Last Friday another literary cultural event was held in Strait Street, Valletta, at the place once famous as the Splendid when The Gut was at the height of its fame. As part of the process of rehabilitating the area and turning it into the first of the creative clusters which the government is planning to create, the occasion served also to recall the first anniversary of the premature death of Cesare Catania whose multiple contributions to Maltese culture are only now being brought to light. What are your impressions of the event?
If developed as performing spaces, the sites in Strait Street would also allow a stronger development of the educational courses at tertiary level- Fr Peter Serracino Inglott
The associations of the name of Cesare are very different for an Italian from those of the name Caesar for an Englishman. Cesare’s mother came from what is universally regarded as the gastronomic capital of Italy, and hence some might be even tempted to say, of the world, namely Bologna.
In his poems he pays tribute to an uncle who had the same name coming from the maternal side of his family origins.
In prose, Cesare evoked episodes from his adolescence in his novel It-Tarf (book cover design by Dominic Fenech) when the Archbishop Gonzi-Mintoff conflict brought back memories of the Gonzi-Strickland conflict of the 1930s of this three-year period, a scholarly historical account by Cesare Catania which was launched at the last book fair published by Agius and Agius.
But more than that, the first poems Cesare wrote mainly describe two phenomenal experiences: first his discovery of the greatest industrial city of Italy, Milan, as well as of a girl from the northernmost part of Italy, counted by some of its native children as rather more southern Austria.
Other poems evoke the reverse movement of falling out of love. Besides romantic disillusionment Cesare also experienced political disillusionment reflected in his multiple participation in the film Il Gaġġa, directed by Mario Philip Azzopardi.
These multiple strands were interwoven in a number of musical compositions by Vince Fabri and Cesare’s somewhat circular movement from the beginning to the premature end of his life was briefly recalled by me and a number of his other personal friends, the Florians, Julian Mallia, who illustrated Cesare Catania’s poems with photographs and drawings, which were projected, Jesmond Xuereb, Jason Masini and Lino Farrugia, who with Marie Alexander and Josette Ciappara co-ordinated the various items of the programme into one in integral recollection of Cesare.
How important do you think the project aimed at Strait Street becoming a creative centre for popular art in Malta could be as a complement to the other centres of high art that are being set up at the entrance to Valletta and at the opposite end of the city in the St Elmo and Mediterranean Conference Centre area?
They appear to be ideally complimentary to indicate the broad range of creativity that can all find a home together within the framework of the capital city of the Knights.
Such a combination in itself amounts to a declaration of inclusiveness in the cultural concept being propagated.
At the same time it would be establishing a connective family link between art forms that have been all too often sadly kept asunder.
If developed as performing spaces the sites in Strait Street would also allow a stronger development of the educational courses at tertiary level that the University is developing at what is now increasingly known as its Valletta campus.
Do you see these various initiatives also contributing to the way in which the role of Cultural Capital of Europe is being envisaged?
The convergence of the various cultural development initiatives essentially along the lines laid down in the cultural policy now officially sponsored by the government has been set on what seemed to be much sounder and much more promising lines than has ever happened before through the understanding of the closer inter-relationship there now is between cultural and economic development.
Other initiatives that are also bringing the economic and cultural arms of the government to work more harmoniously together are further proof of the increased awareness of projecting a holistic image of our country’s efforts to highlight its Mediterranean focus.
Fr Peter Serracino Inglott was talking to Miriam Vincenti.