Paladini, Virgin on Throne with Saints and Knights, 1589, Archbishop’s Palace, Valletta.Tuscan painter Filippo Paladini’s life was deeply marked by an unpleasant incident, that occurred during his time in Florence, which was somewhat similar to what happened to Caravaggio, who became a fugitive after the murder of Ranuccio Tomassoni.
On May 9, 1586, magistrate Otto di Balia sentenced Paladini to three years in jail and to pay a fine of 20 ducats for assaulting Pierfrancesco di Giovanbattista Giovanni with the sword he used to carry with him.
William II of Bavaria, acting as a mediator for Paladini’s widow sister, whose son was a musician at the court of Duke of Bavaria sent a letter dated April 1, 1588, to Grand Duke Ferdinand I asking for his release, but his request was rejected.
Art historian Gioacchino Di Marzo says that the painter managed to escape prison, fleeing to Malta and then in Sicily, although he does not explain when and the way he travelled. Fellow painter and historian Francesco Susinno’s version can be excluded, as it was certainly influenced by Caravaggio’s epic.
According to Susinno, the Florentine painter had fled to Milan and then to Rome, staying at the noble Colonna, who led him in the fief of Mazzarino, Sicily, which served as the artist’s fixed abode until his death. In addition to his unexplained stays in Milan and Rome, the account skips his stay in Malta, which is confirmed by several works as well as by archival documents.
In Malta, Paladini had gained favour of Grand Master Hugues Loubenx de Verdalle, who however died shortly afterwards: it was May 4, 1595. On June 25 of that same year, Commendatore Melac, executor, sent a letter to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, in which he had wrote:
“Fra la altre cose, che monsignor ill.mo cardinale gran maestro mio signore, di felice memoria, ordinò nelli ultimi suoi giorni, fu che per li buoni et continui servicii ricevuti da Filippo Paladini pittore intendeva et ordinava che fosse posto in libertà.”
Paladini introduced to Malta the gentleness and preciousness of Florentine Mannerism, which were added to the solemn manner of Matteo Perez d’Aleccio, the first artist to introduce the style on the island
This time the request was granted, as proved by a letter sent by Fra’ Censorio Cagnolo of St Euphemia’s prison, on August 22, 1595, to Grand Duke Ferdinand, who, by means of Commendatore Martelli, granted the painter mercy and allowed him to return home. In the letter the friar had praised the artist: “...mentre a fatto dimora in questa isola, si è diportatto di maniera che si è renduto benevolo a ciascuno, et con la buona vita et costumi ha ricompensato alcune imperfettioni passate.”
Paladini, St James the Apostle, 1611, St James church, Valletta.This is the last record of Paladini’s adventure in Malta. The next document concerning the artist’s life is a bill of sale issued by notary Guglielmo Faraci from Mazzarino, certifying the purchase of a vineyard from Vincenzo de Xortino in the same town. The document, dated January 14, 1601, constitutes the terminus ante quem of the arrival of the painter in Sicily; there are in fact, no documents or news concerning the artist between the two dates. It is not known why the artist settled in Sicily rather than to return home after being granted clemcy.
According to Susinno, Paladini died on December 15, 1614, in Mazzarino, where he was buried in the church of the Immaculate Conception. But Vincenzo Bonello, the first curator of Malta’s Museum of Fine Arts, did not consider this to be the year of painter’s death, but arather that of his return to Malta, where his stay would have lasted until the days of Grand Master Jean Paul Lascaris Castellar, who had been in office since 1636.
Bonello’s observations were based on the stylistic analysis of Circumcision, a painting by Paladini kept in Jesuits’ church, Valletta. The painting is undated and this suggested to him that it was painted during Paladini’s alleged second stay in Malta, as the sloping down prospective of the altar, suggested by the steps, are similar to those in the Presentation in the Temple at the cathedral of Enna, painted in 1613, a year before what is considered the year of painter’s death. Sadly there are no reliable sources on the matter.
Paladini, Virgin on Throne with Saints and Knights, 1589, Archbishop’s Palace, Valletta.Paladini introduced to Malta the gentleness and preciousness of Florentine Mannerism, which were added to the solemn manner of Matteo Perez d’Aleccio, the first artist to introduce the style on the island, as from 1576, after his Roman experience with Michelangelo Buonarroti. The Tuscan painter left several works on the island, which influenced painting of his Maltese and Sicilian followers.
The first work realised by Paladini in Malta was the Virgin on Throne with Saints and Knights, signed and dated 1589, which today is at Archbishop’s Palace, Valletta. However, this is not its original context, as it was realised for a chapel of Grand Masters’ Palace, Valletta, integrated with the frescoes representing the Stories of the Baptist, on which appears the coat of arms of de Verdalle, also visible on his first Maltese canvas.
