Il-Ħaġar – Heart of Gozo Museum in Victoria is paying tribute to the life and work of Vincenzo Bonello on the 130th anniversary of his birth (September 3, 1891).

Currently on display at the cultural centre are 27 of his designs for Ta’ Pinu, the Lourdes chapel at Mġarr and the parish churches of Kerċem, Qala and Xewkija, in Gozo. The temporary exhibition also includes 13 documents, two paintings, two letters, a stool, a model, a bust and a reliquary.

Vincenzo, who was by profession an art expert, a critic and historian, worked amply in Malta but the island of Calypso seemingly cast a spell on him, as his son, human rights lawyer Giovanni Bonello, writes in an essay interspersed with colourful anecdotes in a book-catalogue accompanying the exhibition.

He had no known Gozitan ancestry and Bonello does not really know how his father’s relationship, particularly his artistic connections with the island, started but he points to the possibility that his love for Gozo was nurtured through a number of friendships he cultivated over the years.

These included painter Robert Caruana Dingli, with whom Vincenzo corresponded profusely when the former moved to Gozo in 1921 to execute some church commissions, and his friendship with and “reverence” for Nerik Mizzi, the Maltese politician who went on to become the co-leader of the Maltese Nationalist Party from 1926 and was briefly prime minister in 1950.

“Father was an uncompromising and fervent Mizzjan, a supporter of the less popular branch of the Nationalist movement,” Bonello writes.

He notes that Mizzi did not do well in the first self-government elections of 1921 but he enjoyed “a plebiscite triumph” in Gozo. “His party elected 100 per cent of the Gozo deputies to Parliament,” Bonello points out.

The former European Court of Human Rights judge, however, believes that his father left an indelible mark on Gozo mostly due to his being the trusted art confidant of Bishop Michael Gonzi, who “controlled every leaf that rustled in the Gozitan diocese from 1924 to 1943, when Rome made him Bishop of Malta”.

He depended on Vincenzo’s advice, Bonello writes. “I believe that is how father came to leave his imprint in Gozo and, in particular, on the sanctuary of Ta’ Pinu, before and after World War II.”

The neo-Romanesque edifice was the brainchild of Andrea Vassallo but, apart from that, “every little detail of embellishment and decoration added to it up to Vincenzo’s death in 1969 are his creations or carried out under his direction”.

Bonello cites, among others, that his father secured the talent of Emvin Cremona and Mario Caffaro Rore for the creation of the concept cartoons of the various mosaic altarpieces and his commissioning George Borg for the two side tables in marble (also designed by Vincenzo), flanking the main altar with the symbols of the evangelists.

Vincenzo also designed the pulpit, the marble communion rails, the lectern, the baldakkin, the presiding throne and the monstrance, besides every other decorative detail added until his death.

Aside from Ta’ Pinu, he also worked for the parishes of Kerċem, Xagħra and Qala and the Lourdes chapel at Mġarr.

The exhibition will help promote and preserve the more ephemeral side of Vincenzo Bonello: his incorruptible spirit, his dauntless courage in the face of tyranny

Bonello also landed some architectural commissions, the most important of which was for a proposed new rotunda in Xewkija, which was to replace the old baroque church. However, Ġuże D’Amato’s design, which Bonello describes as almost a carbon copy of the Santa Maria della Salute church in Venice, was chosen over Vincenzo’s, “a defeat which disappointed him”.

Memories of a son

The first ‘family photo’ Bonello is aware of was taken by his father at the Inland Sea in Dwejra in the summer of 1939 with his portable Voigtlander Bessa camera from the 1920s;  the bellows type, he says, and which he still owns.

“It shows my mother, Rina, my two eldest sisters and myself all in the most chaste of bathing costumes. I was then three years old, with long blond curls all over my head, Italian toddler style,” Bonello writes in the 13th exhibition catalogue in the Il-Ħaġar GEMS series.

But that happy moment was not to last long as Vincenzo was arrested and imprisoned along with Mizzi and 40 other Maltese, without charge or trial, before his son’s fourth birthday and he returned from his political exile in Uganda when Bonello was nine.

“That hiatus hampered our natural bonding at the right age,” he says.

The former ECHR judge remembers his father as rather broke, calm, never losing his temper, always ready to work pro bono (Ċensu tal-pjaċiri), always looking for some excuse to justify those who harmed him.

