Malta passed through a stage in history during which many of its buildings, public and private, had their exteriors painted red.
This singularity has not been studied at all. When did the new fashion start? By who was it promoted? Did it have any particular significance? To what extent has it survived?
Different colours have throughout history acquired specific symbolic meanings. In Europe, heraldry had, by the Middle Ages, strictly codified the connotation of every colour.
Since Roman times, colours had a parallel ‘political’ meaning: we still call a person running for office a candidate, because Romans offering themselves for election wore white (candidus) and they reserved purpura (purple) to the concept of sovereignty – see cardinals of the Roman Church, titled porporati.
In Russian, red equals beautiful – the name of Red Square in Moscow predates the communist revolution and only means ‘the beautiful piazza’. But red today stands in for extreme left-wing in politics, just as the blues represents a sad state of being.
In heraldry, red indicates generosity, strength, courage and martyrdom. Coats of arms are actually colour-coded to signify virtues. Did the red craze in Victorian Malta have political symbolism?
(To be continued)