Francesco Zahra's Madonna Del Pilar at St Peter's Monastery in Mdina

Fig. 1 Francesco Zahra (1710–1773), Virgin of Pilar appearing to St James (detail), 1744, oil on canvas, 249 x 184cm. (St Peter’s Monastery, Mdina / Photo: Daniel Cilia) Francesco Zahra’s Madonna del Pilar at St Peter’s Monastery in Mdina Petra Caruana Dingli highlights the role of women as patrons of the arts Dr Petra Caruana Dingli is Senior Lecturer at the Edward de Bono Institute Women and religious heritage at the University of Malta. She holds a doctorate in literature from the In early modern Malta, as elsewhere in Europe, women acted University of Oxford, and as patrons of artistic works in churches. They commissioned, has authored several works sponsored or donated paintings, silverware, tapestries and other on nineteenth-century and early modern literature precious objects and decorations. The role of women in creating and cultural heritage. Most this religious and artistic heritage has not been widely studied. recently, she edited the late Peter Serracino Inglott’s Despite the strict enclosure, or ‘clausura’, imposed at writings on the Blessed female monasteries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Adeodata Pisani OSB, cloistered nuns also engaged in art patronage. Monastery chapels shortlisted for the National Book Prize 2019. She co- were open to the public, and provided a space through which nuns edited Encounters with could present the identity of their community to society outside Valletta: A Baroque City Through the Ages, published the monastery. Some nuns also used this as an opportunity to by the International shape their own personal identities and legacies, such as through Institute of Baroque Studies, promoting their distinct religious devotions. University of Malta, in 2018. She is a long-standing A large painting by Francesco Zahra of the Madonna del council member of the Pilar, or ‘della Colonna’, appearing to St James hangs on a side wall heritage NGO Din l-Art Ħelwa, and in 2020 was of the chapel of the Benedictine monastery of St Peter in Mdina. appointed editor of its It was completed in 1744 and was commissioned by a nun at the magazine Vigilo. 58 · Treasures of Malta 79, Christmas 2020 59 · Treasures of Malta 79, Christmas 2020 Fig. 2-3 Francesco Zahra, Virgin of Pilar appearing to St James (detail), 1744, oil on canvas, 249 x 184cm; The Risen Christ appearing to the Virgin of Pilar, 1745, oil on canvas. (St Peter’s Monastery, Mdina / Photos: Daniel Cilia) monastery, Angelica Menville, who had a special devotion to was seeking advice from him on how to organise celebrations this Marian apparition, also known as ‘Our Lady of the Pillar’. and masses in honour of the Madonna del Pilar. Castillo wrote back to her, apologising for his shaky Italian, as he was not accustomed to writing in that language. The devotion in Spain In his letter he addressed his recipient only as ‘Madre’, so it cannot be confirmed whether this was Angelica Menville Sometime in the mid-eighteenth century a nun at this or another nun. He described how the annual feast day of monastery, who was devoted to the Madonna del Pilar, wrote the Madonna del Pilar was celebrated in his hometown of to Fra Francisco Antonio del Castillo y Jordán, of the Langue Zaragoza in Spain on 12 October each year. He offered to of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre within the Order of St John obtain more information for her from his relatives at home in in Malta. This langue had built the Church of the Madonna Zaragoza, and from a chaplain at the church dedicated to the del Pilar in Valletta. Madonna del Pilar in that city. He described the church to the Castillo was rector of Our Lady of Victory Church in nun in some detail, by way of comparison also noting that it Valletta for close to thirty years, from 1746 to 1774.1 The nun was larger than the Conventual Church of St John in Valletta. A strong devotion to the Madonna del Pilar had long existed on the Iberian peninsula, and especially in Zaragoza. The story goes that Our Lady appeared to St James Major on the bank of the river there, with a pillar or column. Accompanied by celestial music, she requested that a chapel be built upon that spot in her honour. The devotion in Malta A devotion to the Madonna del Pilar also flourished in Malta, especially among Spanish and Portuguese knights. In the early 1660s, the acclaimed Calabrian artist Mattia Preti (1613–1699) was commissioned by the knights of the Langue of Castille and Portugal to decorate their chapel dedicated to St James within the Conventual Church of St John in Valletta. There, Preti painted a beautiful lunette on a side wall of the chapel depicting the Madonna del