St. Paul's Cathedral, Mdina

Saint Paul's Cathedral
Saint Paul's Cathedral
	Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Paul
	Mdina Cathedral
	Il-Katidral Metropolitan ta' San Pawl
	View of St. Paul's Cathedral
	35°53′11″N14°24′14″E / 35.88639°N 14.40389°E Coordinates: 35°53′11″N14°24′14″E / 35.88639°N 14.40389°E
Location	Mdina
Country	Malta
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Website	metropolitanchapter.com
History
Status	Cathedral
Founded	12th century
Dedication	Paul the Apostle
Consecrated	8 October 1702
Architecture
Functional status	Active
Architect(s)	Lorenzo Gafà
Style	Baroque
Years built	1696–1705
Specifications
Materials	Limestone
Administration
Archdiocese	Archdiocese of Malta
Clergy
Archbishop	Charles Scicluna
Archpriest	Anthony Cassar

Last updated June 05, 2019

The Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Paul (Maltese : Il-Katidral Metropolitan ta' San Pawl), commonly known as St. Paul's Cathedral or the Mdina Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Mdina, Malta, dedicated to St. Paul the Apostle. The cathedral was founded in the 12th century, and according to tradition it stands on the site of where Roman governor Publius met St. Paul following his shipwreck on Malta. The original cathedral was severely damaged in the 1693 Sicily earthquake, so it was dismantled and rebuilt in the Baroque style to a design of the Maltese architect Lorenzo Gafà between 1696 and 1705. The cathedral is regarded as Gafà's masterpiece.

Maltese is the national language of Malta and a co-official language of the country alongside English, while also serving as an official language of the European Union, the only Semitic language so distinguished. Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic, the extinct variety of Arabic that developed in Sicily and was later introduced to Malta, between the end of the ninth century and the end of the twelfth century.

A cathedral is a church that contains the cathedra of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominations with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, and some Lutheran and Methodist churches. Church buildings embodying the functions of a cathedral first appeared in Italy, Gaul, Spain and North Africa in the 4th century, but cathedrals did not become universal within the Western Catholic Church until the 12th century, by which time they had developed architectural forms, institutional structures and legal identities distinct from parish churches, monastic churches and episcopal residences.

Mdina, also known by its titles Città Vecchia or Città Notabile, is a fortified city in the Northern Region of Malta, which served as the island's capital from antiquity to the medieval period. The city is still confined within its walls, and has a population of just under 300, but it is contiguous with the town of Rabat, which takes its name from the Arabic word for suburb, and has a population of over 11,000.

Valletta is the capital city of Malta. Located in the south east of the island, between Marsamxett Harbour to the west and the Grand Harbour to the east, its population in 2014 was 6,444, while the metropolitan area around it has a population of 393,938. Valletta is the southernmost capital of Europe.

History

According to tradition, the site of the Mdina cathedral was originally occupied by a palace belonging to Saint Publius, the Roman governor of Melite who greeted Paul the Apostle after he was shipwrecked in Malta. According to the Acts of the Apostles, Paul cured Publius' father and many other sick people on the island.^{[Acts 28:1-10]} Though there are remains of a roman domvs in the present crypt, and the tradition is a commonly believed myth, the version of event is not supported by archeologists or historians. It is considered as part of a collection of Pauline mythologies in Malta.^[1]

Saint Publius is a first century Maltese Saint. He is venerated as the first Bishop of Malta. St. Publius is Malta‘s first acknowledged saint, the prince of the island. According to Maltese Pauline Mythology, Publius' conversion led to Malta being the first Christian nation in the West. His feast day is celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, of which traditions related and the day of celebration differ.

Melite or Melita was an ancient city located on the site of present-day Mdina and Rabat, Malta. It started out as a Bronze Age settlement, which developed into a city called Maleth under the Phoenicians, and became the administrative centre of the island. The city fell to the Roman Republic in 218 BC, and it remained part of the Roman and later the Byzantine Empire until 870 AD, when it was captured and destroyed by the Aghlabids. The city was then rebuilt and renamed Medina, giving rise to the present name Mdina. It remained Malta's capital city until 1530.

Paul the Apostle, commonly known as Saint Paul and also known by his Jewish name Saul of Tarsus, was an apostle who taught the gospel of Christ to the first-century world. Paul is generally considered one of the most important figures of the Apostolic Age and in the mid-30s to the mid-50s AD he founded several churches in Asia Minor and Europe. He took advantage of his status as both a Jew and a Roman citizen to minister to both Jewish and Roman audiences.

The first cathedral which stood on the site is said to have been dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, but it fell into disrepair during the Arab period^[2] (the churches in Melite were looted after the Aghlabid invasion in 870).^[3]

Mary was a first-century BC Galilean Jewish woman of Nazareth, and the mother of Jesus, according to the New Testament and the Quran.

