Book review : Crux invicta: Il-Kurċifiss Mirakuluż U l-Kapuċċini f ’Għawdex

Abstract

This book weaves a rich tapestry of Capuchin life in the Maltese Islands around the leit motif of the history of the Crucifix that exists in the Order’s friary in Gozo. Against the backdrop of the development of the cult of the crucifix from the earliest days of the Christian era, both in the Catholic world at large and in these islands in particular, the author delineates the vicissitudes of the Gozitan Crucifix from its manufacture in Sicily in 1683 by an as yet unidentified artist of merit, through its sojourn in Malta, whither it had been brought by the Knight Miceli, until its final resting place in the Capuchin friary of Gozo. For this last donation a debt of gratitude is owed to the zealous Gozitan de Soldanis whose efforts were crowned when it came to be deposited with the Capuchins who had freshly opened their friary a stone’s throw away from the Citadel at Forn il-Ġir. This exposition, which one can think of as the narrative bole of the tree, spreads its branches in six chapters whose appendices, christened excursus by the author, heavily laden with fruit, droop pregnantly. In these excursus the author draws out a richness of detail about the hundred-and-one objects of interest encountered in the respective chapters. The minutest datum is supported by full documentation, as is evident from the voluminous bibliography at the end of this work of encyclopaedic proportions. [excerpt]