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John Azzopardi (Ed): Scientia et Religio. Studies in memory of Fr George Aquilina. Scholar, archivist and Franciscan Friar. Malta 2014. 340 pp.
The death on September 29, 2012 of Patri Ġorġ bereft the island of one of its meticulous scholars, a Franciscan who wore his deep knowledge lightly and whose affable character lingers on in the minds of his many friends, both locally and abroad.
Indeed, two of them, Mgr John Azzopardi and Silvano Pedrollo, former ambassador of the Order of St John to Malta, have brought together 22 contributors who had known him personally and who all, in one way or another, had partaken of his generous help in a festschrift which should be of great interest to all lovers of Melitensia.
Pedrollo also sponsored the publication and had it printed in Verona.
Patri Ġorġ, as he will always be affectionately remembered by his friends, was a most careful scholar and researcher.
His two greatest works remain his history of the monastery of St Ursula and the magnum opus on the Franciscan Minor Order in Malta, which deserved to be published in English to reach the a much wider audience, as I had previously noted in my review of it.
The number and wide-ranging scope of the papers in this book means that this review will have to be selective in its choice.
Fr Noel Muscat’s biographical essay is also in its way a fine tribute to Patri Ġorġ, especially his contribution as the archivist of his order. Indeed, one of his discoveries was the date when his order first came to Malta, towards the end of the 15th century.
Azzopardi himself writes about the French Franciscan theologian Michel Morel who, in the late 1580s, was accused by the Inquisition in Malta of spreading heretical beliefs.
The Franciscan Nicholas Bonet was, on the other hand, an altogether different kettle of fish. Nominated bishop of Malta in 1342, Bonet was a scholar of outstanding intellect and a colossus of medieval cosmology.
Giovanni Bonello, who des-cribes him as “the greatest bishop of Malta”, traces his career as an outstanding university professor in Paris who was chosen to head papal evangelising missions to China and the Far East, although he seems to have been eventually replaced by another Franciscan.
Much more different was the fate of Malta’s only native-born bishop under the Order: Baldassare Cagliares.
Roger Ellul-Micallef provides a fascinating account of how the bishop’s servants were accused before the Inquisition of having cast spells on him, causing him to suffer from dark bouts of depression.
A worthy tribute to this genial friar and yet another essential contribution to Melitensia
The bishop spent his last years suffering from dementia and depression and being chased by the demons of his mind. Ellul-Micallef tantalis-ingly promises an analysis of the bishop’s condition in a future paper.
That Grand Master de Valette had at least two illegitimate children has by now been accepted as a historical fact.
Simon Mercieca goes through the Vittoriosa parish archives to corroborate the fact and to add more detail, thanks to an ongoing extensive project which is seeing the reconstruction of past families and their interrelationships.
Frans Ciappara examines the cases of 14 women who ended up in front of the Inquisition because they claimed some special communication with God, having received specific revelations or heard voices.
Probably, this must have been considered quite an affront to the powers-that-be in a male dominated society with most of them being severely chastised.
Stanley Fiorini, a close collaborator of Patri Ġorġ for many years, discusses the survival of the Greek Orthodox Church in Malta after 1530, which was boosted by the arrival with the Order of a few score of Rhodiots who professed that faith. A Basilian community seems to have survived till the early 17th century.
French scholar Alain Blondy describes the efforts first of the Order and then the British to obtain the honorary title of archbishop of Rhodes for the bishop of Malta as a means of establishing ecclesiastical independence from Sicily.
Carmel Cassar investigates how the Order, who had obtained Malta as a fief from Charles V, gradually but consistently planned to increase its de facto independence from foreign interference and establish its supremacy over all local authorities.
Archivist Maroma Camilleri, who worked closely with Patri Ġorġ at the National Library, starts by giving an excellent history and overview of the development of the Archives of the Order, one of our foremost and unfortunately less-appreciated, national treasures housed at the National Library since 1937.
William Zammit treats the 17 volumes of Inquisition records that lie in St Laurence’s church archives at Vittoriosa. If it has not already been done, a digital copy of these archives should be made available with the more complete Mdina archives.
Stephen Degiorgio writes about Hubert de Morines and the Loreto church at Gudja, the one at the edge of the airport. This small church is traditionally believed to have been originally erected on a site of a skirmish with Muslim raiders shortly after the Order’s arrival. One of the curious objects in the church is an intact ostrich egg which in the past has given rise to fanciful explanations. Degiorgio finally explains the mystery.
Art historian Mario Buhagiar focuses on the vicissitudes of two altarpieces; one which today lies in Stella Maris church Sliema and depicts Our Lady with Dominican saints and a knight which suffered great damage in the war.
The second painting, the Mystic Marriage of St Catherine, is attributed to Antonio Catalano the Elder of Messina and lies in the Franciscan Minor church in Valletta.
Albert Ganado describes a “curious and intriguing” 17th-century map in oils which is to be found in the splendidly-restored Wignacourt Museum at Rabat and which he authoritatively attributes to Francesco Buonamici, the Order’s resident engineer. The map merited to be reproduced in a much larger format.
Unfortunately, there is a lack of consistency in the way the references in the papers are presented with some following an Italian methodology. There’s also the erroneous identification of Padre Pelagio (Bartolomeo Mifsud) as Ignazio Saverio Mifsud.
The festschrift, however, is a worthy tribute to this friar.