Passio et Resurrectio – The Passion and Resurrection of Christ

Linking past traditions to recent developments in the religious and secular rituals that commemorate Christ’s passion and resurrection, the artefacts on display in this permanent exhibition explore the cult’s rich socio-cultural and artistic legacy.  Highlights include an artistic church model set up for Holy Week, two life-size polychrome sculptures paraded in the traditional Good Friday processions, a wooden ċuqlajta (clapper), and two eighteenth century paintings, respectively portraying Our Lady of Sorrows and Christ Crucified.

The Cult of Saints

The cult of Saints has been popular in Malta since the Middle Ages, renewing itself in the 1600s with the church’s efforts to regulate their veneration and canonisation.  In line with the Counter Reformation’s emphasis on the appropriate artistic representation of holy persons, collection items on display in this exhibition include a number of early modern paintings representing Counter Reformation saints such as Saint Carlo Borromeo and Saint Camillo de Lellis.  Other artefacts comprise a statue of Saint John the Baptist, patron of the Order, which represents the persistence of his cult, more than a century after the Knight’s departure from the island.  The statue was made by local sculpture Agostino Camilleri (1885-1979).

The Eucharist

During his 1575 pastoral visit, Mgr. Pietro Dusina promoted the widespread formation of confraternities dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament in order to encourage veneration of the Eucharist.  One of the collection’s highlights for this theme is therefore an eighteenth century painting portraying the brethren of the Blessed Sacrament in procession.  The exhibit is complemented by, amongst others, a portable altar dating from the same period and a model of the Last Supper in wax.  The theme also extends into the chapel, built by Inquisitor Tommaso Ruffo in 1696 and furnished with items from the collection, including a tabernacle, a silver suspended oil lamp and a wooden prie-dieu.

The Cult of the Virgin

The strength of Malta’s connection with the Virgin, testified by the numerous feasts held in her honour throughout the island, has its roots in history.  Two great victories are attributed to her intercession, namely the Great Siege of 1565 and the island’s survival of World War II.  The items exhibited therefore reflect the people’s faith and include vernacular stone statues of the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, an eighteenth century bedpost showing an image of the former, a number of paintings depicting various moments in the Virgin’s life and a statuette of her as a baby in swaddling robes.

Christmas

The idea behind this exhibition is to relate local Christmas traditions while setting them within a wider international context.  Items on display therefore do not only include the traditional Maltese crib made of gagazza (rubble wall stones), with its pasturi dressed in local costumes, but also a number of miniature cribs from around the world, collected by Albert and Lina McCarthy during their travels.  Highlights incorporate cribs from countries as far and culturally diverse as Peru, China, Germany, Kenya and Italy, amongst others.  

A Social Portrait of Early Twentieth-Century Malta

This collection of unfired clay figurines by Pawlu Scicluna (1855-1933), a self-taught artist from Valletta, illustrates Malta’s social categories approximately a hundred years after the Inquisition’s departure from the island in 1798.  Including a number of well-known dignitaries of the period, such as lawyer Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici (il-Gross), and painter Giuseppe Calì, the collection also features a great number of statuettes depicting priests and friars.  Suffice it to say that in Scicluna’s lifetime one person in nearly 300, from a population of around 200,000, was an ecclesiastic.

The Palace

As one of early modern Malta’s three main centres of religious and political power, the Inquisitor’s Palace is furnished by items from the collection that reflect the importance of its past status.  Besides choosing furniture that complements the elegantly frescoed rooms of the Piano Nobile, such as eighteenth-century writing bureaus, sculptured cabinets and intarsio chests of drawers, the building also includes a reconstruction of one of the most important spaces in an early modern Palace: the dining room.  Accompanying the centrally-located table and velvet-cushioned high back chairs are, amongst others, colourful period majolica jars and a selection of silver table-ware favoured by aristocratic and high-ranking ecclesiastics of the time.