On a rainy Monday afternoon, October 24, 1796, the Danish frigate Thetis anchored at Grand Harbour in Valletta. Among the crew and passengers on board the ship were its Norwegian chaplain, Peder Pavels, and the 26-year-old Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, on his way to Rome to pursue his artistic studies.
During the Mediterranean cruise of the Thetis in 1796-97, Pavels kept a diary which was discovered in 1995 among the manuscript collections at the University Library in Oslo. The sections referring to the Malta visit were published by Beck Graphics in a book entitled Malta 1796-1797: Thorvaldsen’s Visit (1996), edited by Sven Sørensen and Joseph Schirò.
On Sunday, November 6, 1796, Pavels wrote in his diary: “A pilot came aboard from Maltha; he is to go with us to Tripoli. He speaks French and is familiar with most ports in the Mediterranean, being the regular pilot with the first galley in Maltha; moreover, he is an honourable man, an acquisition for the diners in our mess.”
In an article in Thorvaldsen’s Visit, my late brother Paul wrote: “This is the first mention of Jean-François Guillaumier who, for the next few months, was to be a companion and guide to Malta, not only for Pavels but also for Thorvaldsen and some of the officers.
“It is thanks to the other diarist, Lieutenant H.A. Schmidt (the secretary on the Thetis), that we learn of the pilot’s surname: Guillaumier. The name Giovanni Francesco Guillaumier is first attested in 1772 in the marriage records held at the parish church of St Paul’s Shipwreck in Valletta.
“In the Archives of Malta held at the Malta National Library, there are records of all ships entering Malta and proceeding into quarantine between the 17th to the 19th centuries. In some of these manuscripts, the Guillaumier name appears in entries dating from the early 1750s onwards.”
On Monday, November 7, the Thetis sailed from Malta to seek an audience with the Pasha of Tripoli. At the port in Tripoli, a Danish soldier was involved in an altercation with a local food vendor, who had come on board the ship to sell his provisions.
Pavels wrote in his diary that the food vendor “would not let our Malthese pilot, who was able to talk to him, utter a single word to calm him down... until the pilot succeeded in making him believe that the guard, who had now been called forth, would be punished for insulting him”.
During the stay in Tripoli, “the French pilot François” had, on many occasions, invited Pavels and “Rörby” (a naval officer) to spend Christmas Eve at his home in Valletta.
Christmas guests
On Christmas Eve of 1796, Pavels recorded in his diary: “Now the evening had come, and François himself came and collected us two privileged ones... Entering our pilot’s house, Rörby and I found the table laid for five persons. We were received by his excellent wife, by his beautiful daughter, and by himself in a grand manner... His daughter, Angeline, pleased us both more than I can say; beauty, sincere kindness, all life and fire...” A priest arrived and joined the other guests at dinner.
“After having had a simple but good evening meal at François’s, having taken coffee and smoked tobacco, all with enjoyment,” Pavels, Rörby, and François − together with his daughter and the priest − went to St John’s conventual church for the Christmas night ceremonies at 10pm.
“The church appeared extremely solemn this night... Several thousand candles, 200 of them in one chandelier, spread their light everywhere in the church.”
Pavels was initially in high spirits but he became increasingly annoyed with the “disorder” in the church, packed with “all sorts of people” while masses were being celebrated in “various parts of the church”.
François and his guests stayed at St John’s till 2am. Next, they visited the church of St Paul and the church of St Nicholas (Anima purgatoria), after which they returned “to François’s house directly opposite, going to bed at 3.30 o’clock”.
On Christmas Day, “having had coffee and smoked tobacco, we took leave of François... and hastened to Bormola...
“On Wednesday, December 28, Pavels, together with François and Thorvaldsen, made a promenade in a garden which had fine trees, two grottoes and a wide view over the nearby fields. The garden has not been identified” (editorial note in Thorvaldsen’s Visit).
Excursion to Rabat and Mdina
On Monday, December 26, 1796, a party of six, made up of François, Pavels, Thorvaldsen and three other naval officers, set out on a calesse early in the morning on an excursion to Rabat and Mdina. François had purchased provisions for their lunch since − as Pavels noted in his diary − there was “no inn in urbs notabilis”.
“A fine early morning promised us a pleasant journey; swiftly did we roll along the road which was better than I had expected. We passed through three of the 22 villages of Malta, and in these, all of them quite fine.
“To Città Vecchia we came up a hill, quite a high one. Here, first of all, my attention was caught by some orange trees, standing to the left of the road, down into a valley, so beautiful, so pleasing to the eye, with their fruit so inviting to be tasted; never before had I seen a tree so beautified. As we slowly went upward, as long as the trees were visible, I could not keep my eyes off their yellow and green blessed aspect.”
François and his guests managed to cram a lot of sightseeing in a single day, including visits to the cathedral at Mdina and to hospitals, monasteries and catacombs in Rabat.
At a monk’s cell in a Franciscan monastery, Pavels wrote: “We cheerfully and with excellent appetite took our midday meal which had been prepared from the provisions we had brought with us.
“For the whole day we had very fine weather. Only after dark did we reach Valletta, from where we went to our palace at Bormola. Here we had a ball, with punch, until 3 o’clock...”
A social gathering
In his article in Thorvaldsen’s Visit, my late brother. Paul wrote that in his diary entry for January 4, 1797, Pavels related that he was taken by François to the house of a prominent merchant to view a praesepio.
“There, Pavels was introduced by the Frenchman to the cousin de sa femme, auditeur du grand maitre, apparently a person of great authority in the Order, vouchsafed by François to have ‘toute la religion entre ses mains’. This person was, undoubtedly, the uditore Dr Stefano Assenza, one of the four members of the Grand Master’s Council.”
[The phrase ‘cousin de sa femme’ refers to Dr Assenza, whose half-sister, Josepha Assenza, was François’s wife. The word ‘religion’ − current in Malta at that time − meant “the Order of St John”.]
The uditore’s distinguished career was commemorated, after his death, by the British governor, Sir Alexander Ball, with a marble inscription, still to be seen in the centre of the floor at the Jesuits’ church in Valletta: “...in consideration of 50 years faithful service by him rendered to the past and present Government of Malta...”
The last entry in Pavel’s diary about François’s family was written on Wednesday, January 11, 1797: “Today, I accompanied Madam François and Angeline aboard − perhaps on account of our good-looking doctor."
“Thorvaldsen and Pavels separated in Malta, the sculptor proceeding to Rome where he was to reside for 40 years, while the chaplain remained on the Thetis and returned to Copenhagen.” (Malta 1796-1797: Thorvaldsen’s Visit)
Acknowledgments
Thanks to editor Joseph Schirò for permission to publish excerpts from Thorvaldsen’s Visit and for the portraits of Peder Pavels and Bertel Thorvaldsen.