Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/6695
Title: L'illustrazione degli statuti dell'ordine gerosolimitano di Malta : didascalia celebrazione, esornazione?
Authors: Formiga, Federica
Keywords: Knights of Malta -- History -- Pictorial works
Clothing and dress -- Knights of Malta
Statutes -- Knights of Malta -- History -- Religious aspects
Knights of Malta -- History -- Sources
Order of St John -- History -- Pictorial works
Order of St John -- History -- Sources
Issue Date: 2010
Publisher: University of Malta. Junior College
Citation: Symposia Melitensia. 2010, Vol.6, p. 1-20
Abstract: This study discusses the imagery and iconographic representations in the Statutes of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and of Malta, published between the fourteenth and the eighteenth centuries. Catalogues and bibliographic tools are first examined so as to identify the editions in Italian libraries, which were then individually examined. Particular attention was given to illustrative material consisting of portraits, the depiction of forms of dress, and the various figurative and symbolic depictions featured on title pages. The latter comprise coats of arms, mottoes, military trophies, and religious symbols. From the first incunabulum printed in 1493, down to the edition published by Grand Master de Rohan, a repetition of the same or very similar iconographic motifs can be noted in the Statutes. This confirms that such iconographical elements had an instructive and celebratory role where the Order was concerned. Some imagery is indeed not to be found in any other genre of publication pertaining to the Order, notably the sleeveless habit. These published legislative texts provided the best means through which iconographic representation could be presented to those who were familiar with them. Indeed, while publications of a religious or historical nature regarding the Order often also comprised elegantly engraved title pages, maps of the Maltese islands, and figures of saints, it was the legislative texts that were mostly utilized to a far greater extent to depict symbolic representations related to the Order.
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar//handle/123456789/6695
ISSN: 1812-7509
Appears in Collections:SymMel, 2010, Volume 6
SymMel, 2010, Volume 6

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