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Italian Baroque Music in Malta: A Madrigal from the Music Archives at the Cathedral Museum in Mdina

2010; eScholarship Publishing, University of California; Volume: 1; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5070/c311008879

2155-7926

Matteo Sansone,

Historical Influence and Diplomacy

For centuries, Malta's central position in the Mediterranean made the island a battlefield in the neverending confrontation between Christians and Muslims and determined successive military initiatives to gain control of such a strategic outpost by European rulers, from the Norman kings of Sicily to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, who settled there in 1530.Malta's links with Sicily and mainland Italy grew stronger after the Great Siege of 1565 and the final defeat of the Turks, when the Knights founded the new capital, Valletta, and built their Conventual Church of St. John.While St. Paul's Cathedral in the old capital, Mdina, kept its title and prerogatives (including the musical chapel), St. John's was granted the status of Co-Cathedral, and the Knights lavished artworks and embellishments on it to make the order's church reflect their power and prestige.In 1607, Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt welcomed one of the leading Italian artists, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, who was seeking shelter and protection in Malta after killing a man in Rome.His impressive portrait of Wignacourt (see Fig. 1) earned Caravaggio new commissions, and in the following months, he produced what is perhaps his greatest masterpiece: The Beheading of St. John the Baptist.As a reward, in July 1608 the painter was admitted into the order as Knight of Obedience.Yet, he soon lost the favor of the Grand Master after getting mixed up in a brawl with other knights.As a result, he spent the summer of 1608 in the prisons of Fort St Angelo.Early in October, Caravaggio managed to escape to Sicily, and in 1610, his short, violent life came to an end on the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy as he made his way back to Rome to receive the pope's pardon. 1 In the second half of the century, another great Italian painter, Mattia Preti, responsible for a large part of the decorations in St. John's, became a Knight of Malta, lived there until his death in 1699, and was buried among his peers in the Co-Cathedral.Next to the artworks of architects and painters, it is perhaps the massive presence of Italian Baroque music that can best evidence the intense relations between Italy and Malta in the seventeenth century.Surrounded by massive walls with bastions and ramparts, with an imposing church in the main square, Mdina proved the perfect location for the preservation of musical treasures and archives documenting the liturgical activity of the cappella in St. Paul's cathedral and the worldly entertainments of the city's affluent residents.Stored away and neglected as tastes changed and new music was adopted, the precious material survived a 1 Caravaggio's The Beheading of St. John the Baptist and Saint Jerome Writing are housed in the Oratory of the Co-Cathedral.For the circumstances of his imprisonment and escape from the island, see Keith Sciberras, "'Frater Michael Angelus in tumultu': The Cause of Caravaggio's Imprisonment in Malta," The Burlington