Alof de Wignacourt (1547-1622), Grand Master of the Order of St. John. Malta

Olof de Wignacourt (1547-1622), Grand Master of the Order of St John, Malta

In 2024, I had the pleasure of staying at the House of W. in Nicholas Street, Valletta, Malta. When we booked, we didn’t realise the building's significance. Located in the heart of Valletta, just a short walk from the Grand Master's Palace and St John's Co-Cathedral (formerly the Conventual Church of St. John), the building appears unremarkable from the outside, similar to many others in Valletta. However, step inside, and you can feel Malta’s rich history come alive.

Most older Maltese houses have an open interior 
to let in light and for air circulation.

When Malta became the most bombed place on Earth during WWII, the building, like others nearby, was destroyed. After the new owners purchased the building, they aimed to restore it to emphasize its historical importance. Research in Malta’s archives uncovered plans showing that the building was once owned by none other than Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt, a key figure in Malta’s history.

Official portrait of de Wignacourt

Alof de Wignacourt was born in 1547 to a noble French family, and at just 17 years old, he answered the call to arms from France to defend the Maltese islands that had come under the control of the Order of Saint John in 1530 against the Ottoman invasion known as the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. At the time, the Knights' stronghold was in the Three Cities, particularly Birgu, where they built Fort St. Angelo on the site of a medieval castle. This bastioned fort, located at the centre of the Grand Harbour, overlooks the main battle that took place at Fort St Elmo on the Sceberras Peninsular It was during this time that de Wignacourt’s skill as an engineer came to the fore, After the Ottomans were defeated, Grand Master Jean de Valette decided to build the new city named La Vallette, (Valletta) in his honour and after only four years of joining the order, his prudence and courage, combined with his engineering skills were quickly put to use earning him a nomination as Lieutenant of the new city of Valletta.

A painting of The Great Siege of Malta showing galleys around Senglea, 
which was almost defeated, and Fort St Angelo in Birgu.

De Wignacourt's military and administrative skills were soon recognised, and he was appointed Grand Cross and head of the Langue of France. His outstanding merits and services rendered to the Order earned him the unanimous election to the Grand Magistry. With his election as Grand Master in 1601, the Order experienced a naval and military power rebirth, demonstrating their maritime supremacy in the Mediterranean by expanding the navy to include a great galleon commissioned by him in Austria at 60,000 gold scudi. In 1602, he dispatched galleys of the Order on an expedition against the corsairs of North Africa, seizing the town of Mahomet and expelling the corsairs. It must be noted that corsairs. Two years later, the island of Kos was taken, followed by Corinth in 1611.

A Maltese galley brings in a captured Ottoman galley

A painting showing Maltese galleys capturing an Ottoman 
vessel near Malta

By the beginning of the 17th century, the importance of corsairs in the Mediterranean cannot be underestimated. In an area mostly dominated by Ottomans or Spanish, switching from a military role to an economic, viable, and necessary one. Captured booty made these states wealthy, and with wealth came diverse trades. In fact, the Order’s fleet of private corsairs made them some of the most feared seamen in the Mediterranean.

De Wignacourt Coat of Arms on the 
reconstructed arch.

After the Maltese successfully defended the islands against another Turkish raid of 60 vessels carrying 5,000 men, efforts were made to build new coastal fortifications. Under the reign of Grand Master Martin Garzez, another military engineer, Giovanni Rinaldini, was asked to suggest improvements, but after Garzez died in 1601, de Wignacourt became Grand Master, and he set about building the defenses himself. These included the Wignacourt Tower at St Paul's Bay and St Julien's Tower at Marsaxlokk. Only four of the original six forts now survive. He also oversaw significant expansions and renovations to the fortifications and buildings of Malta, including the construction of the Wignacourt Aqueduct in 1616, which brought fresh water to the capital city of Valletta.

