The Department of History of Art and the History of Art and Fine Arts Student Association are organising a public lecture by Ph.D. candidate Frederica Agius entitled ‘Leonello Spada's Historia at the Grand Master's Palace: A Discussion on the Context and Sources’. It will be held at the Grand Master’s Palace in Valletta on Thursday, 16 February at 1830hrs.
The lecture will be on Leonello Spada’s fresco cycle which depicts the early history of the Order of St John at the Grand Master’s Palace. The lecture will argue that the patron of the cycle, Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt, gave a markedly political slant to the troubled history of the Order and that specific episodes were chosen from Giacomo Bosio’s then recently published History of the Order to give it a glorious narrative. The iconography, style and historical content will be discussed on site with direct reference to the frescoes.