Anton Camilleri:Monumenti u busti fil-gżejjer Maltin
BDL Books
Considering the islands’ plethora of busts, monuments, and plaques, it is difficult to agree with Robert Musil’s observation that ‘There is nothing in this world as invisible as a monument.’ They recall institutions and events, as well as deserving individuals, although one or two others with a dubious claim may have sneaked in.
Anton Camilleri’s Monumenti u Busti fil-Gżejjer Maltin is an important contribution to Melitensia. About twelve years ago, he ventured on the huge task of collecting this information. He has an excellent eye for relevant anecdotes and for historical, art historical, artistic and social information. The excellently produced publication is well served by the photography of Ken Scicluna.
The busts and monuments came in all shapes and sizes and in various media such as bronze, stone, concrete, resin, fibreglass and glass. A number are veritable works of art that would feature brightly in any museum; others are pasturi-like and show squattish figures lacking proportions, perhaps to save on the raw material. I must confess that some of the figures, depicting people I have known, do not look much like the real person at all.
I must say that the accolade for the ugliest monument of all must go to the ridiculous cube of ashlar stones at Blata l-Bajda that ‘celebrates’ the International Year of Youth. Thankfully its ‘designer’ is not mentioned.
Up to the sixties, Malta’s monuments tended mostly to recall saints, grand masters, governors, servicemen, and a scattering of local prelates and distinguished philanthropists, lawyers and doctors. After independence we were overcome with a national urge to erect such remembrances to the point that there is hardly a garden, a small open space, or even a wide pavement that does not sport one.
Most towns and villages have a monument erected to the fallen of World War II (Luqa and Nadur in Gozo actually have two each), while the Cenotaph at Floriana that functions as the national memorial is one of the monuments that was actually moved, not by much, from its original site. Designed by Louis Naudi, it was belatedly erected to honour the 592 Maltese who died during World War I, and inaugurated on November 11, 1938.
Upper Barrakka houses an array of fine monuments making it an open-air museum
Several monuments have indeed had a nomadic existence. The top accolade must go to Grand Master Manoel de Vilhena’s, which started off in the fort that bears his name, was moved to the square in front of the Bibliotheca, then to one end of the Mall, and then to a side square in Floriana, a place that does not do credit to our finest Baroque statue. It is high time that the original (which survived an almost-tragic restoration a couple of decades ago) is moved to a museum and substituted by a copy.
The French were also responsible for almost stealing Grand Master Cotoner’s bust which graced Notre Dame Gate. Fortunately the ship it was being carried on was intercepted by a British man of war. The grand master is believed by many to be casting his glance in the direction of a buried treasure.
One of the oldest public monuments celebrates the Great Siege victory in Vittoriosa. Erected in 1705, its sword was taken away as a prank by British sailors in 1945 and never recovered.
Camilleri does not include the monuments found in cemeteries with two notable examples, that of the Sette Giugno at the Addolorata by the Anglo-Russian artist Boris Edwards and the fine memorial to Olaf Gollcher at Ta’ Braxia.
Abstract ones seem to be inching in, one of the earliest is Marco Cremona’s monument at Birzebbugia recalling the Bush-Gorbachev summit.
Valletta is, quite expectedly, the champion host of monuments with almost a hundred examples. They include the exquisite ones inside St John’s, most of them excellent examples of Baroque statuary, one lovelier than the other and joys to the eyes. The Upper Barrakka houses an array of fine monuments making it an open-air museum. A couple of others are best left unmentioned.
The author also includes two extinct Valletta monuments. Verdalle’s famous ‘Fame’ column in Palace Square stood for 185 years until it was demolished in 1773. Of Col. Anderson Morshead’s sarcophagus only the base survives in the saluting battery at the Upper Barrakka.
Camilleri also includes monuments and busts of Maltese found abroad in places as far away as Argentina, Wales, Australia and India, not to mention several in Italy including those to Malta’s first cardinal in Senigallia, Fortunato Mizzi in Rome, and Carmelo Borġ Pisani at La Spezia.
There are also several monuments with unusual dedications. Għarb has a monument to the city of Prague and Nadur celebrates its carnival, while in Malta there are monuments to grandparents, water, those who donated their bodies for medical research, as well as to the dog Star in Mosta, animals at Għaxaq, and the sun and planets along the Qawra seafront.
One, celebrating the tenth anniversary of the setting-up of the works section within the ministry of infrastructure, spent four years stored away waiting for a suitable location!
Some monuments do not seem to have had an all too happy experience. Toni Agius’s embracing lovers at Howard Gardens seem to have regularly fallen foul of the shockables and was periodically daubed with paint. Frans Galea’s Ċrieki monument was twice vandalized and Nerik Mizzi’s bust in Valletta was wafted away in 1975, only to be discovered below the sea at il-Fossa.
Incidentally the infamous column at Luqa that was shielded by the defenders of morality to spare Pope Benedict’s eyes does not get a mention, but then it is not a monument in the strict sense.
The book also features potted biographies of a select list of designers and sculptors. Notable foreign artists represented locally include Domenico Guidi, Giuseppe Mazzuoli, Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi, Bertel Thorvaldsen and Boris Edwards.