The rise and fall of Caravaggio

Art historian Keith Sciberras will discuss recent discoveries on Caravaggio's Maltese period in the next Din l-Art Helwa lecture tomorrow.

Dr Sciberras will place his paintings within the context of chivalry and consider the rise and fall of Caravaggio as a painter-knight.

In July 1608, Caravaggio, against many odds, received the habit of a Knight of Malta. Dressed in black and white, he signed his name as Fra Michelangelo in the outstanding Beheading of St John the Baptist.

Caravaggio's Maltese period is largely concerned with his knighthood, that is, his ambition for it, his arming and his expulsion from the Order after he was involved in a brawl in which a person was killed. In his request for papal dispensation for Caravaggio's knighthood, Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt had made specific reference to the desire to honour virtuosity and predicted that the island of Malta would receive glory through Caravaggio's art.

Dr Sciberras is a lecturer in history of art at the University of Malta. He is currently A.W. Mellon Fellow at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He has published contributions on the artist in leading international journals and catalogues such as that for the prestigious exhibition Caravaggio: The Late Years 1606-1610 (Naples and London).

The lecture will start at 6 p.m. and will be held at Din l-Art Helwa's lecture hall at 133, Melita Street, Valletta.