The Siege of Melite was the capture of the Byzantine city of Melite by an invading Aghlabid army in 870 AD. The siege was initially led by Halaf al-Hādim, a renowned engineer, but he was killed and was replaced by Sawāda Ibn Muḥammad. The city withstood the siege for some weeks or months, but it ultimately fell to the invaders, and its inhabitants were massacred and the city was sacked.

Following the Norman invasion in 1091, Christianity was reestablished as the dominant religion in the Maltese Islands. A cathedral dedicated to St. Paul was built in the 12th and 13th centuries. The cathedral was built in the Gothic and Romanesque styles, and it was enlarged and modified a number of times.^[2]

The Norman invasion of Malta was an attack on the island of Malta, then inhabited by Muslims, by forces of the Norman County of Sicily led by Roger I in 1091. The invaders besieged Medina, the main settlement on the island, but the inhabitants managed to negotiate peace terms. The Muslims freed Christian captives, swore an oath of loyalty to Roger and paid him an annual tribute. Roger's army then sacked Gozo and returned to Sicily with the freed captives.

Gothic architecture is a style that flourished in Europe during the High and Late Middle Ages. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture. Originating in 12th-century France, it was widely used, especially for cathedrals and churches, until the 16th century.

Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe characterized by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque style, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 11th century, this later date being the most commonly held. In the 12th century it developed into the Gothic style, marked by pointed arches. Examples of Romanesque architecture can be found across the continent, making it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman architecture. The Romanesque style in England is traditionally referred to as Norman architecture.

In 1679, Bishop Miguel Jerónimo de Molina and the cathedral chapter decided to replace the medieval choir with one built in the Baroque style, and the architect Lorenzo Gafà was appointed to design and oversee the construction. The cathedral were severely damaged a few years later in the 1693 Sicily earthquake, and although parts of the building were undamaged, on 11 April 1693 the decision was taken to dismantle the old cathedral and rebuild it in the Baroque style to a design of Gafà. The choir and sacristy, which had survived the earthquake, were incorporated into the new cathedral. Works began in 1696, and the building was almost complete by 1702. It was consecrated by Bishop Davide Cocco Palmieri on 8 October 1702. The cathedral was fully completed on 24 October 1705, when work on the dome was finished.^[4] The building is regarded as Gafà's masterpiece.^[5]

Miguel Jerónimo de Molina y Aragonés was a Spanish prelate who served as Bishop of Malta from 1678 till 1682 when he was transferred to the Diocese of Lleida in Catalonia, Spain.

A choir, also sometimes called quire, is the area of a church or cathedral that provides seating for the clergy and church choir. It is in the western part of the chancel, between the nave and the sanctuary, which houses the altar and Church tabernacle. In larger medieval churches it contained choir-stalls, seating aligned with the side of the church, so at right-angles to the seating for the congregation in the nave. Smaller medieval churches may not have a choir in the architectural sense at all, and they are often lacking in churches built by all denominations after the Protestant Reformation, though the Gothic Revival revived them as a distinct feature.

Baroque architecture is the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late 16th-century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church. It was characterized by new explorations of form, light and shadow, and dramatic intensity. Common features of Baroque architecture included gigantism of proportions; a large open central space where everyone could see the altar; twisting columns, theatrical effects, including light coming from a cupola above; dramatic interior effects created with bronze and gilding; clusters of sculpted angels and other figures high overhead; and an extensive use of trompe-l'oeil, also called "quadratura," with painted architectural details and figures on the walls and ceiling, to increase the dramatic and theatrical effect.

In the late 1720s, some medieval houses to the south of the cathedral were demolished in order to make way for a square, the Bishop's Palace and the Seminary (now the Cathedral Museum). The square in front of the cathedral was enlarged in the early 19th century following the demolition of some medieval buildings.^[5]

The cathedral was damaged in another earthquake in 1856, when the 18th-century frescoes on the dome were destroyed.^[6]

Today, the cathedral is one of the main tourist attractions of Mdina.^[7] It is a Grade 1 national monument, and it is also listed on the National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands.^[8]

Architecture

Exterior

St. Paul's Cathedral is built in the Baroque style, with some influences from native Maltese architecture.^[5] The main façade is in St. Paul's Square (Maltese : Pjazza San Pawl or Misraħ San Pawl), and it is set on a low parvis approached by three steps. The façade is cleanly divided into three bays by pilasters of Corinthian and Composite orders. The central bay is set forward, and it contains the main doorway, which is surmounted by the coats of arms of the city of Mdina, Grand Master Ramon Perellos y Roccaful and Bishop Davide Cocco Palmieri, all of which were sculpted by Giuseppe Darmanin. The coloured coat of arms of the incumbent archbishop (presently Charles Scicluna) is located just below the arms of Mdina. A round-headed window is set in the upper story above the doorway, and the façade is topped by a triangular pediment. Bell towers originally containing six bells are located at both corners of the façade.^[9] It has an octagonal dome, with eight stone scrolls above a high drum leading up to a lantern.^[8]

