'The Gozo Cathedral its history and heritage' is edited by Joseph Bezzina, photographs are by Daniel Cilia. This book is divided into nine parts with a total of sixty chapters and consists of 288 full-colour pages.
Part 1 focuses on the religious significance of the citadel hill throughout the millennia. Religion played a very important role in the life of the Gozitan community, and the citadel hill seemingly assumed a high degree of religious aura that was to shape most of the anthropogenic activity that took place there.
Part 2 discusses the roots of Christianity in Gozo, the most constant element in the identity of the island.
Part 3 deals with the consolidation of the Latin Church in Gozo and the emergence of the Matrice as the major church of the island endowed with a collegiate chapter of fourteen canons. It further illustrates its architectural development and its vitality prior to the tragedy of 1551, a disaster that obliterated the collective memory of the Gozitans about their Matrice Collegiata.
Part 4 outlines its history from the middle of the sixteenth century onwards, from the severe setback of 1551 to the slow but steady recovery in the centuries that followed providing, for the first time, a detailed plan of how the medieval Matrice looked like.
Part 5 opens with a detailed account of the planning and the building of the new church, its consecration in 1716, and its growth during the following century and a half until its establishment as the Cathedral of Gozo in 1864. It proceeds by outlining its growth until present times. The last four parts of the book delineate various aspects of the church.
Part 6 highlights the prestigious architectural and artistic heritage lying behind the thick walls of the Cathedral.
Part 7 describes the silver church plate from late medieval to neoclassical times at the Cathedral treasury.
Part 8 relates how the church became the religious musical fulcrum of the island from the late eighteenth to the twentieth century as reflected from its music archives.
Part 9 reviews the liturgical celebrations at the Cathedral throughout the year; in their majority, they are presided over by the bishop from his cathedra.
For further details about the pre-publication offer and the Tabula Gratulatoria contact: gozojb@gmail.com