How Baroque architecture can effectively be of interest on a national scale and how the public service can be instrumental to achieve the ultimate aim of promoting it

Abstract

On the recommendation of the academic Senate of the University of Malta, the Council of this university, at its meeting of 28 September 2023 approved the setting up of a new department within the University of Malta whereby the former International Institute for Baroque Studies at the same university has now been incorporated within the Faculty for Built Environment of the same university and has been renamed the Department of History of Architecture. Besides inheriting the teaching and research in Baroque studies that, since 1996, had been the responsibility of the former International Institute or Baroque Studies, the new department at the university of Malta will be ultimately tasked with disseminating knowledge about the overall history of the European architectural heritage of mankind with particular reference to the origins and sequential development of architectural scenarios in the Maltese islands during the two golden ages of their manifestation - Prehistory and Baroque, the latter coinciding with the period of the rule of the Hospitaller Order of St John then known as the Sacra Religione Militare di Malta (Dal Pozzo, 1703- 1715) when the building of Valletta created the right environment for a rich urban setting for the mushrooming of several Baroque buildings and art collections with a marked concentration in unique specimens of architecture such as the Conventual church of St John the Baptist and the Magisterial Palace of Grand Masters drawn from the most influential noble houses of Baroque Europe (Bonello et al., 2018; De Lucca, 2004). [excerpt]