Oratory window whodunnit

It was a pleasure to read Dominic Cutajar’s letter titled ‘The blocked window of St John’s oratory’ (August 14). I did not only appreciate its content but also the gentlemanly style of this scholar when expressing his learned opinion and reminding us, with elan, of his earlier contribution to establish who closed the oratory window that offered direct natural light on Caravaggio’s Beheading of St John the Baptist.

The window, recently blocked by The St John’s Co-Cathedral Foundation (the foundation) in the process of building a new museum, was not the one that allowed direct natural light on Caravaggio’s masterpiece. That window was blocked by Mattia Preti in the early 1680s.

Mattia Preti self-portrait. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The foundation was correct in maintaining this and, in support, quoting David Stone’s article of 1997, which referred to Preti’s “blocking of the sixth window on the north side”. However, Cutajar is perfectly correct in claiming that he had already established this fact as early as 1989, when he wrote that Preti had “created a small choir between the recess and the altar, in the process blocking the most easterly of the windows that had lent light to the picture”.

However, in his letter, Cutajar failed to quote from another article penned by himself, published in the book Caravaggio in Malta, which I had edited in the same year, 1989. 

There Cutajar stated: “There was also another window… now hidden by the vault added by Preti, whose outlines can still be made out from the external side of the wall. So that, in Caravaggio’s time, a stream of natural light illuminated the East part of the oratory, enabling the artist to create the illusion of a filtering light source from the left side of the painting.” 

Portrait of Caravaggio by Ottavio Leoni. Photo: Wikipedia

Preti had no option but to block that window because of the changes he was commissioned to make to the oratory. I add that Preti would not have arbitrarily done so. No modifications, however slight, were allowed within St John’s except with prior authorisation. Indeed, any alteration or addition to St John’s was jealously guarded and strictly regulated by the relative authorities. Some of Preti’s early suggestions (unrelated to the oratory) had been shot down or slightly amended.

Needless to say, changes in St John’s are still very strictly regulated and meticulously monitored. 

Nonetheless, some have unjustly attributed a wrong motive to Preti’s action. Bernardo de Dominici (1846) does not refer to Preti’s closure of this window but alleges that Preti disliked Caravaggio’s work because of the latter’s use of ordinary people to represent divine or holy characters. Specifically, he refers to Caravaggio’s Beheading of the Baptist.

Perhaps basing herself on this allegation, Federica Piccirillo (1999) referred to a possible grudge which Preti held against Caravaggio’s work and criticised Preti’s attempt to ‘censure’ the light source in the oratory from the side of the altar, calling it a sterile attempt. I sincerely cannot accept the allegation that Preti closed that window for any purpose other than to introduce a baroque decor.

Yes, Cutajar wrote on the oratory window as early as 1989 and should be credited with this. The foundation’s failure to include Cutajar’s early findings to strengthen its argument further was a genuine lapsus, nothing else. I am sure the foundation meant no disrespect to Cutajar, who is rightly highly admired and respected. 

Philip Farrugia Randon – St Julian’s