Nobody who read the parliamentary report of IT Minister Austin Gatt's speech on the debate of his ministry's estimates in committee will have done so without a sense of surprise at least. For in it he thought it a good idea to warn Tecom's chief negotiator "that we have been talking about the same things for far too long and if agreement (on the SmartCity investment) is not reached in the coming weeks, the government will, regrettably, have to stop them".
One knows how he must be feeling, but to my mind there is a worrisome interpretation attached to what he said on that score: quite simply, 'fings ain't what they seemed to be. We were all under the impression that the SmartCity project was, if not up and running, at least at the "get set" stage of the starter's order and only this much short of the pistol crack. Now there is the uncomfortable feeling that the pistol is not loaded with a dummy cracker but a real bullet and it looks as if it is aimed at the two negotiators, Malta and Tecom.
Dr Gatt told Parliament that the differences between the two sides were not over job creation or the allocation of land but over the minutiae of each side's obligations. It does not sound as if this is really the case, else why say that although the government "really wants this project" it does not want it "at any cost"? And "...we cannot submit to all the investor's conditions"?
Clearly not, but nobody except the negotiators know what irksome conditions Tecom is putting, nor why the government is sounding as if it were at the end of its tether; nor why these are being placed on the table during talks that suddenly seem to be going round in circles.
The minister remarked that the attitude of the Labour Party and occasional disparaging remarks from that side has not helped. Quite which of these remarks did Dr Gatt have in mind? The question is gravely put. At risk there are 5,600 potential jobs and the transformation of an area from a relative backwater into a thriving centre of excellence the government wishes Malta to be in the IT field. What is it, quite, that is threatening the outcome of talks we were assuming would soon be successfully concluded? And why was it found necessary by Dr Gatt to fire this warning shot across Tecom's bows during the debate on the Budget?
I grant that it was as good a place as any, but only if the differences keeping the two sides apart are so great, which on matters of substance we are told they are not, that the talks are only this much away from collapse and the minister wishes to prepare the country for just such a happenstance. If I may use a euphemism, that would be a pity and understandable though it is that negotiations cannot be conducted in public this does mean that we on the outside can say neither one thing nor another.
That is not quite correct. We want to know more - and fast. Too much has been made, too much that is positive said, and quite rightly so, for the Smart City project to fall apart because Tecom, which, let it be remembered, bought government's shares in Maltacom, is raising the ante. The problem is that we are in the dark and it is up to the minister to enlighten us.
The monumental genius without a monument
It is two years since Dr Keith Sciberras published his Roman Baroque for the Knights of Malta and 370 years since the birth in Vittoriosa of a Marcello Gafà, the ninth child, he tells us, of a "maestro or craftsman, very probably practising as a cobbler". There is no connection between the two anniversaries except in the sense that Sciberras recently launched a publication that was centred around the artistic endeavours of the boy who became Melchiorre Cafà, Maltese Genius of the Roman Baroque.
What follows is not meant to be a review of the book, more a sprinkling of thoughts and facts about an adventurous and creative man who left his native shores at a young age and within eight years went on to establish a reputation sufficient, in a city under Bernini's and Alessandro Algardi's thrall, to provide a challenge to the great man himself.
It is probable that no other genius in the world is less recognised in his own country by his own countrymen than Cafà is by Malta. Yet he flashed across the middle of the 17th century like a meteor and, until quite recent scholarship, probably starting with Rudolf Wittkower, few art historians had much to say about him. But this negligence is true in general about baroque as an art movement, which was derided by most art historians during the latter half of the 18th century and for the best part of the 19th. One of these was to remark about Borromini's architectural style that it was "an exaggerated expression of the bizarre, or the ridiculous taken to extremes".
The unlikely 20th century rediscovered baroque and found it good. Good enough to spawn a whole literature on the art form and its explosive exponents. Melchiorre Cafà Maltese Genius of the Roman Baroque, which had a gestation period of eight years, is the latest addition to the art history of this genre and an excellent edition it is.
Sciberras has brought together renowned scholars to discuss aspects, techniques and attributions of Cafà's work. In alphabetical order these are Alessandra Anselmi, Mgr John Azzopardi, Maria Giulia Barberini, Elena Bianca di Gioia, Gerald Bissell, Angela Cipriani, Jennifer Montagu, Tomaso Montanari, Louise Rice, Tuccio Sante Guido, Sciberras himself and Tony Sigel. Sciberras calls their combined effort "the first truly collective attempt to study the work of Melchiorre Cafà". And what a magnificent attempt it is.
The dateline biography of the man is straightforward enough. Born in 1636, he was, at the age of 16, already working on decorative carvings commissioned to the Casanova family of sculptors in Malta for the Cathedral of Syracuse. At 22 he headed for Rome, a city dominated at the time by the foremost genius of sculpture baroque Gianlorenzo Bernini, and entered the bottega of Ercole Ferrata. Nine years later, he died at the cruelly young age of 31, having returned to Malta only once for a short period at the beginning of 1666. What could he have not achieved had he lived longer?
What did he achieve?