The Tower at St Paul's Bay

The Wignacourt Aqueduct

During his reign, de Wignacourt often defended the privileges of the Order, preserving peace among the knights of different Langues, which was mainly a cosmopolitan order. Despite the formal structure of the Langues, the linguistic landscape was complex. French was the dominant language and acted as the language of chivalry during the Middle Ages, though Italian, specifically Tuscan Italian, became the main language for official purposes after the Order settled in Malta. French remained in use for documentation and maps, especially due to the influence of notable French military engineers. Latin was also used in official documents and diplomatic correspondence, but French was initially preferred for administrative purposes.

Selmun Palace (villa)

The Mistra Gate (1760) is the main entrance to the 
large estate once owned by Caterina Vitale.

In 1607, Wignacourt established the Monte della Redenzione degli Schiavi after a Capuchin friar delivered a series of sermons about the plight of Christian slaves under Muslim captivity. The ransom for a Maltese slave was initially set at 70 scudi, but this later rose to 120 scudi. From 1707 onwards, the rate increased to 150 scudi. In the early years, the institution struggled to gather enough funds, but this improved when Caterina Vitalee, a noblewoman of Greek descent, bequeathed most of her estate to the Monte di Redenzione upon her passing in 1619. Some of her property was sold, and an extra 6,000 scudi was donated by Gio. Domenico Felici, who allowed the institution to begin operating. The Foundation continued until 1798, when, during the French occupation of Malta, it was taken over by the government, and the estates formerly belonging to the Monte di Redenzione became state property.

‘Portrait of Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt with
 a Page’ by Caravaggio

It was under Wignacourt's reign that the painter, Caravaggio, left for Malta. He travelled in July 1607 aboard a vessel of the Order and was enthusiastically accepted into the folds of the Order as a Knight of Obedience on 14 July 1608. The Grand Master was aware of Caravaggio’s dark past, when, in May 1606, whilst working in Rome, he killed a man named Ranuccio Tomassoni. This should have impeded the artist from entering the Order, yet de Wignacourt had managed to obtain papal permission to accept the artist within the Order and became his patron. Whilst in Malta, Caravaggio painted some of his most famous paintings, ‘The Beheading of St John the Baptist’ and ‘St Jerome Writing’, both of which are at St John’s Co-Cathedral. In 1608, he painted the ‘Portrait of Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt with a Page’, now in the Louvre, Paris. Unfortunately, Caravaggio’s period of relative calm was short-lived, as by late August, he was involved in yet another brawl. This time, several knights were wounded. He was immediately arrested and imprisoned in Fort St Angelo. Thoroughly disgraced, Caravaggio managed to escape before his trial and fled from Malta.

‘Beheading of St John the Baptist’ by Caravaggio.

On 1 December 1608, in a meeting of the Public Assembly held in the Oratory of St John’s Co-Cathedral, in front of his masterpiece, the ‘Beheading of St John the Baptist’, Caravaggio was “expelled and thrust forth like a rotten and fetid limb” from the Order. Although his period in Malta was short-lived, his work contributed to that period of the Order’s grandeur and might.

Parade armour of Wignacourt, displayed in the Palace Armoury, Valletta

Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt suffered a stroke in August 1622, while he was out hunting. He died on September 14 at the age of 75. Like his predecessors, he is buried in the crypt of St. John's Co-Cathedral. De Wignacourt’s armour now stands in the Armoury at the Grand Master’s Palace. It is beautifully engraved and in excellent condition.

Mattia Preti: Italian Baroque Artist by Kathryn Gauci

Mattia Preti: Italian Baroque Artist by Kathryn Gauci

Detail: Mattia Preti’s Self Image - a painting by the southern Italian artist acquired by Heritage Malta. Photo:Times of Malta.

