On Tuesday 8 November 2022, Dr Charlene Vella, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Malta, delivered a public lecture in Messina, Sicily. The lecture was titled “Il Rinascimento a Malta: i contatti artistici con Messina e Antonello” and was delivered at the Salone delle Bandiere at Palazzo Zanca, Messina’s Town Hall.
The lecture was organised as part of the PRIN 2017 project titled “Il Rinascimento nell’Italia del Sud e nelle isole: patrimonio culturale e tecnologie” that involves the Universities of Messina Naples, Cagliari and Palermo. It was coordinated by Prof Roberto Cobianchi, lecturer in Medieval Art History at the Università degli Studi di Messina’s Dipartimento di Civiltà Antiche e Moderne, and held under the auspices of Messina’s mayor, Dott. Federico Basile, and that of the Assessore alla cultura, Prof. Enzo Caruso.
The lecture focused on a particular aspect of Dr Vella’s research in Renaissance art history that has also been published in her latest monograph, In the Footsteps of Antonello da Messina: the antonelliani between Sicily and Venice (Midsea Books. 2022). That is, some connections between the Maltese islands and Messina, among which are fifteen paintings on Malta executed by the nephews of the Italian Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina, Antonio de Saliba and Salvo d’Antonio, as well as a connection with the Rabat convent of Observant Franciscans in Malta and Messina.
Apart from an art historical analysis, Dr Vella also presented the results of diagnostic tests as well as images of paintings on Malta that were conserved and restored within the last twelve years, which also helped with attributions of these paintings to the two nephews of Antonello.
The aim was not only to highlight some of the connections between Malta and Messina that existed in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, but also to showcase the newly restored Renaissance art works on Malta that are often dismissed as bottega works by foreign scholars.
Dr Vella started this research in 2010 together with Prof Mario Buhagiar, Prof. Keith Sciberras and Fr Gino Gauci with a painting of the Madonna Enthroned adoring the Child in Żejtun now attributed to Antonio de Saliba. Since then, Renaissance paintings from several collections, including private collections, have been studied and conserved.
