The waning of the month of May reminds all those of us who loved and revered Maurice de Giorgio that a year has already passed since he shed the dazzling shabbiness of this world.

Maurice de Giorgio was the driving force behind Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, which he helped launch in January 1992 and nurture fondly thereafter. We who knew him pay tribute to a memory which time does not wilt. He was the gentle giant of Maltese culture, the impeccable arbiter of aesthetics, the compulsive persecutor of the unsightly, the one who badgered perfection.

After a successful business career, he dedicated every minute of his life, every spark of his energies, to the attainment of the ideals of Patrimonju – the enhancement of our cultural heritage, to give added value to the hidden resources of the spirit, to turn history and art into exercises of democracy. He spent the last 23 years of his life doggedly and almost obsessively doing that. It paid.

He etched his vision on all those who worked with him or for him. He is dead but his lessons are as alive today as they were when he first inspired them.