Having recently returned from Malta, I was inspired by the work of Mattia Preti (24 February 1613 – 3 January 1699) whose art illustrates the exuberant style of the late Baroque. He was such a prolific artist and his work defines St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta. Preti was born in the small town of Taverna in Calabria, Italy. He is called Il Cavalier Calabrese (the Calabrian Knight) after his appointment as a Knight of the Order of St. John (Knights of Malta) in 1660. His apprenticeship is said to have been with Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, a follower of Caravaggio. Sometime before 1630, he joined his brother Gregorio (also a painter), in Rome where he became familiar with the techniques of Caravaggio and his school as well as with the work of other masters at the time such as Rubens, Guido Reni, Giovanni Lanfranco, and other notable artists of the day.

In Rome, he painted fresco cycles in the Saint’Andrea della Valle and San Carlo ai Catinari  Between 1644 and 1646, he spent time in Venice but remained based in Rome until 1653, returning later in 1660–61. He also painted frescoes for the church of San Biagio at Modena (1651–2) and participated in the fresco decoration of Palazzo Pamphilj in Valmontone (1660–61)

 

Allegoria dell’Aria. Palazzo Pamphilj in Valmontone

 

During most of 1653–1660, Preti worked in Naples and was influenced by another prominent painter of his era, Luca Giordano. His major works include a series of large fresco ex-votos depicting the Virgin or saints delivering people from the plague, which were painted on seven city gates and are now lost - two sketches for them are in the museum in Naples, including a bozzetto of the Virgin with the baby Jesus looming over the dying and their burial parties which envisions a Last Judgement presided over by a woman. Preti also won a commission to supervise the construction, carving, and gilding for the nave and transept of  San Pietro a Maiella, along with producing a Judith and Holofernes and Saint John the Baptist, both still in Naples

 

Saint Veronica with the Veil

Such religious themes were prevalent in strong catholic countries like Italy and Malta at the time, and as a consequence he was made a Knight of Grace in the Order of St John when he visited the Order's headquarters in Malta in 1659. Preti was to spend most of the remainder of his life there. He was commissioned to paint the entire barrel-vaulted ceiling of St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta and transformed it into a luminous, airy space filled with angels and saints, together with a huge series of paintings on the life and martyrdom of St John the Baptist (1661–1666). His work displays the dramatic chiaroscuro – a feature that defines this period – with the colours of the Venetian and Neapolitan tradition.

 

Ceiling in St John's Co-Cathedral, Valletta, Malta

 

 

 

Altarpiece. Cathedral.

His work in the cathedral also has an unusual technique – oil on stone – and his scenes portray an immense vigour and dynamic power, almost unparalleled, even in Italy in the second half of the 17^th-Century. He used quick, zigzag brush strokes and never made preparatory drawings, preferring to go over his work to correct it.

Preti certainly must have impressed his patrons so much that he was also given the task of designing the rich, gold decorations on the walls, along with several paintings in the Oratory where we see Caravaggio’s masterpiece, The Beheading of St John the Baptist. 

 

Boethius and Philosophy. It is believed that the painting was commissioned by Andrea di Giovanni, Knight of the Order of Malta. By the early nineteenth century it formed part of the collection of the Palace of the Grand Master of the same order. Photo: Times of Malta.

 

 

Saint George and the Dragon - Chapel of the Tongue of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre, Co-Cathedral of St. John, Valletta, Malta

 

 

Preti's largest painting in Malta in the Church of St Lawrence, Vittoriosa, is being restored thanks to BOV - the bank of Valletta.

 

In his forty years in Malta, Preti left an impressive four hundred works. He not only painted for the Order, but for parish churches in the local communities too, leaving these small villages and hamlets with  priceless works of arts. Other paintings are in private collections. His increased reputation led to an expanded circle of patrons, and he received commissions from all over Europe. Preti enjoyed a long career with a considerable artistic output. His paintings are held by many great museums, including important collections in Naples, Valletta, Palermo, and his hometown of Taverna in Calabria.

 

Calling the Apostle Matthew c. 1630-1640, 104 x 164 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

 

The Concert 1630 The Hermitage Museum.

