The influence of Melchiorre Cafa's St. Paul and the Virgin of the Rosary on maltese baroque sculpture

Abstract

Carved in Rome in the mid-seventeenth century, Melchiorre Cafa's statues of St. Paul and the Virgin of the Rosary are two of the most important processional statues in Malta. Their influence was so great that they established prototypes for statuary of the same subject. The scope of this dissertation is to evaluate and quantify the extent of this influence and to discuss how Melchiorre Cafa's work defined the character of Baroque sculpture in Malta. It will discuss a variety of statues ranging from small work to full size processional statues and even to monumental statues carved in limestone. Most of the Maltese sculptors of the late 17th and early 18th century produced at some stage in their career a replica or variation of these works. This dissertation will discuss issues of technique, style and patronage and will evaluate the artistic importance of the works. The work of Melchiorre Cafa has been very well published in the book edited by Dr. Keith Sciberras with the contribution of a number of scholars. The research work regarding this dissertation is however new and was carried out under the supervision of Dr. Keith Sciberras.