Pilar appearing to St James. In the mid-1660s Preti also painted another image of the Madonna del Pilar, for a chapel within the Carmelite Church in Valletta. The coat of arms of a Spanish knight features on this painting.2 Years earlier, in 1627, Fra Nicolas 60 · Treasures of Malta 79, Christmas 2020 61 · Treasures of Malta 79, Christmas 2020 Fig. 4-5 Seating plan for the celebrations held at the chapel of St Peter’s Monastery on 14 November 1744. (Mdina Cathedral Museum, ACM, Misc 63, Vol. 1, ff. 112v-113). Cotoner had chosen that same chapel dedicated to the Commissioning the painting artist from Naples, whose name has not been identified. But Suor Angelica was the daughter of the successful Madonna del Pilar for his investiture as a Knight of the when this work arrived she was disappointed with it, and sent silversmith Vincenzo Menville of Valletta, and his wife Order of St John. In the rank of grand master over forty In his comprehensive study of Francesco Zahra, Keith it back. She then turned to Zahra and commissioned him to Angelica née Tholossenti. Menville gained his warrant in years later, Cotoner (r.1663–1680) laid the foundation Sciberras describes him as Malta’s most important painter create another painting of the Madonna del Pilar.6 As noted 1715 and was appointed Consul for Goldsmiths in 1733.7 Her stone of the new church dedicated to the Madonna del Pilar, of the mid-eighteenth century whose, ‘style wonderfully above, Zahra had already painted a version of this Marian secular name was Antonia, and when she professed as a nun in Strada San Michele (today West Street) in Valletta. As captured the spirit of the late Baroque. He was extremely apparition for a church in Żurrieq. on 17 June 1725, aged seventeen, she chose her own mother’s noted above, this was built by the Knights of the Langue of prolific and could handle the brush with a fascinating ease, Zahra’s work was well received by Suor Angelica, and she name Angelica as her religious name. She was born in around Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre, which was also Cotoner’s thus furnishing Maltese churches with hundreds of paintings, was eager to inaugurate it. After some debate with the bishop’s 1708 and her mother may have died in childbirth, or soon langue. Its titular painting is by the Maltese artist Stefano large and small.’5 office to identify a suitable date for the occasion within the afterwards, as in 1710 her widowed father Vincenzo remarried. Erardi (1630–1716). Following the earthquake of 1693, Suor Angelica Menville at St Peter’s Monastery had religious calendar of the monastery, Saturday, 14 November In three separate periods between the years 1750–1751, the church was reconstructed by Italian architect Romano first commissioned a painting of the Madonna del Pilar by an 1744 was agreed upon. 1756–1761 and 1767–1771, Angelica was abbess of the Carapecchia in around 1718. Monastery of St Peter. But when she commissioned the In the early eighteenth century, Portuguese Grand painting from Francesco Zahra in 1744, she was not yet an Master Antonio Manoel de Vilhena (r.1722–1736) built abbess. She was then thirty-five years old and had been at the a chapel dedicated to the Madonna del Pilar at San Anton monastery for around nineteen years. Palace, the country residence of the grand masters in Attard. We can but wonder what prompted her special devotion. Besides the Knights, the Madonna del Pilar also Would she perhaps have seen the paintings of the Madonna had a devoted following among the Maltese population, del Pilar by Mattia Preti or Stefano Erardi when she lived in dating back to at least the late sixteenth century. In his will Valletta as a young girl, before she joined the monastery in of 1585, Salvatore Testaferrata requested that his heirs Mdina? Sciberras also notes that a ‘diluted interest in Preti is complete the construction of a small chapel which he was manifest’ in Francesco Zahra’s painting of this theme in the in the process of building on his land in the outskirts of monastery chapel.8 the village of Żabbar, dedicated to ‘nostra donna del nive sive del piliero’ (our lady of the snow or of the pillar). He also asked them to install a painting of this Madonna in The celebrations the chapel. Pastoral visits during the seventeenth century confirm that the chapel was known as ‘del piliero’, but it On the appointed day of 14 November 1744, the walls and also celebrated the annual feast of the Madonna tas-Silġ (of ceiling of the monastery chapel were covered with damask the snow).3 hangings. Sixty candles in silver candlesticks adorned the altar, In 1647, an altarpiece dedicated to the Madonna del and silver vases were filled with flowers.

Load more