[Book review] Il Rinascimento a Malta : architettura e potere nell'Ordine di San Giovanni di Gerusalemme & Costruire la frontiera : l'architettura a Malta fra XVI e XVII secolo

Abstract

Between 1577 and 1581 the Apulian painter Matteo Perez da Lecce frescoed, in the Grand Council Hall of the Palace of the Grand Masters of Valletta, a cycle composed of twelve scenes, interspersed with Virtue, of the Great Siege carried out in 1565 by the Ottomans of Suleiman the Magnificent against the island of Malta, a fief of the Knights of Saint John since 1530. The twelve scenes, illustrated in "quadri riportati", alternate the island bird's face visions, made with great topographical expertise, to narrative sequences of the war episodes. Upon his return to Rome in 1582, Matteo Perez himself gave to the Dalmatian engraver Natale Bonifacio the series of frescoes with the addition of two panels depicting the plans of Mdina and Gozo and the axonometric representation of the New City, Valletta.