Charlene Vella, a senior lecturer in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Malta, was recently invited to deliver a public lecture in Messina, Sicily.
The lecture, delivered at Messina’s town hall, was titled Il Rinascimento a Malta: i contatti artistici con Messina e Antonello.
In her lecture, Vella explored the connections that exist between Malta and Messina through the lives and the 15 works executed by the nephews of the Italian Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina, Antonio de Saliba and Salvo d’Antonio, as well as the connection between the Observant Franciscans in Rabat and Messina.
The lecture was organised as part of a collaborative project between the universities of Messina, Naples, Cagliari and Palermo dealing with the cultural legacy of the Renaissance in the south of Italy and the islands.
It was coordinated by Roberto Cobianchi, lecturer in medieval art history at the Università degli Studi di Messina’s Dipartimento di Civiltà Antiche e Moderne, and held under the auspices of Messina’s mayor, Federico Basile, and that of the Assessore alla cultura, Enzo Caruso.
Diagnostic tests helped with attributions of these paintings to the two nephews of Antonello da Messina
“The aim of this lecture was not only to highlight some of the connections between Malta and Messina that existed in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, but also to showcase the newly restored Renaissance artworks in Malta that are often dismissed as bottega works by foreign scholars,” Vella said.
“In fact, apart from an art historical analysis, I also had the opportunity to present the results of diagnostic tests as well as images of paintings in Malta that were conserved and restored within the last 12 years, which also helped with attributions of these paintings to the two nephews of Antonello,” she added.
This was Vella’s first public lecture following the recent launch of her latest publication In the Footsteps of Antonello da Messina: the Antonelliani between Sicily and Venice, published by Midsea Books.
Vella’s research started in 2010 together with Mario Buhagiar, Keith Sciberras and Fr Gino Gauci with a painting of the Madonna Enthroned Adoring the Child in Żejtun, now attributed to Antonio de Saliba. Since then, several Renaissance paintings from different private collections have been studied and conserved.