 

 Mattia Preti is buried in the Co-Cathedral in a magnificent vault alongside other Knights of the Order.

 

Basketry by Janie Hampton

Bronislava and Jan Madejscy with their kablacok willow baskets, are part of the Slow Art in Poland movement, in Lucimia Village which is on UNESCO’s ‘intangible cultural heritage’ list. © Paulina Adamska, Serfenta Association, 2009.

Baskets have been part of our lives ever since humans first gathered fruit to eat. Since then, basketry skills have been used to make hats, water carriers, coffins, boats, furniture, lampshades and designer handbags.
Despite much speculation, the origin of the word ‘basket’ is obscure but is assumed to be from the early 13th C Anglo-French bascat. The Oxford English Dictionary’s earliest source is Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor published in 1602: ‘Look, here is a basket…. he may creep in here.’
Because baskets are used until they fall apart, and are then either burned or decay, they rarely feature in archeology. The earliest known baskets survived through chance – in fish-traps left behind in waterlogged ditches; in permafrost; or in desert caves.
Baskets have been found in Turkey from the neo-lithic period of 7500-5500 BC. They left only impressions in the mud after they were wrapped around the dead. In Fayum, near the Nile Valley in Egypt, there are no traces of dwellings left, but over 100 grain storage pits made between 5000 and 4200 BC reveal patterns from baskets made from wheat straw. One whole boat-shaped basket with colours and fine patterns was found in a grain pit in 1924. Its discovery raised the question: ‘Does its quality indicate that the value of grain was very high? Or was it first used for something of higher status, and then when it was half worn out, recycled as a grain scoop?’

Early 20thC basketmaker in Kent.  © Mary Butcher

Humans have always been good at adapting whatever they can find, to live more comfortably and safely. In the Peruvian Andes, the Spanish Conquistadors were astonished that the only way across deep gorges was by bridges made from rope. Designed over 500 years ago during the Inca Empire, the bridges were made entirely of grass. One keshwa chaca still survives, spanning the Apurimac River (‘The Great Speaker’). Only humans and llamas can cross it, but the tradition and skills are so important to the people that it is rebuilt every year using the same local qqoya grass and methods passed down to each generation. The grass has to be soaked and softened, then pounded by children, and spun into cords by women. Each household produces 40 arms-length of rope. Once about 7 kms of grass cord has been made, the men twist bunches of 24 cords into ropes. Old men then braid the cables, while the young ones stretch them across the channel. The bridge is completed with a deck of brushwood matting. The combination of grass - a material with little strength on its own, community effort, and the design of the keshwa chaca is a wonderful example of engineering friction, social cohesion and human ingenuity. As Ian Ewart writes, the process is ‘a nexus of social regeneration and reinforcement.’ 

Nassa fish traps from Gozo in the Mediterranean Sea,
made by the late Salvo ta Bertu from split Mediterranean cane
and a grass similar to esparto. © Geraldine Jones. 

Materials for baskets come from plants - trees, grasses, cacti, heathers – whatever grows near the maker. In the islands of northern Scotland, there are stones to build houses, but few trees to use as rafters to hold up the rooves. But there is plenty of heather, which can be twisted into ropes to hold the thatch, made of more heather. 

The first Girl Guide uniforms in 1910 included a wide brimmed hat woven from rush.
This was made by Jean Francis for Salt Cellar Workshops in Cornwall in 2019. 

During World War One, baskets were so important for transporting carrier-pigeons and medical supplies, and for observation-balloon baskets and even aeroplanes, that basket-making was a ‘reserved occupation’ and the War Office appointed a National Willow Officer. Mary Crabb relates that the artillery-shell basket had ‘a curious, slightly sinister cyclic quality about it. Woven to offer protection to objects of death and destruction – those injured by the shells were then taught to weave baskets as a means of therapy and rehabilitation.’ Basket making was found to be a therapeutic activity for shell-shock, requiring meditative repetition, hand-eye coordination and creating a sense of purpose with the finished product. The materials were cheap, and when imported cane ran out, wild roses and brambles were available in hedgerows. Also, it could be done in bed or a wheelchair. 

