Jewellery in Malta during the Knights' period (1530-1798) : an art historical review

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis was to identify and examine a representative sample of the various sources for the study of the art of jewellery in Malta during the Knights' period and to contextualise and interpret these various sources in a manner that will lay the foundations for a comprehensive survey of Maltese jewellery history. Maltese jewellery history has so far been treated as a minor subject within the areas of study of Maltese silver and costume, and was never the subject of a dedicated academic exploration per se in which documentary sources would be interpreted in the light of existing items and representations of jewellery. Although considered a decorative art, jewellery history worldwide has evolved into a specialised subject with its own body of experts from academia and the museum world dedicated to the study and publication of this burgeoning branch of the arts. The jewellery of Malta also richly deserved the attention of a dedicated study and the present study attempts to address this lacuna. As in all new studies in a virtually unexplored area, many problems arose. Firstly it was important to determine whether all jewellery present in Malta, whether produced in Malta or abroad, at the time of the Knights should be considered within the remit of this study. It was decided in the affirmative as the influences of foreign produced jewellery circulating in Malta would have left too important an impact on locally produced jewellery to justify the separation of the two - hence the use of the title 'Jewellery IN Malta'. The term 'Maltese jewellery' and 'jewellery of Malta' is therefore used in the widest sense, encompassing jewellery that was in Malta at the time of the Knights. It was often difficult to determine what was indeed produced locally and what was created abroad. Hallmarks, generally the most helpful method for determining the origin of an item in precious metal, were all too frequently either entirely absent, or too smoothed down to read, or only partially stamped on slim areas of metal. Filigree, for example, is notoriously difficult to classify as it was produced all over Europe and beyond over a span of several centuries and was rarely stamped. The sources for identification and suggested dating of jewellery items were therefore arrived at either through documentary sources, and supplementing or in the absence of these, through comparative stylistic analysis with published studies on jewellery conducted abroad. Publications on Sicilian, Portuguese and Spanish jewellery were particularly helpful in this context. Closer to home, local archives proved to be rich sources for the study of jewellery history and for an understanding of the context of jewellery making, silver and goldsmithery. For this particular study the examination of fonds of inventories of individuals (from the Magna Curia Castellania Archives) and church collections (in the archives of the Cathedral and the Order of St John) compiled throughout the Knights' period were particularly helpful. Furthermore licence applications for botteghe, gathered at the National Archives, Mdina proved to be another important source for the identification of hitherto unknown silver and goldsmiths, and were also useful in understanding the strict procedures by which a craftsman obtained his licence.