The 500-year-old Grade 1 scheduled Villa Barbaro in Tarxien may have withstood the onslaught of the Great Siege but it is under threat from an application to build an apartment block directly in front of it.

The development would dwarf the unique two-storey heritage country house and wipe out its all-important context.

The owner of the house, Marquis Antony Cremona Barbaro, who has been fighting a frustrating battle to extend the buffer zones around his pre-Great Siege property, has thrown down the gauntlet in the firm belief that the protection of the context of a historical building of the sort is as important as scheduling the country house itself.

In reality, he admitted, adequate buffer zones to ensure the proper safeguarding of these buildings and their gardens from disproportionately high surrounding development were seldom granted, with the result that many had already been “visually disfigured”, neutralising the purpose of the protective scheduling.

“There is absolutely no point in giving maximum scheduling and supposedly full protection to these heritage buildings, as in the case of Villa Barbaro, if their setting is not safeguarded too,” he argued about the importance of context and the abject failure to understand it.

“Sadly,” said the Marquis, “and most bizarrely – and despite my protests and repeated efforts over the last 10 years – the Planning Authority has still not extended the buffer zone to the most crucial and sensitive area directly in front of the villa.”

The “threat” of the proposed five-storey development in Żejtun Road was even more serious, the Marquis maintained, because it was directly opposite the lowest part of the villa’s façade – an early 17th century one-floor arched terrace.

As things stand, the buffer zone includes a number of houses on the private lane on one side of the property and a large plot of land directly behind it at the back of the garden on Church Street, which is a villa-only area.

The other side of Villa Barbaro is touching the Urban Conservation Area, so it is protected from that end, explained the Marquis, adding that it was unfortunate that the property was at the very edge of the UCA, leaving it open to the threat of towering surrounding developments.

Virtually intact, the villa still enjoys its contextual integrity, the Marquis pointed out, thanks to the as yet unspoilt streetscape of Żejtun Road, with traditional two-storey houses, despite the “galling” fact that it is a development zone.

“It is highly ironic that while the stated purpose of the buffer zone was to protect the vistas of the garden, the horrific impact of the proposed development would, on the contrary, irrevocably destroy the very vistas the authority seeks to protect, hemming in the garden and cutting it off from its original context,” he continued.

Marquis Cremona Barbaro’s family has owned this pre-Siege country house since at least 1535 and he has vowed to “vigorously oppose this visual mutilation of one of the country’s important heritage gems with all the forces I can muster.

“If this barbarity is allowed to go through, it will be the end for this gracious centuries-old country villa, which has been lovingly cared for and cherished over so many generations of my family”.

The pre-Siege country house is relatively intact and still enjoys its contextual integrity, for the time being. Photo: Matthew MirabelliThe pre-Siege country house is relatively intact and still enjoys its contextual integrity, for the time being. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

The villa is one of the nation’s oldest country houses of the nobility, with strong stylistic affinities with the scheduled Inquisitor’s Palace in Girgenti and Palazzo Gomerino in Rabat. The early 17th-century walled gardens boast several impressive architectural features, including a unique two-storey-high prospettiva [pavilion], dated 1625, and are frequently visited by the Royal Horticultural Society.

The context of the villa would be irrevocably destroyed

The villa’s important heritage value was already recognised back in the 1920s when it was placed on the list of protected monu­ments by the museum authorities. This status was affirmed by the Planning Authority in 1996 when it scheduled the house with the highest level of protection, and the garden in 2009, creating a buffer zone. This has, however, proven to be inadequate.

The Marquis said it was an exception in Malta to be fighting for the scheduling of one’s own property, because owners usually wanted to leave open the possibility of selling it for development.

The recent application was “a direct result of the authority’s deplorable failure to properly enforce the villa’s scheduled protection, and the horrific impact on the villa’s garden façade is all too evident in the photomontage.

Pointing out an encouraging development in the ongoing saga, he said the Authority had, as instructed by the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal, commissioned a sighting report with a view to extending the buffer zone.

The appointed expert had submitted the report recommending the inclusion of the area opposite the villa’s façade (including the proposed development) within the two-storey buffer zone, and the Marquis now expected the authority to “finally see sense and comply with its own commissioned report”, which is currently before the tribunal.

Although he remained in limbo because no action has been taken on the report, which would save the house if implemented, he was also confident that, with the backing of the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, the authority would not allow the villa to be “reduced to nothing but a panorama for the towering blocks threatening to surround it, while the views and context of the villa and gardens themselves, from within the heritage property, would be irrevocably destroyed”.

As the authority charged with safeguarding the nation’s built heritage, Marquis Cremona Barbaro said it was expected to translate words into concrete action and show the nation it was truly committed to protecting its patrimony. “A Grade 1 scheduling is not a mere paper exercise,” he insisted.

“I am the guardian of another Grade 1 scheduled heritage building and it cannot be mere coincidence that they are both gravely threatened by encroaching development,” he pointed out, referring to Villa Barbaro Bellosguardo in Attard, which housed a renowned private museum in the 18th century.

This was also facing the threat of a “disfiguring” four-metre-high development directly on the scheduled garden walls, as well as a bedroom just behind its baroque prospettiva.

“All this can only be a reflection of the serious and disturbing crisis our built heritage is currently facing. Grade 1 scheduled buildings are described by the Planning Authority itself as having outstanding architectural or historical interest that should be preserved in their entirety and that no alterations impairing the setting would be allowed.

“The measure of a country’s maturity and self-worth is in the extent to which it cherishes and respects its past and particularly the cultural heritage handed down by past generations. But if it wilfully turns its back on its past and stands by the wayside while the most splendid relics are systematically eradi­cated, it condemns itself to a very bleak future,” the Marquis concluded. “It becomes a nation without a soul.”  

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.