Militello residents Rita and Salvo Liggieri present a photo on canvas of Inquisitor Paulus Bellardita to The Inquisitor’s Palace, and trace the link between the Sicilian and Malta.
In the year 1098, Pope Urbanus II conceded to Roger of Altavilla the Apostolic Legacy, assuring that religious aspects were dependent on the Pope while administrative and judiciary aspects were to be handled by the sovereign, who also had the right to establish a diocese and to choose the Bishops in Sicily and Malta, with the sole exception of the Bishop of Lipari.
In those days nobody imagined that history would twice touch the city of Militello in the Val di Noto in Sicily. In the first instance, in 1554, when Pope Julius III nominated Lanza Filippo, then parish priest of the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Stella of Militello to be Bishop of Lipari, and in a second moment when in 1580 Pope Gregory XIII nominated Paolo Bellardita as Bishop to Lipari. And, again, later in 1586 as the Inquisitor in Malta.
The donation of a copy on canvas of a portrait of the latter Bishop and Inquisitor exists in the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Stella in Militello, to Heritage Malta, makes us briefly reflect on the story of this priest who was the Inquisitor in Malta from 1587 to his death in 1592 at Gioiosa Marca in Sicily.
He has left undeniable and interesting aspects of his life, both as related to his profile as a defender of the faith, but also in the way he understood and managed the realities of the time, in a moment in which the Church of Rome was fully committed on two fronts, namely the continuous conflict against the Ottomans and the problems related to the advancing Protestantism.
Bellardita’s great capabilities as inquisitor were demonstrated on the occasion of the excommunication of Bartolomeo Carnevale
Documentation that has emerged through an interesting exhibition at the Inquisitors’ Palace in Vittoriosa – together with the study of the documents related to the reasons for which Bellardita was held in high esteem by the Pope, and given such an important and delicate position – has helped us understand better the role of this personage.
The Pope recognised Paolo Bellardita’s capabilities by nominating him to be the Bishop of Lipari, that is the only Bishopric in Sicily for which the Pope had a direct say, and head of the inquisition at an important moment of the Counter-reformation, meant that he was considered to be a strong defender of the faith and its morals.
Bellardita held other important positions, among which that of the Abbot of the monastery of Saint Elia in Troina, the first city that was liberated by the Grand Count Roger and who made it his residence for many years.
He was also parish priest of some churches in Catania, and possibly even in Lentini, the city that has the reliquary of the three brother Saints Alfio, Cirino and Filadelfo, the church in fact where he is buried.
Bellardita’s great capabilities as inquisitor were demonstrated on the occasion of the excommunication of Bartolomeo Carnevale, a very influential person of the time, as a consequence of a controversy that erupted with regards to the payment of Ottoman slaves.
This decision created a lot of controversy, both as a result of the influence of the person in question, and also with respect to questions about its legality.
This is only a brief synthesis of the works of a man that, departing from the interior of Sicily, as a result of his great qualities, managed to become a protagonist of history in a period which has not yet been sufficiently studied.
Through this painting that helps us to know Bellardita more intimately, Malta and Militello will, undoubtedly, reinforce their strong historic, religious and cultural links.