Basket weaving therapy at Seale Hayne Military Hospital, 1919.
Seale-Hayne Archives. © Margaret Rose Preston Estate. 

Angus MacPhee was a Gaelic speaker brought up on South Uist – a remote island on the Outer Hebrides. During the 1940s he developed schizophrenia and was sent to Craig Dunain Psychiatric Hospital in Inverness. An elective mute, he worked on the hospital farm where he invented his own therapy. He twisted and twined grass into yarn and then using only two pieces of broken fence wire, he looped, netted and stitched. He made coats, trousers, hats, boots and pouches, often interwoven with wild flowers and sheep’s wool from fences. Twice a year the hospital groundsmen tidied up his artefacts and burned them. He would watch apparently undisturbed, and make some more. A few pieces survived him, and basket-makers recognized the same looping techniques as used in 12th C socks found in a cave in Arizona, in Norse cultures, and by indigenous people of Australia today. 

A typical English fruit basket from the 1950s, designed for
occupational therapy and made of easily-manipulated cane. 

Basket making gained a bad name after the derogatory term ‘basket-case’ was coined in 1919, meaning someone who had lost both their legs in war and was now ‘useless’; and by the mid-20th century basketry’s association with the disabled and mentally ill meant its reputation declined. Recent research has shown the beneficial effects on brain injury and trauma that basketry can contribute to improving brain plasticity with sensory and motor signals, sequencing, recognition of mistakes and decision making.
Baskets have a protective role of containment and holding. ‘We are, after all, ’writes Hilary Burns, ‘nurtured in baskets from cradle to grave, literally from crib to coffin.’ 

Boks baskets from Vanuatu in South Pacific embody a rhythmic 
sequence of pandanus (pine palm) ribbons, passed down the generations. 

Whereas ’found materials’ or rubbish were originally used to make baskets for economic reasons, now basket makers use them to create political messages about sustainability. Lois Walpole used to buy rattan, until she realized the huge carbon footprint of transporting it across the world, and then dyeing it. Now she consciously uses only found materials such as disused packaging and ‘ghost gear’ – flotsam and jetsam from beaches- to make colourful, beautiful baskets and furniture. In the Shetland Isles she taught children to appreciate ‘ghost gear’ and not see it as ‘undesirable and untouchable but as something they could profit from as their forebears would have done [with grown materials]’. 

‘Ghost gear’ on Breckon beach, Isle of Yell. © Lois Walpole 

As more people buy plastic or factory-made baskets, the skills of different methods, knots, weaves and styles are dying out. In many places, only the oldest people still know how to make traditional baskets. A few basket historians, such as Geraldine Jones of Basketry & Beyond, have sought out these basket-makers in places like Malta, Cornwall, The Azores and Northern Spain.
We take basketry for granted but now historians, artists, anthropologists and mathematicians are revealing stories, structures and skills in basketwork. The Material Culture of Basketry: practice, skill and embodied knowledge is a beautifully produced book which will inspire anyone interested in the interdisciplinary history of crafts, knots, plants. The book’s 36 authors remind us that baskets are not just craftily-made containers, but also holders of knowledge, history and design; and the textures, patterns and geometric forms in basketwork express maths, art, culture and engineering. 

Geraldine Jones of Basketry & Beyond made this stainless-steel wire ball
following the mathematical pattern of a sepak raga football from Malaysia,
 usually made from split bamboo. © Geraldine Jones

The Material Culture of Basketry: Practice, Skill and Embodied Knowledge, Stephanie Bunn and Victoria Mitchell (Eds), Bloomsbury, 2020.

Unless otherwise stated, all photographs © Janie Hampton 

'Don't Hang the Messenger' by Karen Maitland

'I don't care what your delivery sheet says,
 I'm not signing for the white elephant!'

