Ancient core of Inquisitor's Palace restored

Mr Carmel Pule'

Jul 11th 2011, 17:26

As a young boy I used to go to mass at the Inquisitor's Palace at Vitttoriosa when the Dominican Community lost their church during world war2. I remember , the room was so small that I could hear everything the priest said. Well one day, I was following the mass so closely and when it came to the Monk drinking the wine from the challice, I heard him say, " Ill-marelli kemm huwa tajjeb dan L-imbid, tini ftit iehor!" and so some more wine was poured in the challice to be enjoyed by the monk during the mass.
I always knew that members of the church were so human, and to this day , I smile evertime I see something written about that Blessed Inquisitor's Palace at Vittoriosa.
One day i should offer to repair, that clock made by a famous Clock maker in Malta, who even made clocks that are still operational in churches in Egypt or in Tunis, for one day one of my colleague followed this up and went to see it and the local priest in Tunis was so delighted to see this Maltese man taking an interest in the Maltese Made clock that he said, " It needs some maintenance and if you know abybody from malta who could make us an escapement for it, we would be glad for him to come over and repair our Maltese historic clock. The same Maltese Church clock maker made the clock at the Inquisitor's palace which is humiliated lying in bits and pieces somewhere around. I suppose in my old age, I could have a go at these historic old Maltese clock made by this famous Maltese clock engineer whose name seems to escape me.
Please oculd someone jog my memory to remember his name! Boy, I am getting old to forget a fellow Maltese engineer!! I suppose I could make renovate these historic clocks with my engineering skills, with a little effort. I suppose that will give me a right to write my name in Maltese history too.
I studied the iron of these old clocks and as I did lot of metallurgy in my days, I found that the iron was wrought iron and did not contain a lot of carbon to make it into steel. In fact old wrought iron do not rust as much as steel, but since it is softer because it is the carbon content that hardens the iron and holds the creaping and slipping of the dendrites , it is a soft material and so the teeth of gearing and bearings and tip of moving escapements do not last that long not as in modern days where, bearings are diamonds and excapements a nd associated springs are of the best steels. That is why they has weights as the springs in those days could not be made speingy for the clock to last a week without rewinding. In fact the weight had to be raised up il Kampnar every day and this is what the Tunes clock wanted in addition to the escapement, he wanted a motorised system to be able to raise the weight every 24 hours I believe.
I think the name came to me.. was it Sapiano or something like that --- please help!

Mr JC Sullivan

Jul 11th 2011, 16:07

Let Transport Malta be the first Demo of what the Inquisitors did - LOL

Well done ALL who were involved in this restoration. If only the Maltese peoples knew AND appreciated the treasure trove they have fill Patrimonju Malti. It makes those of us living abroad envious.