Medieval chapels

As part of my growing collection of Melitensia, I went out and bought a series of three books in a range called Malta's Living Heritage.  The series includes Prehistory and Temples (written by David Trump - see my previous posts), Phoenician, Punic and Roman, and finally The Medieval Millennium.  Today I went on a bus tour organised by Heritage Malta to look at some of the medieval chapels in the Southern parts of Malta.

The medieval chapels are all characterised by a simple square construction with a belfry over the arched entrance.  The photo that heads the post is of the belfry at the first chapel we visited, Santa Marija ta' bir Miftuh, although the belfry here is a 16th century addition.  Inside there are lovely pointed arches supporting the roof of long stone slabs and on the rear wall the remnants of a mural showing the day of judgement.  Bir Miftuh, the location of the chapel, means an open well.

One of the interesting aspects of this chapel is the story of its restoration.  It is located quite close to the International Airport and they sponsored the restoration.   They have just removed the altar panel and it will be taken to a specially built glass room at the airport where the restoration will be carried out by experts in full view of travelers.  Some of the people on the tour this morning were disturbed that the holy artwork was to be removed from the chapel but the decision-makers argued that it was an excellent way of raising the profile of both sponsor and heritage site.  

For me, the restoration arrangement appears to be part of a wider culture of recycling and re-use in Malta.  Since medieval times, parts of the Bir Miftuh chapel have been torn down and used in other buildings such as the present parish church of Gudja.  In St Catherine's of Italy in Valletta, the huge altar panel by Mathew Pretti has been restored and moved to the Museum of Art so visitors can see it whilst the other restoration of the chapel proceeds.  And in Tas-Silg, the fourth chapel that we visited this morning, the medieval construction of the chapel re-used and re-cycled the prehistoric and the Roman buildings that were on the site.

The next two chapels we visited at Hal Millieri, were also built on Roman ruins and coins were uncovered in excavation.  The site is located in the centre of Malta's largest plain and we walked between well maintained fields to reach the chapel.  The immediate approach to one of the chapels, The Annunciation chapel, is down a lovely, walled laneway with trees and shrubs, an olive press and a well.  The most likely origin of the place name is the Sicilian family name of Millieri and there was a cluster of farmhouses and four churches known as a 'Casale' and grouped around a piazza.  For some reason, the population dwindled from about 1685 and the site was deserted by the 18th century. 

Stepping down inside the Annunciation chapel, the ceiling arches are pointed and the walls are made of rubble covered in plaster with medieval frescoes of 12 of the saints including two St Georges.  The style is a blend of high Byzantine and the beginning of Romanesque heralding the Renaissance.  St Agatha, for example, who is depicted together with St Blaise, is shown as very curvaceous with a pleated robe hanging over one shoulder.  The painter may have been a Sicilian by the name of "Garinu" as this signature was found below the surface of St Agatha.  I feel a warm sense of recognition every time I come across St Agatha since traveling down through Italy (see earlier posts) and I still need to research her story more deeply.

50 metres down the road is the chapel of St John the Evangelist, which has now been restored to the point where it has been handed back to the church to be used for worship.  It was newly built in 1640 but the site was mentioned in 1481 as a chapel.  The roof arches here are semicircular rather than pointed and there is a lovely arched doorway with a small window low down on one side.  This window was put in to allow people who had been excluded from the church by the inquisition to stay outside and still be part of the proceedings.

Outside the chapel there is a 17th century parish cross that apparently has been a target for vandals.  At one stage, two 4WDs were stopped in the act of trying to pull it down and our guide said ruefully that it is a target for anyone that shoots.  I sat for a while in the sun by the old parish cross and listened to a group of German and English people discussing youth, vandalism and boredom.  Then the guide started rounding us up to walk back to the bus and still pondering the issue I got up and started following some people who were already walking down the road.  We walked for some time, and it wasn't until we came to another chapel that I hadn't seen before that I started to notice the distance we had been walking and the fact that there was no-one else following me.  I had followed the wrong people!

I ran back through the country lanes, picked the correct fork near to the chapels we had visited and got to the bus park that was now minus a bus.  A man working in his garage told me they'd gone.  I was stuck - my bag with my mobile and my house keys was on the bus.  I started walking down the road towards a bus stop where I was vaguely planning to catch a regular bus to Marsaxlokk where I knew the last chapel on the schedule was located.  As I walked, a people mover with a large Italian family in it stopped - they had passed me earlier when I was running down the road - and although they couldn't speak much English and I can't speak Italian, we managed to share my experience and they offered to take me to Marsaxlokk where they were heading too.  They juggled some of the children around and managed to squeeze me in the back and off we went but we only got round the corner when one of the children signed "there's your bus".  They had turned round and were coming back for me!  So we also did a U-turn and followed the bus back to the drop-off point.  I felt very silly and once I had apologised profusely to everyone, I heard their story about how they had realised I wasn't on the bus and had tried to phone me but of course my mobile was on the bus too.

After that, the final visit to Tas-Silg was something of an anti-climax.  I had visited there before with David Trump and heard about the pre-history and the Italian excavation of the site.  This time, the working excavation had been covered by tarpaulins and some of the weeds were recently cut so it was easier to make out the general line of walls and colonnades.  It seems that as there were no reports emerging from the Italian work on the site, Tas-Silg will be taken over by Heritage Malta and the University of Malta are excavating a continuation of the site across the road.

Since Tas-Silg is on the hill overlooking Marsaxlokk, I decided to leave the bus there, making sure I let people know I was going so that they wouldn't have to come back for me a second time!  I walked down the hill and the Sunday market was still in full swing in spite of the threatening rain.  I finished my medieval chapels trip by buying a lovely potted poinsettia for my Christmas decorations!