“He almost never argued with my mother. All in all, an easy person to live with if one could overlook his OCD meticulous timekeeping. His day was regulated by an inbuilt Swiss chronometer: so many hours for work, so long for reading newspapers, so long for reading books and so long for writing. Only major natural catastrophes would divert that routine by a margin of minutes.”

He also describes him as having been a devout Catholic.

“His whole life was profiled by an unwavering faith. Very traditionalist and unquestioning. He had a good sense of humour but squirmed at irreverent or irreligious jokes. For many years, he served as diligent secretary to the ancient and devout congregation of the Onorati. He never missed a ceremony or event held by that confraternity.”

Work in Malta

In Malta, Vincenzo’s three main architectural concepts which were actually realised were the parish church of St Joseph in Kalkara, for which he designed all the plans, the elevations and the major architectural and sculptural details, Bonello says.

“Similarly, his is the vast home for senior and ailing members of the clergy, Christus Sacerdos Dar tal-Kleru in Birkirkara, and the refashioning of the façade of the Archbishop’s Palace in Valletta, together with the first floor.”

Besides these, on a smaller scale, Vincenzo designed for various churches and convents innumerable altars, pulpits, baptismal fonts, floors, portals, decorations, furniture, fittings and portable objects used in the liturgy.

“After his death, my sister Anna and I donated some 1,200 of these drawings to the Wignacourt Museum in Rabat where they are now safely housed,” Bonello reveals.

Asked which is his most outstanding design in his opinion, Bonello says that it’s perhaps the entire marble, mosaic and sculptural decorations of the Mellieħa Sanctuary of Our Lady, which he was responsible for over many years.

Other achievements

Vincenzo designed the badges of the Catholic Action, of the Marian Congress, of the Nationalist Party, the ‘Maduma’, and the ‘kokka’ of the university students and their official banner.

He also designed some postcards for the 1913 International Eucharistic Congress, some newspaper mastheads, like for the original Leħen is-Seuua, the art deco tribune for the 1938 Eucharistic Congress, the display of St John Co-Cathedral’s Museum and the entire throne room in the Archbishop’s Palace in Valletta.

Bonello also mentions the marble floors and layout of the new Cathedral Museum in Mdina and some important tombstones, like that of Bishop Mauro Caruana in St Gregory’s in Sliema, where he also designed the sitting processional statue of the patron saint.

He also collaborated with Emvin Cremona in devising several sets of postage stamps.

Besides founding the School of Arts in Malta in 1925, in the inter-war years he was instrumental in obtaining scholarships for gifted Maltese art students to further their studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. These included the brothers Vincent and Willie Apap, Emvin Cremona, George Borg, Anton Inglott, Giorgio Preca, Carmelo Borg Pisani and many others.

Legacy

Bonello says that his father was the first in Malta to place art criticism and history on a professional level. He was also the first modern ‘scientific’ restorer of paintings and an archival researcher of history and history of art.

“His pioneer studies and discoveries in these fields remain relevant to this day,” Bonello remarks.

Vincenzo received many honorary awards for his achievements.

Before the war he was made a knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and was enrolled as a member of the ancient and highly prestigious Academy of St Luke, the only Maltese after renowned sculptor Melchiorre Gafà in 1662 to be given this honour.

After the war, the Vatican made him a knight of the Equestrian Order of St Gregory the Great and a member of the very exclusive Pontificia Accademia Archeologica, the only Maltese ever to have enjoyed this honour, according to his son.

The works Vincenzo created over his lifetime, which are all set in stone, marble and bronze, will keep his legacy alive for years to come. The exhibition, curated by the indefatigable Il-Ħaġar museum research team, will, however, shed more light on the artist behind the grandiose designs.

“The exhibition will help promote and preserve the more ephemeral side of Vincenzo Bonello: his incorruptible spirit, his dauntless courage in the face of tyranny, his devotion and loyalty to those he considered non-negotiable principles, whatever the cost,” Bonello concludes.

Vincenzo Bonello: 130th Anniversary Exhibition opened at Il-Ħagar Museum in St George’s Square, Victoria, last Friday and runs until September 28. Opening hours: Monday to Sunday from 9am to 5pm. Entrance is free.

The exhibition is supported by the Ministry for Gozo, the Malta Tourism Authority, Heritage Malta, MUŻA, the National Archives of Malta, Wignacourt Museum, Ta’ Pinu National Shrine and the Cultural Heritage Directorate of the Ministry for Gozo.