Today we again we went to Valletta, this time to visit St. John’s Co-Cathedral. When we visited Malta in 1985 and toured this church, it was the most over the top church I had ever seen and I remember being dumbstruck by it. On this visit, my reaction hasn’t changed any at all. It is a gaudy church, but a fantastically beautiful place. You would never guess what’s inside by looking at the outside of the church. It is a very solid-looking, plane exterior giving no hint of what you’ll find inside.
St. John’s Co-Cathedral, so named because there already was a Catholic cathedral in Malta, St. Paul’s Cathedral in Mdina. Therefore, to pass muster with the archbishop, St. John’s was eventually named co-cathedral. When originally built between 1572 and 1577, commissioned by the Grand Master at the time, it was a very austere church with modest interior decorations. It was the new conventual church of the Knights of St. John. They had originally used St. Lawrence Church in Vittoriosa, but as Valletta became the new home to the Knights, St. John’s became their new church. Initially modest, a century later, in the 1660s, Grand Master Cotoner (the guy who built the bastions of the Cottonera Lines), decided that this church should be fancier and showier than churches in Rome, so he commissioned a complete interior makeover in high Baroque style. Mattia Preti was the architect/artist who did the makeover, and wow, did he make this church a showplace!
The ceiling is called a barrel vault, I imagine because of its curve. The ceiling is divided into 18 panels, 3 sections across 6 vaults, which Preti painted depicting events in the life of John the Baptist, the patron saint of the Knights. Interestingly, the figures painted into the ceiling next to each column initially appear to the viewer as three-dimensional statues, but on closer inspection you see that the artist cleverly created an illusion of three-dimensionality by his use of shadows and placement. We sat for a long time looking up at this illusion trying to decide whether it was a flat painting or a sculpture. Also noteworthy is the fact that the carving of all the wall decorations and statues was all undertaken in-place (in-situ) rather than being carved independently and then attached to the walls (stucco). The Maltese limestone from which the Cathedral is built lends itself particularly well to such intricate carving.
The whole marble floor of the sanctuary is an entire series of tombs, housing about 400 Knights and officers of the Order. We couldn’t see the crypts below, but in addition to the 400 Knights buried under the floor, many of the Grand Masters are buried in a crypt under the high altar or in the altars of their langue chapel. I just love the floor of marble tombstones. Unfortunately, most of the floor is blocked off, so I had to admire it from afar. However, around the edges where we could walk, there were several interesting parts of tombstones that I was able to photograph. I don’t know why, but I’m so fascinated by all the skeletons and skulls in these marble tombstones. We saw a similar floor in marble tombstones at St. Paul’s Shipwreck Church. At St. John’s, I wish I could have gone around and looked at all 400 of them. The marble designs are so interesting and the intricacies in the marble artwork is amazing.
St. John’s has many side chapels, several down each side of the main nave. The side chapels are for each Langue of the Knights. There were 8 langues: Germany, Italy, France, Provence, Anglo-Bavarian, Auvergne, Aragon and Castile (which includes Leon and Portugal). Each contained wonderful paintings over their altars, fantastic statues, columns, lots and lots of gold wall decoration, and beautiful ceiling paintings. There is an aisle connecting each of the chapels down one side or the other so that you can look down the entire length through all the archways between the chapels. It was a beautiful view. Each chapel in its own right is an amazing collection of artistry.
The high altar and sanctuary are beautiful with a huge sculpture of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus. The organ pipes are on display on both sides of the chancel.
Every inch of this church was covered in some kind of artistic creation. There were sculptures in marble, wall carvings in limestone, paintings, columns, decorative features, you name it – you could find it.
St. John’s has a sacristy and an Oratorio room, used by the Knights for private worship, which contained its most prized possessions, one of which is a painting by Caravaggio titled “Beheading of St. John the Baptist.” I wasn’t able to photograph this painting, but here is a copy from an online source.
Caravaggio was famous for a painting technique called raking light. I don’t really know what that means, but some of the items on display were really interesting in terms of the effects of light and dark that I found quite moving, almost like the paintings were photographs.
