The Department of Art & Art History, University of Malta in collaboration with the Accademia Etrusca, the Università degli Studi, Firenze, the University of Western Australia and the Università degli Studi di Roma, “Tor Vergata”, participated in a two-day symposium entitled “LAPARELLI 500 Francesco Laparelli (1521-1570) – Testimonianze da Cortona e Malta a 500 anni dalla nascita”, organised by the Comune di Cortona.
The symposium which was held both at the Centro Convegni Sant’Agostino, Cortona and online This event commemorated the five-hundredth-anniversary of the birth of the Cortonese architect and military engineer Francesco Laparelli. Laparelli was responsible, in the aftermath of the Great Siege of 1565, for preparing the design of the fortifications and urban plan of Valletta, which was later completed by the Maltese engineer Girolamo Cassar.
The symposium witnessed the participation of several academics and leading scholars specialised in Italian Renaissance architecture, military engineering, and urban planning during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Professor Keith Sciberras, Head of the Department of Art and Art History participated online in introducing the session dedicated to the foundation and genesis of Valletta, as the ‘’.
Professor Conrad Thake from the same department delivered an online exposition entitled ‘La Valletta, come fortificare una capital’ meaning Valletta, birth of a fortified capital. Collaboration on this area of research between the various departments mentioned above and the Comune di Cortona will be followed up by a Malta programme in 2022.
