Mattia Preti’s The Immaculate Conception.

Din l-Art Ħelwa is marking the 400th anniversary of the birth of Mattia Preti by restoring one of his works, The Immaculate Conception.

The painting is located at Sarria church, Floriana, which was built in 1676 on the site of an earlier church constructed in 1574, which was also dedicated to the Immaculate Conception. Sarria takes its name from the Italian birth place of the knight who built the early church.

Grand Master Nicholas Cottoner commissioned Mattia Preti to design the church after an outbreak of plague struck Marsamxetto in December 1675, quickly spreading to Valletta, Senglea and Żurrieq. Malta lost a third of its population, and the grandmaster felt that only the divine intercession of the Immaculate Conception, with her renowned power over evil, could stop the plague. He ordered that Sarria’s small church be rebuilt in grander style, as a vote of thanksgiving for her intercession.

Preti took charge of the building, and Sarria remains the only known church in the world to have been designed and built by Preti, housing no less than seven paintings by the artist. These artistic contents, including the monumental titular painting, were designed to fit architect-urally into the stone housings the artist created for them, and all saints depicted are connected in some way with the deadly disease.

In May 1676 Mattia Preti presented the grandmaster with a model of the church. The plague was halted. The titular painting, The Immaculate Conception, is rare in that it captures on canvas the symbolic victory over the plague, and of good over evil.

The Virgin Mary stands surrounded by angels over a background of boats that ferry the sick from Lazaretto over to Valletta. Above her figure, God the Father and the Divine Spirit, all look down at the triumph of good over evil. The Virgin Mary is surrounded by Archangels who, victorious, return their swords to their scabbards.

The other saints depicted on canvas are all related to the plague, among them St Sebastian, also restored by Din L-Art Ħelwa last year, and St Roque.

The Immaculate Conception had suffered from neglect over time, and its canvas had separated from its stretcher frame.

Din l-Art Ħelwa was restoring St Sebastian, when it was noticed that the painting had collapsed under its own weight, and was detaching from the main wall over the altar.

Emergency action was taken to save the painting from collapsing, and restoration work was commissioned to Giuseppe Mantella Restauri.

The firm has restored many other Preti works in Malta, including the lunette in St John’s Co-Cathedral.

Restoration works were carried out with the support of Shireburn Software.