Archeologiche della Tradizione Paolino a Malta, Rome (1966) pp.21 - 71.
44. E. Becker, Malta Sotterranea, Strassburg (1913); A. Ferrua, Antichita cristiane; le catacombe di
Malta, Civilta Cattolica 111, 2381 (1949) pp.505 -15; V. Borg, Une lie et ses hypogees de !'ere des
Les Dossiers de I'Archeolngie 19 (Nov. - Dec . 1976) pp.52 - l'i7: V. Camilleri ,
premiers chreti~ns.
Saint Agatha, Malta (1979); M. Buhagiar, Late Roman and Byzantine Catacombs, Oxford (1986). 45. A.A. Caruana, Frammento Critico, pp .305 - 83; T. Zammit, The Maltese Islands and their History ,
Malta (1952) p. 72 .
46. T.S . Brown, Byzantine Malta: a discussion of the sources, Medieval Malta (ed . A. Luttrell) London
(1975) p.73.
8
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ROMAN ARTISTIC HERITAGE
Nevertheless, the existence of such buildings in the city of Melite, and in its
vicinity, are attested by a few inscriptions and by several architectural elements and
fragments now preserved in the Museum of Roman Antiquities in Rabat, and in the
Cathedral Museum inside Mdina: bases, shafts and capitals of columns, parts of
architraves, cornices and soffits. In some cases these fragments betray the
monumental size of the buildings to which they once belonged, as well as the
richness of their architectonic ornamentation. According to the manuscript and
printed documents of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries these surviving fragments
should be much more numerous than they are at present.
Of the more significant inscriptions that testify the existence of public and
religious buildings one can mention the Latin one, very fragmentary, recording the
restoration of a temple to Proserpina. Another inscription in Latin, discovered in
1774 inside the city of Mdina, gives a list of the structural parts of a tetrastyle temple
to Apollo erected or restored by a rich benefactor. A building of a public nature, a
theatre - or a makeshift one to serve the same purpose - is suggested by another
inscription, in Greek, commemorating the untimely death of a young Pergamene
comic actor and lyre-player.
Referring to religious buildings outside the ancient city one cannot forget to
mention the religious complex of tas-Silg, about nine kilometres away from the same
city and overlooking the Marsaxlokk harbour. The Roman period is represented
there by the third, fourth and fifth phases in the succession of building phases
established by the preliminary report of the last excavation campaign conducted by
Hellenistic period (in actual fact
the University of Rome in 1970. In brief, during th~
already by the end of the fourth century B.C.) the sanctuary undergoes a vast
programme of reconstruction with the addition of courtyards, porticoes,
monumental gateways and pavings in stone slabs or opus signinum. To the north of
the central area a rectangular enclosure, datable to the first century B.C., must have
served as a sacrificial altar.
On the basis of the vast number of votive inscriptions dedicated to
Astarte/Hera/ Juno found inside it, the sanctuary at Tas-Silg is identifiable with the
}anum lunonis referred to by Cicero and Valerius, as well as by Ptolemy, which
before rhese excavations used to be located in the Grand Harbour.
Numerous private buildings, on the other hand, have been uncovered, in
particular the many villas scattered around the Maltese countryside; but very few
betray artistic aspirations. Amongst the buildings situated outside the city one
should single out the villa at Ramla Bay, in Gozo, whose architecture was adorned
with marble veneerings and limestone telamons, and the small thermal complex at
Ghajn Tuffieha which was decorated with carved benches and mosaics in varied
geometric designs.
Within the city Melite itself, then, a house with peristyle was discovered in 1881
which, given its rich ornamentation of polychrome mosaics and its very fine
collection of sculptures, must have belonged to an important Roman official, or a
ROMAN ARTISTIC HERITAGE
9
native one with refined and Romanized tastes. The peristyle had an epistyle in the
Doric order carved from Maltese limestone and covered with stucco and was very
elegant in appearance. Both the architecture and the mosaics seem to be datable to
the first century B.C., more precisely to the time of Sulla, that is the first twenty
years of that century.
This luxurious house was surrounded, probably at a later stage, by a series of
houses with very irregular plan and greatly inferior workmanship.
Painting and Mosaic
Before introducing the two-dimensional artistic media it is considered suitable to
make the following premise even though it might appear commonplace. Malta
shares with the coastal zones of most Mediterranean countries the climatic
conditions that are considered to be extremely unfavourable to the preservation of
such a fragile art as painting. One should not expect, therefore, to find in Malta at
the present time traces of paintings on organic materials, such as one would find them
in almost perfect state of preservation in the Fayum depression of Egypt, with its
stable, dry climate. On the other hand, one would not be expecting too much if one
hoped to come across remains of mural paintings as are commonly found in the
surrounding countries like Italy, Greece, Libya and Tunisia. Fragments of murals
are, however, disappointingly few. The Punic funerary tradition and its Roman
successor in Malta seem to have excluded any sort of painted decoration in their
underground tombs. Painted stucco with linear and figurative motifs appear only in
the Christian catacombs, that is during the fifth century A.D. or later. The most
attractive ones, mostly of the figurative type, are found in the St Agatha complex,
but a canopied grave decorated with figures of birds can also be seen in a recently
cleared, small catacomb underneath the church of St Catald at Rabat. Traces of
linear decoration are more common in the St Paul complex which preserves also a
picture of a seated figure with the name EVTYXION painted in red beside it.
