In view of the discussions aroused by your column on the Opera House site, both here and in Paris, is there anything else burning inside you that you wish to say about Valletta, prospective cultural capital of Europe?

Obviously, I am eager to see the Grand Master's Palace transformed as the Prime Minister has promised us into a treasure house to be visited both by its rightful owners, the people of Malta, and by our guests of all hues.

I look forward to the paintings at present at the Fine Arts Museum, many of which went there from the Palace, being returned to their original hanging place. Many of them are well worth seeing (I would myself single out the Guido Reni masterpiece) but not crowd pullers like Caravaggio, to a bye-street. They would be certainly much more widely admired if housed somewhere which was in itself a centre of attraction.

Moreover, the Palace would also retain in visibility some of the splendid exhibits put up by Patrimonju Malti over the last years, such as costumes, silverware and so on. In this connection, I have noticed in Valletta curious turnovers in retailing outlets. For instance, I see an increase in jewellery shops as well as in snack shops, clearly because of the increasing proportion of tourists in relation to locals as customers.

Our newspapers have made us aware that there are some Maltese designers of jewellery who have been impressively successful in world centres such as London. Yet, my impression is that apart from conventional filigree ornaments and souvenirs, there is little local creativity that is visible in the precious objects sold to foreign visitors, even though many of the wealthier among them search for it.

One of the fascinating parts of Francesca Balzan's recent book on Jewellery in Malta, which is itself a jewel of a book, is that in which she describes the appearance of retailers of jewellery in the period of the Knights in our island.

They were often different from the traditional craftsmen who made it. Balzan gives a non-exhaustive list of over 20 jewellers, including some dynasties such as the Tedescos, in the period which she covers. These were more specialised than the goldsmiths and silversmiths such as Carlo Troisi, the best known of them, who also produced jewel works of exquisite quality.

What else struck you particularly in Balzan's book?

For one thing, she provides the basic toolbox which enables recognition of the objects produced on the island and those imported from various centres abroad, with the identification of jewellers' hallmark, as well as of the times when they were produced.

She wisely restricted her survey to the period of the Knights, but this happens to have been a key period in the history of jewellery considered both as an art-form and also in terms of its role in social and economic life. From the aesthetic point of view, the early 17th Century, as a result of the exploration of both new and old continents and cultures, made a wider variety of gem stones available in Europe. Their cutting and foiling became much more important than their setting in gold and silver. The brilliance of light effects gradually replaced the previous predominance of enamelling. Awareness of the individual creativity of artists like Daniel Mignot spread from his native France across the continent.

By the second half of the 17th Century, naturalism in the representation of flora in jewellery accompanies the development of the still-life genre of painting initiated by Caravaggio and his Flemish and Spanish followers. By 1730, the Rococo style begins to appear in jewellery as in the other arts.

By the late 18th century, the harbinger signs of Romanticism began to shimmer out of the jewellery, which now departs from the rigid symmetry that had previously been almost religiously observed. Understandably, the arabesque motifs that had come from Moorish Spain continued to flourish. (Some magnificent examples are illustrated by Balzan).

You were an examiner of the thesis on which Balzan's book is based. As a priest, what is the particular interest of jewellery for you?

Today, jewellery, by which is meant any adjunct adornment to the body that is not clothing, is primarily appreciated for its aesthetic value. Previously, it was for the functional purposes for which it was originally made, e.g. to hold a garment, such as a shawl or a liturgical cope together, or to indicate status, for instance, marital or Episcopal, in the case of rings.

Perhaps, somewhat paradoxically, part of the immense contemporary rise in interest in jewellery is because of the kind of New Age mystical religiosity that is flourishing at the same time that traditional, institutional Christianity is declining in Western Europe.

The geometrical symbolism that marks the sacred jewellery characteristic of cultures ranging from the Egyptian to the Inca, from the Tibetan to the Thai, has inspired many contemporary creative designers to produce jewellery that can be purchased on-line and refers to such sources as notably the Mother Goddess, of whose cult Malta was a pre-eminent centre.

Well over half of Balzan's 30 case studies come from religious contexts. Even more than richness of colour, it is the play of light on jewels that gives them both their peculiar beauty and powerful religious symbols. This was made more complex by their gold or silver settings in Byzantine and Medieval sacred art.

Incidentally, quite different, although also beautiful in itself, results in the photography of jewellery. As in the photographic reproduction of icons with their gold background, the liveliness of the light play is quietened down to the level of ordinary pigment in order to avoid the glare of hotspots. That I make this remark is indicative of the superb quality of the reproductions in Balzan's book printed by Gutenberg Press.

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott was talking to Miriam Vincenti.