A few weeks ago, the Friends of the National Museum of Fine Arts organised a fundraising dinner at the museum itself.

High culture will... be at the epicentre of our very own identity and the institutions that determine and shape it- Kenneth Zammit Tabona

To keep costs low and profits high, the committee catered themselves; myself, for instance, producing my foolproof recipe for blowtorched rib-eye steak… We laid the eight tables of 10 and with the help of kind sponsors produced a memorable occasion the proceeds of which will go towards the restoration of the frames.

The Friends was set up with this purpose and also that of assisting the curator during open days and events like Notte Bianca. The members of the main committee are now able to provide a personalised tour of most of the rooms at the museum, which enhances the experience enormously.

The national collection is our heritage. It belongs to us all and while, yes, the government is in duty bound to safeguard it by devoting money raised by our hard-earned taxes to its maintenance, there is nothing wrong should we, the people of Malta, devote time and energy to ensure that this patrimony is appreciated.

Because of the excellent relationship the Friends have forged with Sandro Debono, the curator, we, the FNMFA committee, all feel very involved with everything that happens at the museum and have in the last few months discussed at length the move from ex-Admiralty House to Auberge d’Italie, a move that in last week’s Budget speech became a reality.

This will be a return “back home” where Vincenzo Bonello had established the fine arts section later to become the National Museum of Fine Arts. Here, Themistocles Zammit had his office and it was in this auberge that the archaeological section was put in context with fine arts, natural history and other collections such as the monetarium to represent Maltese identity. It is a place of great significance to our cultural identity and will be a defining tool to determine our natural cultural home.

While the logistics of the move need to be studied and decided upon with the aim of keeping the national collection publicly available as much as possible, the benefits of moving to a much larger and more spacious premises cannot be discounted. It is the intention of the government to rehouse the collection in accordance with contemporary museological practice in order to show our patrimony to its optimum advantage.

We have a lot to be proud of for, in addition to having the largest Mattia Preti collection in the world, we also have great works by Guido Reni, Jusepe Ribera, Antoine de Favray and Valentin de Boulogne on display. For a tiny island like Malta, this is incredible should we not take into consideration that for well on to three centuries members of the Sovereign Military and Hospitaller Order of St John had amassed a collection of works commensurate to their aristocratic station, the bulk of which remained in Malta, either in private or public collections. There is no other Mediterranean island quite like ours; with the possible exception of Sicily, which we were once part of politically and which is infinitely larger and more diverse than tiny Malta can ever hope to be.

Historically, in Malta things took a slightly different turn in as far as collections are concerned. While the churches were, and still are, chock-full of art treasures, the collections in the Grand Masters’ palaces, the inquisitors’ palaces, the auberges and the residences of the knights themselves became, with the advent of Napoleon, public domain, which is why the contents were auctioned by the republican French to raise money to finance their campaigns, auctions at which, judging by the standard of local collections even today, the Maltese well-to-do bought and bought. Likewise the British also held auction sales of what remained at which the Maltese well-to-do shopped till they dropped. This is why the palaces and auberges, once repositories for the greatest of art treasures, became and, up to a certain extent still are, sparsely furnished, especially when compared to the orror vacui-like decor favoured by the Maltese nobility and gentry.

Were it not for the pioneers of Maltese museology and archaeology, scholar-patriots like Chev. Bonello and Sir Temistocles, who battled the largely indifferent British Administration and managed to obtain the funding and the premises with which to establish foundations of today’s museums, one wonders whether we would have had our public museums today. Collections are not amassed overnight and Chev. Bonello had to start from scratch; a veritable tabula rasa, extracting paintings of top quality from public buildings and negotiating purchases and bequests from private collections like the famous Bellanti, one painstaking dedicated, meticulously scholarly and largely unappreciated work without which we would have had no museums today.

Auberge d’Italie can house a far more representative collection of Malta’s art historical identity. Loads of works of art until now in storage will be displayed for all to appreciate. This could also have been done at South Street where the museum had years ago acquired an adjoining palazzo but now this will be possible with more coherence and structure akin to national galleries in Europe.

No better site could have been chosen than Auberge d’Italie, next to St James Cavalier and close to Renzo Piano’s new Parliament with Auberge de Castille, the Prime Minister’s Office, adjacent to it.

High culture will, henceforth, be at the epicentre of our very own identity and the institutions that determine and shape it.

kzt@onvol.net

The author is president of the recently-formed Friends of the National Museum of Fine Arts.