Wall paintings decorating the Maltese houses of the Roman period are
documented by finds of traces of painted plaster reported during the archaeological
investigations of several of such buildings, but these end up almost always by
disappearing either because of difficulties of conservation or, more often, out of
neglect. The present writer remembers seeing remains of painted plaster only at the
Museum of Roman Antiquities in Rabat (coming from the town villa underneath),
at the Roman villa of San Pawl Milqi (some still in situ) and that of Zejtun . In the
majority of cases the fragments represent paintings of the so-called First Pompeian
Style, that is imitations of marble incrustations, while a few fragments in the Rabat
Museum suggest one or two figurative motifs.
The next to total absence of ancient paintings is compensated for by two groups of
floor mosaics of very fine quality. The first group decorated the dignitary's house of
Rabat mentioned above and consists of geometric patterns (some with complicated
optical effects) which surrounded centrally placed emblemata (small square scenes in
10
IK III
ROMAN ARTISTIC HERITAGE
opus vermicu/atum). The subject of the emblema at the centre of the peristyle, two
pigeons perched on the edge of a large metallic bowl was a very widely diffused
motif whose prototype has been traced back to the asaraton ('unswept floor') by
Sosos of Pergamon (Pliny, N.H. 36, 60). Another, much better known, derivation
from the same prototype is the emb/ema with four pigeons from Hadrian's villa at
Tivoli. A second emblema represents an exquisite scene of a putto holding various
types of fruits and surrounded by birds. The picture is generally interpreted as an
allegory of Autumn. A third emblema figures a scene which has been variously
interpreted: Hercules and Omphale according to one interpretation; the Biblical
episode of Samson and Delilah according to another. In our view, however, the
theme is that suggested by G. Me Rushforth, namely the story related by
Philostratos (Eik. 2, 11, 828) of the satyr surprised in his sleep by two maenads who,
having tied his hands behind his back, punish him for his misdoings by shaving his
beard. The clearly pointed ear and a small horn on the visible side of the male
figure's head confirms the latter's identity.
Nevertheless, even the large geometric floors of the Rabat house are high quality
specimens of mosaic art, in particular the intricate borders: volutes, double
guilloche, spirals and meanders in perspective, as well as garlands of leaves, flowers
and fruits carrying theatrical masks and bearded heads of old men in opus
vermicu/atum. This group of mosaics is easily classifiable among the oldest and
most beautiful mosaic compositions of the western Mediterranean.
The second group of mosaics was uncovered in 1929 inside the thermal complex of
Ghajn Tuffiefla. It stands out for its variety of geometric designs and testifies, along
with the Rabat series, to the presence on the island, during the first four centuries of
Roman domination, of first class mosaic workshops inasmuch as the emblemata
could be easily imported in the prefabricated state from well known centres of
production.
Besides the extant mosaics reviewed above, the existence of others, now lost, is
documented by manuscript literature of the 17th- 19th centuries preserved in the
National Library of Malta. The most curious specimen is the one that used to
decorate a small 'bath' (bagno) discovered in 1729 in the Grand Harbour in the
process of enlarging the quay beneath the Capuchin bastion of the Floriana
fortifications: Baron de Stadl and Count Ciantar wrote about it. It is hard to make
out the class, artistic qualities and date of the mosaics as they were destroyed soon
after they came to light. Among the figures represented a serpent, a fish and a
dragon are mentioned, figures that the contemporary writers interpret as
'hieroglyphics'.
Sculpture
It is thanks to the major durability of the material involved that we can consider
ourselves much luckier for the quantity of sculptural pieces preserved, as opposed to
the amount of painting. Even in quality the sculpture tends to be, at least in a
number of cases, of the highest order.
ROMAN ARTISTIC HERITAGE
II
In the study of Roman sculpture in Maltese collections one must face several
problems. The first problem is that of identifying the modern, pseudo-antique
pieces; which is not always an easy task, especially when the style and technique of
the ancient original is faithfully copied. The national collection includes a few
pieces, such as the head of a veiled old man and the statue of Hercules, which should
not be pronounced modern too rashly. The former has been tacitly accepted as
ancient by Ashby who included it in his catalogue of Roman sculpture. The second
has been considered ancient for almost three centuries, that is, from the time it
started to form part of the famous collection of antiquities of Gian Francesco Abela
(who published it in his work of 1647) until it was declared modern by Thomas
Ashby in 1915. Abela went so far as to identify it with the cult statue of the Maltese
temple of Hercules mentioned by Ptolemy.
