The magnificent Flemish tapestries' arrival in Malta in 1702

St John’s Co-Cathedral, Valletta, and its adjoining museum, are reckoned to be a veritable treasure house of artistic objects, which include, inter alia, works by world-famous artists such as Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), Mattia Preti (1613-99) and Giuseppe Mazzuoli (1646-1725). The Flemish tapestries on permanent exhibition at the museum are among the objects considered to be priceless works of art. They arrived in Malta in February 1702, probably on the 7th, and thus are the subject of this month’s monthly anniversary story.

Grand Master Ramon Perellós y Roccaful (1697-1720), the donor of the tapestries, as he is featured in one of them. Photo: St John’s Cathedral Chapter & Foundation

“Motivated by a keen sense of duty as well as by devotion, Grand Master Fra Ramon Perellós y Roccaful paid from his own pocket for the tapestries and arras that were masterly manufactured in Belgium to embellish the Major Conventual Church of the Gerosolimitan Order of Malta dedicated to St John the Baptist.” So reads an entry in a volume of the Archives of the Order of St John housed at the National Library of Malta, and which is, possibly, the only recorded reference to the...