Sciberras opens his preface to the book with a quote from Leone Pascoli, who was writing in the first half of the 18th century: "Little can be said about this great man, because he worked little and lived little. But how much can be said about his beautiful works, works that are immortal and would have spoken had they been blessed with a voice." And later: "In invention he was second to none."
That last bit may sound a bit hagiographic. Not even to Bernini? It sounds a trifle over the top but in his Italian Baroque Sculpture, we find Bruce Boucher making the point that "even Bernini" (then in his 60s) "let it be known that the younger man had overtaken him in his art".
This was an extraordinary and generous admission on the part of the creator of the baldacchino at St Peter's, the Cappella Coronara and the Ecstasy of St Teresa (Cafà was still nine when Bernini started on this project), so many busts, the Memorial Statue of Pope Urban VIII, the Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona, the Cathedra Petri in the apse of St Peter's a year before Cafà came to Rome; and so many other dazzling, priceless inventions. Yet with all that and much more behind him, the great man did make the observation Boucher cites.
Here in Malta, of course, we have Cafà's statue of St Paul in the church of St Paul Shipwrecked, The Virgin of the Rosary in the Dominican church in Rabat (his brother was a Dominican, another, Lorenzo Gafà, needs no introduction to the Maltese readership), the cast for a silver sanctuary lamp in St Paul's church in Rabat, as well as the astoundingly crafted bozzetto of the Charity of St Thomas of Villanova (the finished work with its figures spilling out of the architectural framework in which they have been placed is in the family chapel of the Pamphilis in the church of S. Agostino).
In the church of S. Agnese in Agone in Piazza Navona we find his Martyrdom of St Eustace, a work that established him as a front runner on the Roman scene a mere two years after his arrival in the city. It paved the way for the Pamphili commission for the Charity of St Thomas. In the church of S. Domingo in Peru, they have the hauntingly beautiful St Rose of Lima ("La Santa Ros," writes Alessandra Anselmi, "è certamente una delle più importanti sculture realizzata da Melchiorre Cafà"). And a year before he died there was his Glory of St Catherine of Siena at the church of S. Caterina a Magnapoli, a creation which "alone", Bissell asserts in his contribution to Maltese Genius, "suffices to secure (Cafà's) prominence in the history of baroque architecture... we can only muse what he could have achieved had he lived longer".
There were many other works and attributions, never mind non-attributions (these are to be found in museums and galleries as far apart as New York and St Petersburg) that space does not allow me to list or comment upon. Space does allow me, however, to say that 'this truly collective attempt' to study the work of this Maltese genius displays throughout its pages an easy erudition that is never less than impressive, be it Louise Rice's delightful piece on the thesis broadsheet of Giovanni Rota or Sigel's fascinating essay on Cafà's clay modelling techniques; be it Sciberras's piece on the Baptism of Christ commission, which, had it materialised, would have provided us with the apsidal grouping in the Conventual Church of St John the Baptist (Cafà's tragically early death robbed us of what would have been a singular legacy; instead, and I say this without a hint of disparagement, we have Mazzuoli's and Giardini's Baptism of Christ with Gloria), or be it Jennifer Montagu's meticulous detective work on attributions; be it any of the scholarly contributions that make up this impressive addition to art history.
All this is just a feel for a book about a man, a Maltese genius we have not bothered to honour; certainly not as much as he has honoured us. Did anyone think Christmas present?
And what about that monument? Having introduced Cafà to us in so succinct a manner, Dr Keith Sciberras now has no option but to knock on the door of the Education Minister and, while he is about it on those of the Shadow Minister, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to sort out this embarrassing lacuna; aided and abetted by the book's contributors and so many people, heads of institutions all over the world who did their bit towards the publication and all those he acknowledged and thanked in his preface.
While he and they are about it, they may well kill two artists with one stone, so to speak, and root for another monument to Cafà's brother Lorenzo. And not one of those piddly little works so loved during Mr Mintoff's time, please. Where? Where? Castille Square, of course, instead of that clump of trees hiding that Dimech fellow.
No! No! No!
I am delighted that Architect Edwin Mintoff received the Din l-Art Helwa silver medal for his "outstanding" restoration of the Treasury Building at the Cottonera Waterfront. This is one more piece of a waterfront that will challenge its Valletta counterpart if things continue to move forward with the refined and reverent attitude demanded by this project.
There has been one enormous foul committed for which no red flag was shown by the authorities - those dreadful glass, steel and concrete apartments next to St Angelo. Let there not be another. I have written three or four times on this subject and what I said each time bears repeating a thousand times.
Do not build a hotel that will demolish the excellent work being done on the Cottonera Waterfront. In case MEPA has not heard me, Do not build a hotel that will demolish the excellent work being done on the Cottonera Waterfront.
On its site there used to be a plan of sorts that showed no respect for its neighbours. I remarked about it a few months ago, and reaction came there none. Ominous. So I will repeat myself. Do not build a hotel that will demolish the excellent work being done on the Cottonera Waterfront.
Don't even think about it.
Quote...
No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.
(From No Man is an Island A Selection from the Prose of John Donne; Selected, edited and introduced by Rivers Scott; The Folio Society).