The structure of the painting and the delicate bearing of figures suggest the influence of paintings of the Florentine period of Raphael Sanzio. In particular, the architectural background, the classical inspiration and the attitude of clear theatricality of the Baptist on the left, who, turning to the audience, points the Virgin with the infant Jesus upward, are models already used by master from Urbino.
An exponent of the striking quality of Maltese and Sicilian Counter-Reformation painting, he made tangible the religious feeling of the times, revived after Lepanto
For the same influential personage Paladini also realised the frescoes celebrating Christ’s life and the Stories of St Paul and Biblical episodes at Verdala Palace, Buskett, for the most part replaced with other mural paintings realised by Salvatore Micaleff in 1853.
In the Three Saints (from left to right, Paul, Roque and Sebastian) at St Lawrence church, Vittoriosa, the figures go along the foreground, accentuated by sturdy masses of colour utilised for the robes. The variety of chromatic range, the lengthening of figures and their easy posture, form part of the best Mannerist tradition. At the top is the Virgin with the infant Jesus in her arms in a light circle which breaks through the clouds.
Filippo Paladini, Circumcision, undated, Jesuits’ church, Valletta.There are Maltese works by Paladini realised after his arrival in Sicily, where he found fixed abode in Mazzarino, as certified in a notarial deed, dated October 26, 1609, which lays down the realisation of a painting representing the Epiphany for Capuchin church, Calascibetta, in which the artist is mentioned as “florentinus civis Mazzareni”. The document suggests that the painter, already resident in Sicily, regularly visited Malta, where he had good relations with the Order of St John.
The St James the Apostle in the eponymous church in Valletta, bears, in addition to the signature “Phs Paladin. Pingebat”, the date 1611. The work is an evolution of the Three Saints, both in stylistic terms, for the articulate compositive structure and the intense expressiveness of the characters, and in thematic terms, for the use of devotional components derived from Sicilian religious feeling. This indicates a clear contrast with the theatrical attitude of the saints in the previous painting. For this canvas the painter took from the Assumption at Modica the use of colour, while the rocky background was inspired from Pietà with St James at Caltagirone; these two works date back respectively to 1605 and to 1610.
Paladini, Three Saints, 1589-1601, St Lawrence church, Vittoriosa.Two Maltese works by Paladini reveal the adherence to the naturalism of Caravaggio, who the painter certainly knew in Sicily or in Malta, but not before 1607; however, the use of lengthened figures and of devotional subjects betrays Mannerist influences reminiscent of Counter-Reformation painting, the schemes of which were widely utilised by the artist in his numerous works realised during his Sicilian years.
The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine of Alexandria, bought by Bonello, after World War II, was donated by his son, judge Giovanni Bonello and Anna Xuereb to the Museum of Fine Arts in 2009, to mark the 40th anniversary of death of the first curator of the museum. The work probably dates back to 1612.
The influence of Caravaggio are in evidence in the use of a reduced chromatic range and in the strong lighting contrast which makes the figures emerge from the dark background. The pyramidal structure of holy group has its focal point in the meeting of hands in the lower part, also suggested by their eyes turned towards the ring symbolising the spiritual pledge of the saint to God.
Paladini, Mystic Marriage of St Catherine of Alexandria, 1612, Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta.In St Francis church, Valletta, is the painting of Saints Cosma and Damien, dated 1612. It shows the two medical saints healing the leg of the man lying on the ground. According to legend, the saints would have amputated the leg of a white man while he was sleeping, replacing it with a black one of an Ethiopian man, a scene appearing in a painting by Beato Angelico of 1438, at St Mark Museum, Florence. The canvas of Valletta, is to be exhibited next year at the Norman Palace, Palermo.
Precious and refined, solemn and devotional, Paladini’s Maltese works are an adaptation of the classicist matrix of Tuscan formation to the deep-rooted insular devotion. An exponent of the striking quality of Maltese and Sicilian Counter-Reformation painting, he made tangible the religious feeling of the times, revived after Lepanto. Formal dynamism, wise orchestration of the scenes, intense expressiveness of figures and sinuous postures, make harmonious and measured his pictorial language.
In the last years of his life he met Caravaggio’s strength, reducing the inclination to idealisation of classical derivation: brightness and colours are reduced, sacred characters are let down in an ordinary and everyday dimension, his renewed style comes to a ‘humanised realism’. His elegant brush depicted the classic and the natural.