The decorative arts at the Addolorata Cemetery : epitomizing the revivalist and eclectic attitudes

Abstract

The Addolorata Cemetery, which officially opened its doors on 9 May 1869, is arguably the most intense and palpable embodiment of the true spirit of nineteenth-century design and decoration in the Maltese Islands. The spirit of Romantic nostalgia is eloquently transmitted when walking through its panoply of funerary chapels and sepulchral monuments. There is a processional feeling in gradually ascending the steps from the Arcade for Tablets with the unfolding vistas culminating in the church at the summit of the hill. This Romantic mood and the predilection for the Picturesque – an essential quality of nineteenth-century architecture and decoration – is heightened through the architectural grammar of the buildings and ornamental passages, the character of decoration in stone and marble, and the style of wrought iron grills and screens (Fig. 64). The general design concept of the cemetery and everything which was created inside it, from its inauguration up to the first half of the twentieth century, epitomizes the essence of the artistic milieu of nineteenth-century decorative arts. [Excerpt]