Having waited all day for a ‘guaranteed’ delivery of a package which has not arrived, I find myself wondering if things were any better before our modern courier services.

Since the time of the ancient civilizations there has always been a need for couriers and messengers to deliver valuable packages and vital documents. Both the Persians and Romans established very efficient networks of state messengers, but by the 11th Century in Europe many commoners such as wealthy merchants, town councils and monasteries discovered they needed to develop their own independent courier systems, not least because they wanted to keep their business interests safely away from the prying eyes of government officials, popes and kings. Even universities in the Middle Ages employed their own couriers so that students could obtain money urgently from their families to pay their fees or refill their wine flagons, and these university couriers were given royal dispensation to travel without hindrance.

But maintaining a courier system was an expensive business, not only did the messengers have to be provided with coins for food and lodgings on the road, but they needed money to change horses, pay tolls, buy passage on ships or river craft, and they often had to be provided with the funds to bribe clerks and officials so that they could be admitted straightaway to see someone of importance and not kept hanging around for weeks. So it made sense for individuals to band together to finance a courier service between them. One of the first of these was the Scarsella dei Mercanti Fiorentini founded in Florence in 1357 by a group of merchants, who hit on the bright idea of not only using the service themselves, but allowing anyone who could afford it to pay to use it too, whenever the need arose.

Couriers had to be fit, tough, trustworthy and resourceful. It helped if you could speak several languages as well. On one occasion when a quantity of gold had to be sent secretly from Verona to St Gall, six messengers were dispatched in pairs travelling by different routes disguised as pilgrims. They were warned that if they were caught, the gold would be bound to their legs with their own thigh sinews!

This was probably not an idle threat, since at the siege of Auberoche in 1345, when the French captured a page boy on his way to deliver a message to the English inside the besieged castle, the poor lad was bound and catapulted into the castle from a trebuchet or siege engine, with the letters he was carrying tied around his neck. Unsurprisingly it is said the knights were much ‘astonished and discomforted when they saw him arrive.’

Before the days of modern ID cards, couriers who were carrying valuables or secret messages had to find a way to prove their own identity and that of the person to whom they were delivering the package. The simplest method was to a cut a coin in half, one being given to the recipient who would then match it to the courier’s. Rings were often use to identify the bearer or recipient, as well as passwords and coded gestures. Confidential documents could be concealed in the linings of clothes or laid flat on a wooden board and coated with a thick layer of wax, so that it would appear to be a cheap writing tablet. Not something a thief would bother stealing.

If messages fell into the wrong hands, the consequences could be disastrous. When Calais was being besieged by Edward III in 1346, the French defenders tried to send a letter to their king telling him they were so desperate they would have to start eating each other or surrender if help didn’t arrive. When one of couriers realised he had been spotted, he tied the letter he was carrying to an axe and threw it into the sea, hoping the axe would weigh it down, but it floated ashore and fell into the hands of Edward III who took great delight in personally sending it to the French king, just to add to his enemy’s humiliation.

Quite apart from the hazards of the journey itself, some couriers must have felt very apprehensive

Valette - Grand Master of the Knights of St. John

about the reception they’d receive when they eventually arrived. The accepted laws of chivalry meant that a messenger delivering bad news should be allowed to speak freely without being punished, but men in authority were seldom noted for their sweet disposition and often the temptation to ‘hang the messenger’ proved too great. 

 In 1565, when a courier delivered the message to Suleiman that his siege of Malta had failed, Suleiman flew into a rage and stamped on the unfortunate man. But to be fair, when the Turks had earlier sent a messenger to Valette, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John on Malta, he had ordered the messenger hanged, and only relented when it was pointed out that the poor man was a slave who couldn’t disobey orders. So instead Valette sent him back with the message that he would hang anyone who came to deliver any further communications.

As for that package – I’m still waiting!