Splendour & Devotion: The Art Collections Of The Order of St John By Theresa Vella

The rich history of the Order of St John is often told through descriptions of important battles and the deeds of heroic men. The loss of Rhodes, the granting of Malta to the Knights by Charles V, and the Great Siege, are perhaps the most significant markers in the history of the Order in the early modern period. It is therefore exciting to discover an alternative approach to the history of the Order through the lens of art appreciation, collecting, and display. Vella also offers insightful observations concerning an instructional manual’ for the Knights – Fra Sabba da Castiglione’s Ricordi – which provided practical advice from an experienced Knight to his great-nephew upon entering the Order. Fra Sabba’s text is geared towards identifying what is distinctive about the life of a Knight of the Order, but at the same time it displays an extensive knowledge of, and is rooted in the values and assumptions of, wider European norms to be found in the numerous sixteenth-century conduct books prescribing aristocratic masculine behavior. Vella correctly argues that the Ricordi, in particular the chapter that is devoted to the embellishment of one’s house, can productively be read to inform the history of collecting by the Knights of Malta. Fra Sabba’s humanist education, his widespread travels, and his knowledge of contemporary art, provided the foundation for imparting sophisticated advice on the types of objects that a Knight should carefully select in order to make his domicile an expression of values and cultural scripts appropriate both to his class and to his profession, while always having to negotiate the delicate balance, or contradictions, between distinctive display and individual ostentation, on the one hand, and, on the other, the traditional imperatives of membership of a religious order. This is an elegantly written and thoughtfully conceived analysis, grounded in scholarly research but accessible to a wide readership. To read it is to enter a fascinating world. Hardcover. Published by Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti 2023