A new book entitled Splendour and Devotion: The Art Collections of the Order of St John, authored by Dr Theresa Vella - a visiting senior lecturer at the International Institute of Baroque Studies where she teaches Baroque painting and sculpture - and published by Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti and Kite Publishers, was launched on Wednesday 26 April 2023, at the Casino Maltese in Valletta. Judge Dr Giovanni Bonello gave an introductory address, and afterwards Dr Vella spoke about her research and how the book evolved since the years she had spent as Senior Curator of the National Museum of Fine Arts.

Dr Vella’s thorough research into a rich body of source material, especially inventories, wills, and correspondence, draws the reader into what it was about the Knights’ experience that was distinctive and specific to them. Her book presents a novel approach to the history of the Order through the lens of art appreciation, collecting, and display, while also placing them in the larger framework of European Baroque culture. This subject must be seen in the context of the fact that on entering any grand palace or church of the Baroque age, it would have been immediately obvious that more than anything else, it would have been the numerous paintings in gilded frames and their tacit messages, as well as other collections of ‘curiosities’ that would have completed the architecture of such splendid Baroque interiors to add an important dimension to the air of importance, social distinction, devotion and beauty.

Described by Prof. John T. Spike as “a massive, yet meticulous, contribution to the social history of the making, collecting and usage of art by the Knights Hospitaller through many centuries …. Vella’s magnificent and lavishly illustrated book stands alongside such great reference books as Martin Wackernagel's pioneering, The World of the Florentine Artist - Projects and Patrons, Workshop and Art Market (1938), Francis Haskell's Patrons and Painters, 1963) and Joseph Alsop's The Rare Art Traditions (1983)”.