Art Critic, Restorer, Museum Curator and Historian
The eldest son of Giovanni Bonello*, painter and art publisher, and Maria Carmela née Vella, Vincenzo was born in Valletta. The painter Carmelo Bonello* was his brother.
He studied at the Lyceum. In 1920 he was employed as Government inspector of Fine Arts and in 1926 he became a lecturer in History of Arts at the Malta Government School of Art. In 1925 he was first Curator of Fine Arts in the Museums Deparment and acting Director of the Museum during the absence of Themistocles Zammit. In 1929 he was appointed Curator of the Fine Arts Section and Curator of Works of Art. Bonello was instrumental in the opening of the Malta Government School of Art at the Tessi Palace in Old Bakery Street, Valletta. He was also deeply involved in the setting up of the Cathedral Museum in Mdina and the St John’s Museum in Valletta. In 1927 he produced the emblem of the Nationalist Party still in use today.
Bonello singlehandedly undertook the task of acquiring about 400 paintings for the museum and attributing their authorship.
Bonello studied Mattia Preti and other painters whose fame was largely unknown even among the cultural elite of the islands. He discovered the identity of the sculptor of The Baptism of Christ and of the Perellos monument in St John’s co-cathedral.
Bonello was an authority on local history which he researched in the Malta and the Vatican archives. His special field was the period of the Order of St John. As a recognition of his work, he was invested as a magistral knight of grace by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Bonello’s involvement in the Maltese cultural field begun in his youth. A member of the Società Storico-Scientifica Maltese, he contributed to Malta Letteraria and to Melita as well as to the Archivio Storico di Malta. His articles are also found in local journals and newspapers. Some of his studies were published in the Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, Enciclopedia Universale dell’Arte, Commonwealth Art Today, La Madonna nell’Arte, Guida d’Italia, L’Arte Sacre a Malta, and Echi del Risorgimento a Malta.
Bonello was deeply involved in the organisation of several art exhibitions including the Marian Exhibition at Mdina (1949); the Pauline Centenary Exhibition of Sacred Art in Malta (1960) held in Floriana; the Council of Europe Exhibition held in the Palace (1969); and the exhibition held to mark the three hundredth anniversary of the Great Siege.
Bonello was member of the Malta Tourist Board, the Antiquities Committee, the Aesthetics Board, the Ecclesiastical Board of Antiquities, the Malta Historical Society, and the Comitato Maltese Dante Alighieri.
During World War II, Bonello was one of the internees controversially and unconstitutionally deported to Uganda by the British. Upon his return to Malta from exile he took up private practice as an art consultant and designer.
He designed the plans of Kalkara parish church, the house of the clergy at Fleur-de-Lys, the second floor of the Archbishop’s Palace in Valletta, the pulpit of the parish church of Floriana, the ciborium magnum over the main altar of the Collegiate Church and Basilica of Senglea, as well as the pulpit, main altar, and presbytery of the same collegiate church. He was also in charge of the embellishment of the Ta’ Pinu Sanctuary in Gozo and the Sanctuary of Mellieħa, among many others.
In the book published by the Wignacourt Museum in 2006, and edited by Mgr John Azzopardi, Vincenzo Bonello (1891-1969). Designer of ecclesiastical ‘objets d’art’ and architectural works, John Azzopardi and his son Dr Giovanni compiled a repertory of no less than 1200 items of drawings and plans for Maltese churches grouped in 14 files. These were donated by Bonello’s children, Giovanni and his sister Anna Xuereb to the Wignacourt Collegiate Museum in Rabat in 2006.
Vincenzo Bonello married Rita Magri, sister of Judge Alberto Magri in 1932, and they became the parents of Giovanni Bonello*, a lawyer, judge and a well-known researcher in Maltese history; and Anna.
This biography is part of the collection created by Michael Schiavone over a 30-year period. Read more about Schiavone and his initiative here.