The Observant Franciscan church of Santa Maria di Gesù or Ta’ Ġieżu in Rabat, Malta, houses within it some remarkable Renaissance artefacts that are remnants from the original church built in the last few years of the fifteenth century and the initial years of the sixteenth century.
On 23 February 1504, the Observant Franciscans – through Antonello Faga, the procurator of the Franciscan Observants of Messina – commissioned Antonello Gagini (1478–1536) in Messina to produce a marble Madonna and Child with a pedestal.
The Madonna and Child are currently being intensely studied and conserved and restored by Prevarti Ltd under the direction of Dr Charlene Vella, while the pedestal is currently exhibited at MUZA, Valletta.
Just six years later, in 1510, the Observants received a donation of 25 uncie for Ta’ Ġieżu from the private patron Giovanni Frendo. This altarpiece commission was entrusted to Antonello da Messina’s nephew who was then active in Messina, the prolific artist Antonio de Saliba. The church was rebuilt in 1752 where Saliba’s polyptych was revered as the titular altarpiece in the new church until 1785 when its different parts – its elaborate framework and various paintings – were dismembered, transferred to the sacristy and eventually dispersed.
The Franciscan Parish Archives (FPA) preserve a copy of the receipt dated 20 November 1517 when, Antonio de Saliba in Messina, declares to have received the last payment for the altarpiece which had already been completed two years earlier, in 1515.
A 1730 description of Antonio’s Rabat Observant Franciscan altarpiece by Friar Giovanni Antonio Mercieca survives in the FPA. The account speaks of a Gothic altarpiece set in three tiers. The top tier had a central painting of the Deposition of Christ from the Christ flanked by individual paintings portraying St Paul and St Anthony of Padua to the left, and St Francis and St Ludwig (that is, St Louis of Toulouse) to the right The central tier had the Madonna enthroned with the Child standing on her left knee, flanked by individual paintings portraying the Virgin Saints Agatha and Catherine to the left, and Lucy and Barbara to the right.
The lowest tier, or predella, with the Saviour in the centre-flanked by the Apostles. The top and middle tier therefore consisted of ten panels, with five panels in each tier, while the predella could have consisted of seven other panels, as is the case in Antonio de Saliba’s 1530 polyptych in Monforte San Giorgio (Province of Messina, Sicily), which, although survives with several lacunae and without its original framework, shows an altarpiece composed of seventeen different panels.
The present church of Ta’ Ġieżu houses two paintings from this polyptych: a Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels and the Deposition, both of which were studied, diagnostically tested, and restored between July 2013 and December 2014.
In a recent article published in Melita Historica, titled ‘Unrecognised paintings by Antonio de Saliba on Malta’, Dr Charlene Vella discussed a predella painting in a private collection which she associated with the central painting in Antonio de Saliba’s Franciscan altarpiece predella.
It portrays the central blessing Resurrected Christ with the pennant in his hand has a chalice that receives Christ’s blood from his side wound while St Paul with the sword is depicted to Christ’s left and St John the Evangelist is to Christ’s right. Dr Vella sustains that St John must have been included in this place of honour, instead of the ubiquitous St Peter, in honour of the donor Giovanni Frendo.
To these three known paintings that Antonio de Saliba executed for the Rabat Observants, Dr Vella has now located another three in local private collections. One of them is another painting from the predella portraying St Andrew holding the saltire cross who is in silent conversation with another Apostle. The other two paintings portray two individual male saints on separate panels in three-quarter profile view and in three-quarter length: St Anthony of Padua and St Louis of Toulouse.
Based on the 1730 account and the surviving paintings composing the Monforte San Giorgio polyptych, a hypothetical reconstruction of the altarpiece has been created. These paintings, although heavily overpainted, share many stylistic similarities with Antonio de Saliba paintings. Diagnostic investigations will help to confirm these three attributions.
“We therefore now know of six paintings that belonged to Antonio de Saliba’s Rabat Observants altarpiece, which means that eleven paintings are still missing,” states Dr Charlene Vella.
“One can only imagine what this altarpiece looked like in its elaborate Late Gothic gilded framework housed in a simple late medieval Gothic church with a low nave. It must have provided a great comparison to the Catalan titular altarpiece of the late medieval Cathedral in the Civitas, or Mdina, dating to about a century earlier. It was certainly the grandest Renaissance altarpiece that one could admire in the Maltese islands. It is no coincidence, therefore, that the Grand Master of the Order of St John, Philippe Villiers de l’Isle Adam, worshipped in this church and where he had a cell in which to rest,” added Dr Vella.
L’Isle Adam also extended his patronage to the Friars: the surviving Observant Franciscans’ Gothic cloister was commissioned during his magistracy. L’Isle Adam died in his cell in Rabat on 21 August 1534; at his request, his precordia was interred in a pilaster within the church.
Hope remains that the six known paintings from Antonio de Saliba’s 1510-1515 Rabat altarpiece are exhibited together soon, with the other eleven paintings perhaps duly identified.
