The irreversible transience of life has held centre stage in most civilisations, as a spiritual warning firstly but also as a self-contained genre in creativity.

The concept of Vanitas – the futility of all human exertions when our ultimate destination is annihilation, permeates Western thought – as a prop to belief in an afterlife, or as a more nihilistic vision of non-existence.

My epitaph will be inscribed Vannitas Vannitatum.

1932 state funeral of Minister Mgr Enrico Dandria in St John’s Co-Cathedral. Note the symbols of death overlooking the coffin.

Various symbols recall death.

The obvious, and most diffuse in Malta, are skeletons and skulls.

Not surprisingly, very common in burial places but elsewhere too. The marble pavement of St John’s Co-Cathedral hosts more baroque representations of death than can be counted.

But, surprisingly, in later cemeteries, icons of mortality are almost inexistent. 

A mural showing death tormented by Satan, in the Main Guard, Valletta. Courtesy Heritage Malta

Even the military Main Guard building in Valletta houses on its walls several memento mori painted by British soldiers, whose everyday job was to walk hand in hand with death.

Sadly, these murals suffered devastating damage when the building was given to a Libyan Cultural Centre but are now being skilfully preserved for posterity.

A 19th century watercolour of the Floriana Capuchin crypt. Courtesy Book Distributors Ltd

The Capuchin crypt today. Courtesy Book Distributors Ltd

A 19th century depiction of the Floriana Capuchin crypt. Courtesy Book Distributors Ltd

Malta had two picturesque venues exclusively built around the cult of death – the Chapel of Bones in Valletta and the Floriana Capuchin crypt.

Pre-war, both featured as ‘tourist attractions’, despite their overwhelmingly macabre props – skulls, skeletons and decorative bone compositions.

Detail of the Valletta Chapel of Bones, 1910s, by Richard Ellis

After a period of intense morbid popularity, the authorities closed the Chapel of Bones to the public to respect the human remains.

The Nazi blitz obliterated it. Only innumerable postcards survive.

The Floriana Capuchin crypt suffered an almost similar fate. 

1910s postcard of the Chapel of Bones by Richard Ellis

Bombed during the war, it reopened later but was shorn of most of its gruesome exhibits.

This feature includes antique photographs and postcards from my collections but also images generously lent.

A Fascist war propaganda postcard showing death piloting airplanes over Malta.

Baroque tombstone of Fr Vincenzo de Figuera in St John’s Co-Cathedral. One of the countless showing symbols of death.

Bas relief in Valletta emblazoned with 'memento mori symbolism'.

Another mural in the Main Guard showing a mummified Capuchin friar. Courtesy Heritage Malta