Here’s a little video of the interior of St. John’s.
We’ve been to a number of churches this trip. Two of the most famous are La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and St. John’s Co-Cathedral here in Valletta. While both churches were eye-popping, the feeling I got being in each was totally different. In La Sagrada, it felt very spiritual and Gaudi designed it to that maximum effect. In St. John’s, the décor almost makes it difficult to feel anything but overwhelmed by the details. It was ostentatious and overpowering. Although incredibly beautiful artistically, I didn’t find much sense of spirituality.
After our visit to St. John’s, we wandered down Merchant Street where vendors were set up in stalls down the middle of the street. We browsed a bit and then found our way to St. George’s Square and the Grand Master’s Palace and Palace Armory. You will recall that the day of the infiorata (all the flowers in the square), I had gone up to view the display from the palace balcony and got a peak at some of the palace. Christine missed out on that and so she wanted to at least see the palace courtyard.
After walking around the courtyard, we decided to tour the Palace State Rooms. We had to buy combined tickets that included the Palace Armoury, neither of us were very interested in that part, but seeing the State Rooms was what Christine wanted. Unfortunately, the most significant room was closed for renovation, the Tapestry Room.
The State Rooms are the show piece of the Presidential Palace sited at the heart of Malta’s World Heritage capital city of Valletta. The Palace itself was one of the first buildings in the new city of Valletta founded by Grand Master Jean de Valette in 1566 a few months after the successful outcome of the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. The Palace was enlarged and developed by successive Grand Masters to serve as their official residence. Later, during the British period, it served as the Governor’s Palace and was the seat of Malta’s first constitutional parliament in 1921. The palace today is the seat of the Office of the President of Malta.
What is glorious about the State Rooms and Parliamentary hallway is the artwork. The paintings were just lovely, especially in the hallway because the scenes depicted early Malta and we had fun trying to figure out where the scenes were.
In the Grand Council Chamber was a collection of historic paintings all around the perimeter of the room, the top third of each wall, depicting the story of the Great Siege of 1565.
Parliamentary Corridor had wonderful paintings. Much of the work was done directly on the stone. The palace is under renovation and so you could see great sections of repair work, both to the marble floor, and to the wall and ceiling paintings, that were being worked on.
The British ruled Malta from 1800 until 1964 when Malta became and independent state in the British Commonwealth, and then a republic in 1974. The last British military unit left in 1979. But, a much beloved figure in Malta is Queen Elizabeth II. She and Prince Phillip lived in Malta early in their marriage which the Prince was serving in the Navy. She lived in a villa in Valletta and she has said that these were very happy days for her. Christine said that growing up in Malta, everyone had 3 photos on their wall, the pope, a patron saint (often the Virgin Mary) and Queen Elizabeth. So, it was not surprising to see a large portrait of the queen in one of the State Rooms.
We then whipped through the Palace Armoury. If you’re into historical weaponry, this is the place for you. Some things were interesting, like the decorative work on the armor worn by soldiers and knights. And, I did enjoy seeing the development in headgear, especially the very funny-looking Savoyard helmets.
By now, we had had our fill of history and so we set off to Café Cordina for lunch. This café is in front of Christine’s Biblioteca on Republic Street. A sign indicated that it was established in 1837, and I think it’s been at this location since its start. We sat in the open air café, enjoyed our lunch, and watched the people walking up and down Republic Street.
And even though it was only 1:30, we both felt like we had had enough, so we walked to the bus terminus and got on our trusty #13 bus. I was surprised that even in the early afternoon the bus was quite full and we had to stand initially. But, eventually, a younger person gave up his seat to Christine, the older person. Still can’t get my head wrapped around being seen as “old.” But I sure do like the senior discount rate at most places!
We kind of crashed for the rest of the afternoon and just enjoyed being “at home” and looking out at the wonderful bay. The binoculars are used a lot to check up on the action around the bay.
Wednesday is our next big adventure, a boat tour around Malta!