Another task to be undertaken by the student of Maltese ancient sculpture is the
distinction between pieces of certain local provenance and those imported from
abroad in modern times. This also is not always easy, especially when the piece in
question is owned by a· private collector who, presumably not to detract its value,
declares it categorically of local provenance which very often cannot be verified. The
present writer has already identified as Cyrenaican a group of six funerary portraits
that were previously proposed as specimens of Maltese art of the Roman period.
These portraits were imported into Malta during the last century or the first few
decades of the present one. Besides these, however, there are other examples .
Once the local provenenance is ascertained, an effort should be made to identify,
if at all present, those pieces which are likely to be of local production. If the
existence of such a local production can be established, with an acceptable degree of
probability, one can go a step forward and try to identify its individual
characteristics. Of the Maltese collection only six pieces could be considered, with a
fair degree of probability, of local production: the head of a satyr in local limestone
kept in the Gozo Museum of Archaeology; a limestone telamon from the Ramla Bay
Roman villa, now lost; a sandaled foot also in the same museum; the funerary
inscribed limestone block with a few motifs carved in low relief, now in the Rabat
Museum of Roman Antiquities; and the two so-called garden ornaments, also in
limestone and in the same museum, representing amazons. The last mentioned are
rather uninspiring, probably produced in series, but the Gozo satyr and, possibly,
the Gozo telamon reveal a vein of fresh inspiration and spontaneous execution . It is
hoped that other examples of the same local currt:nt will come to light in order to
permit us to give more consistency to this reconstruction.
All the other known Roman sculptures in Malta are in marble and do not show
any stylistic or technical characteristic that can be explained in terms of local
production. Such characteristics are also absent in the marble architectural
fragments of the islands. For this reason it · seems that the existence of marble
workshops in Malta of the Roman period should, prima facie, be ruled out.
The majority of our marble sculptures are Roman copies. There are those,
12
ROMAN ARTISTIC HERITAGE
generally of reduced size, that can be traced back to Greek originals, mostly
Hellenistic: a head of Aphrodite; Aphrodite tying - or untying - her sandal;
Artemis as Huntress; an Archaistic female statuette; a torso of a satyr and one of an
Amazon. Others are copies, of varying artistic merit, of Roman originals, especially
of Roman imperial portraiture. One can count among these the headless togate
statues: the ones of greatest artistic quality are the statue of colossal dimensions, and
that of a boy carrying the 'bulla' round his neck, both from the Roman house of
Rabat. Portraits were also, most probably, carried by the headless female statue
from Gozo which is derived from a type called 'kore of Praxiteles' - judging from
the inscription which supported it, it represented Julia Augusta - and the one from
the same Rabat house represented in the type called 'Pudicitia'. Of another iconic
female statue of the 'kore' type we have only the lower half emanating a very
naturalistic plastic sensibility in the rendering of the drapery.
Imperial portrait heads are not lacking. They provide evidence that certain
members of the upper echelons of the Maltese society kept themselves well up to
date with contemporary artistic currents in the Roman metropolis. At the head of
this group is the portrait of Claudius, so rich in colourism, plastic modelling and
pathos that emanates from the face. More academic and cold, and less realistic is the
portrait of Antonia the Younger, mother of the same Emperor, which was
discovered together with his portrait in the same house. The head of Antoninus
Pius, of unkown provenance, is of a much inferior workmanship. The head of an
unknown individual of the first quarter of the third century A.D., on the other
hand, is not a work of indifferent aesthetic value. In view of the absence of adequate
iconographic comparanda it is to be considered a priceless original of Roman
portraiture.
Conclusion
In this brief and rapid survey of the three principal sectors of art in Malta in the
Roman period one observes the all but total lack of elements suggesting the existence
of a local, indigenous artistic vein in the period in question. This local strain is only
just perceptible in one or two pieces of sculpture. It is considered appropriate in this
context to recall the words of praise devoted to Maltese craftsmanship by the first
century B.C. writer Diodorus Siculus, with particular reference to the beautiful
buildings decorated with stucco and cornices.
Such a reference would make us hypothesize the existence of a proper indigenous
vein of artistic expression in Maltese architecture of the Roman age. This vein has,
however, not yet been identified in a concrete way, most probably because no one
has made a serious research in this field. Having opened and closed this parenthesis,
one is left with no other option but to conclude that one should really be speaking
not of "Maltese art in the Roman period" but of "Roman art in Malta". This
conclusion, it should be kept in mind, is valid - naturally in varying degrees - for
the artistic heritage of numerous other Mediterranean countries that were
incorporated in the Roman Empire.