2 SEPTEMBER2018 I valletta 201 a NO~ NOT CARAVAGGIO Crowds may flock to view Caravaggio's Beheading of StJohn another artist, equally talented, has an even a greater link with-Valletta -Mattia Preti. n 1613, in the small town of Taverna, in Calabria, southern Italy, a baby boy was born who would grow up to I become one of the world's greatest and most prolific artists of his time and to leave precious legacies in Valletta and the rest of Malta. He is thought to have first been apprenticed to Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, who was known as a follower and admirer of Caravaggio. His brother, Gregorio, was also a painter and painted an altarpiece for the Chapel of . the world designed and built by Preti, sometime in the 1620s Preti joined.him in the Langue of Aragon, Preti offered to do and no fewer than seven of his paintings Rome. · more wor1< on the then new and very, hang within it. They include the There he grasped Caravaggio's bareSt John's Co-Cathedral. Grand monumental titular painting and others techniques and those of other famous Master Raphael Cotoner accepted his which fit perfectly in the architecturally and popular artists of the age, including offer·and commissioned him to decorate designed stone alcoves he created for Rubens and Giovanni Lanfranco. the whole vaulted ceiling. The them. Preti spent time in Venice between 1644 magnificent scenes from the life of St In keeping with the original need for and 1646 taking the chance to observe the John took six years and completely the church, the saints in the images are all opulent Venetian styles and palettes of transformed the cathedral. Preti was connected in some way with the deadly artists like Veronese. He remained based promoted to the rank of a Knight of disease. in Rome however, Grace. Mattia Preti presented the Grand where his work But Mattia Preti's talent did not end at Master with a model of the church in consisted mostly painting. And, he was to leave the island May 1676. That same year the plague of painting ·another even more priceless artistic ended. ·church frescos. painter of the era. legacy. In December, 1675 there was an As an artist Mattia Preti is justifiably Between1653- One of his great works, in Naples was a outbreak of plague in Marsamxetto. It revered. His career was long and very 1660, Preti series of large frescoes depicting the r:apidly spread to Valletta, Senglea and prolific. His paintings, mostly in the worked in Naples, plague with the Virgin Mary, and saints, Zurrieq. Malta lost a thircl of its Baroque style and depicting hundreds of absorbing the delivering people from the.plague, population. scenes, portraits ·and ecclesiastical influence of, Luca painted on seven gates in the city. Sadly, Grand Master Nicholas Cotoner1ooked subjects, hang in the greatest museums, Giordano, these have been lost over time but there to the divine intercession of the Virgin churches and private collections another are two sketches in the Capodimonte Mary, the Immaculate Conception, as the worldwidei including, of course, his major Museum in Naples. power over evil, to stop the plague. He hometown. But Malta has the honour of .Preti visited the island of Malta 1659, ordered that the small Sarria Church, in being the place he called home, where probably due to the patronage of the Floriana; be rebuilt in a grander style in some of his greatest work was done, and Knights of StJohn. It was to become his thalli<sgiving for her intercessi<:m. Mattia can still be enjoyed. Ancl where, at the lasting home. His reputation grew and so Preti was commissioned to design the then remarkable old age of 86, he was did his circle of patrons. Commissions church and he also oversaw its building. finally laid to rest in the cathedral he came from the whole of Europe. Having It is thought to be the only church in transformed so brilliantly, in 1699. .