~Mattia Preti’s move to Malta – ambition and art intertwine.

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Today, visitors who enter St John’s Co-Cathedral can see a tombstone surrounded by leaves at the foot of the first pillar on the left in the bay leading to the sacristy. That is the tombstone of Mattia Preti, the 17th century artist from Calabria who not only painted the barrel vault of the church but also oversaw its redecoration into the baroque masterpiece it is now.

We know him as Mattia Preti, but according to documents he was called Matthia de Prete. Whether this means he was descended from a priest or whether this was just his surname is not clear.

Mattia Preti came to Malta on 11 August 1659 but his association with the Order had begun many years before as prior to 1642, Preti had asked to be admitted as a Knight of the lowest rank, Cavaliere d’Obbedienza, to the Order.

Indeed, soon after he came to Malta, he asked to be upgraded to Cavaliere della Grazia, however this led to an examination of how he had become Cavaliere d’Obbedienza. Only knights coming from very old and noble families were accepted as Cavaliere della Grazia with the only exceptions being those of exceptional merit.The file showed that in 1642 Preti was accepted as Cavaliere d’Obbedienza and the Pope ratified this decision. Before he was accepted, however, he had to be subjected to an inquiry into his family’s background.

After interrogating two notables from Taverna, his hometown, the enquiry found that Matthia de Prete, was born to Cesare and Innocenza who “were reputed to be husband and wife”. The testimony insisted that the family was a noble one. They lived their lives separated from the ‘plebe’, the common people, and Mattia or Matthia himself never touched a machine with his hand. His was the profession of a painter, an artist.

Even with all this, however, things took time and Preti was forced to remind Pope Urbanus VIII of his desire. At last, on 1 November 1642, the Pope consented and Mattia Preti duly became a Knight, Cavaliere d’Obbedienza in the church of Sant’Anna dei Palafrenieri, inside the Vatican itself, the only parish church in the Vatican and the church of the pontifical grooms (hence the name).

He then moved to Naples where he made a name for himself as one of the best artists in the city. When Naples was hit by a plague, he was commissioned to paint the Blessed Virgin and Saint Francis Xavier on all 12 gates of the city. For Preti to come to Malta, however, required a coincidence and a hegemonic strategy.

Martin de Redin, from the langue of Aragon and Navarre, had been Ambassador of the Order in Rome and later Viceroy of Sicily. He was also the head of the Aragonese langue. De Redin was very ambitious and wanted to become grand master. So he focused on redecorating the Chapel of Aragon in St John’s and wanted to make it so beautiful that it would be the envy of all the other langues. The redecoration of the chapel, in other words, was to become his electoral manifesto.

In March 1658, de Redin, not yet a grand master, wanted to add a painting to the chapel. Actually, he added two, and in doing so showed extreme diplomatic tact with his Aragonese and Navarran confreres.
Navarre was then split between two patron saints – St Firmin, whose devotion is even today celebrated in Pamplona and whose honour was fiercely upheld by the canons of the Pamplona cathedral, and the new saint, St Francis Xavier who was a newer saint and honoured as the apostle of the Far East. Besides, de Redin himself was distantly related to St Francis Xavier.

In order to bring some peace to the dispute, Pope Alexander VII (former Inquisitor to Malta Fabio Chigi) ruled in 1657 that both were to be honoured equally as patrons of Navarre. De Redin, intent on beautifying the Chapel of Aragon, in March 1658 wrote to the Jesuit provincial of Naples asking him to get the best artist in town to paint St Francis Xavier for the chapel. The provincial duly complied and the painting arrived in Malta where it was very much appreciated. It was blessed in the Jesuits’ church and carried in procession to St John’s. Till then, the new Grand Master de Redin and Mattia Preti had never met each other.

There does not seem to be much documentation regarding the second painting. In fact, for a long time it was known only as the Santo Vescovo. But it seems to be a painting of St Firmin and the wider context of the dispute between the two patron saints would seem to confirm de Redin’s wish to be diplomatically equidistant between the two.
The Chapel of Aragon is dedicated to St George, the patron saint of Aragon and the great painting over the altar is by Preti. It would seem that this painting, like the even bigger one of the martyrdom of St Catherine in her church next to Castille, were made in Italy and sent over by Preti, who worked on them after he left Malta after the short stay in 1659.

The previous altarpiece depicting St George was said to be old and in a very bad state. Also, it excited ‘little devotion’. There is a detail in the painting that shows how Mattia Preti went along with the Grand Master’s ambitions. De Redin urged the Pope to announce a new crusade to free the Holy Sepulchre. Eventually, nothing came of this proposal but the St George painting shows (at the bottom between the horse’s legs) the Turkish flag being assaulted by a host of Aragonese and Navarran warriors with their flags flying.

The next chapel towards the entrance to St John’s is the Chapel of Portugal and Castile dedicated to St James. When the Castilian knights were planning to redecorate the chapel, they said they wanted to make it as beautiful as the Chapel of Aragon.
Stratigraphic analysis of the St James painting shows evidence of globigerina in the preparation, through the presence of microfossils. This kind of stone is only found in Malta, so it shows that Mattia Preti changed the way he prepared a canvas for painting from the method he had learned in Rome and used in Naples. Analysis of the paintings at Sarria church (which was designed by Preti and filled with his paintings) gives a similar result.

Mattia Preti soon came back to Malta and in September 1661, Grand Master Rafael Cotoner, the successor of de Redin, also from the Langue of Aragon, accepted Preti’s offer to redecorate the interior of St John’s into the baroque masterpiece it is today. Preti died in Malta in 1699, having spent 40 years working in Malta, painting many more works than just those in St John’s Co-Cathedral; Malta’s art heritage forever enriched by the ambition of two men.

This article is a transcript of a lecture given by expert restorer Giovanni Mantella to mark the 400th anniversary of Mattia Preti’s birth in Taverna, a town near Catanzaro in Calabria. Giovanni Mantella has been entrusted with the restoration of many of Mattia Preti’s works in Malta.