Interior

The cathedral has a Latin cross plan consisting of a vaulted nave, two aisles and two side chapels.^[8] Most of the cathedral's floor consists of inlaid tombstones or commemorative marble slabs, similar to those found at St. John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta and the Cathedral of the Assumption in Victoria, Gozo. The remains of several bishops and canons, as well as laymen from noble families, are buried in the cathedral.^[10]

The ceiling contains frescoes depicting the life of St. Paul which were painted by the Sicilian painters Vincenzo, Antonio and Francesco Manno in 1794.^[11] The Manno brothers also painted frescoes on the dome, but these were destroyed during repair works after an earthquake in 1856. A new fresco was painted on the dome by Giuseppe Gallucci in 1860, and it was later restored by Giuseppe Calì. Gallucci's and Calì's paintings were destroyed due to urgent repair works in 1927, and they were later replaced by a fresco depicting The Glory of St Peter and St Paul by Mario Caffaro Rore. The ceiling was restored by Samuel Bugeja in 1956. The church is lit up by three stained glass windows which were produced in Victor Gesta's workshop in the late 19th century.^[6]

Many artifacts from the pre-1693 cathedral survived the earthquake and were reused to decorate the new cathedral. These include a late Gothic–early Renaissance baptismal font dating back to 1495,^[6] the old cathedral's main door which was made in 1530, some 15th-century choir stalls, as well as a number of paintings.^[12]

The cathedral's aisles, chapels and sacristy contain several paintings and frescoes, including works by Mattia Preti and his bottega, Francesco Grandi, Domenico Bruschi, Pietro Gagliardi, Bartolomeo Garagona, Francesco Zahra, Luigi Moglia and Alessio Erardi. The titular altarpiece depicts the Conversion of St Paul on the Road to Damascus, and it is the work of Mattia Preti.^[13]

Some of the marble used to decorate the cathedral was taken from the Roman ruins of Carthage and Melite. Sculptors and other artists whose work decorates the cathedral include Giuseppe Valenti, Claudio Durante, Alessandro Algardi and Vincent Apap.^[13]

Cathedral Museum

The Cathedral Museum was established in 1897, and it was initially housed in some halls adjacent to the cathedral. In 1969, the museum was transferred into the former Seminary in Archbishop's Square (Maltese : Pjazza tal-Arċisqof or Misraħ l-Arċisqof) facing the cathedral's side entrance. The Seminary had been built between 1733 and 1742 in the Baroque style.^[14] It is attributed to the architects Giovanni Barbara or Andrea Belli, although Barbara was dead when construction began, leaving Belli as the more likely candidate.^[15]

The museum's collection includes artworks which were formerly located in the cathedral, coins, silverware, religious vestments and some woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer.^[16]

Related Research Articles

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References

↑ Mahoney, Leonard (1996). 5000 Years of Architecture in Malta. Valletta Pub. p. 41. ISBN 9789990958157.
1 2 "St Paul's Cathedral, Mdina". Snapshots of an Island. 31 July 2012. Archived from the original on 28 May 2016.
↑ Brincat, Joseph M. (1995). "Malta 870–1054 Al-Himyari's Account and its Linguistic Implications" (PDF). Valletta: Said International: 11–16. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 June 2015.
↑ Deguara 2008 , pp. 6–7
1 2 3 De Lucca, Denis (1979). "Mdina: the Cathedral area". Heritage: An encyclopedia of Maltese culture and civilization. Midsea Books Ltd. 1: 121–124.
1 2 3 Deguara 2008 , pp. 14–17
↑ Alexander, Lisa. "11 Top-Rated Tourist Attractions in Mdina". planetware. Archived from the original on 7 April 2016.
1 2 3 "Cathedral of St Paul" (PDF). National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands. 28 March 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 December 2015.
↑ Deguara 2008 , p. 4
↑ Deguara 2008 , p. 10
↑ Cassar, Paul (April 1977). "An eighteenth-century bill of health of the Order of St. John From Malta". Medical History. 21 (2): 182–186. doi:10.1017/S0025727300037704. PMC 1081949 . PMID 325307. Archived from the original on 2 January 2018.
↑ Montanaro Gauci, Gerald (11 January 2015). "Mdina cathedral destroyed in the 1693 earthquake". Times of Malta . Archived from the original on 13 December 2015.
1 2 Deguara 2008 , pp. 18–40
↑ "Homepage". Metropolitan Cathedral. Archived from the original on 27 March 2016.
↑ Schiavone, Michael J. (2009). Dictionary of Maltese Biographies Vol. 1 A-F. Pietà: Pubblikazzjonijiet Indipendenza. pp. 174, 192. ISBN 9789993291329.
↑ "Mdina Cathedral". Sacred Destinations. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.

Bibliography

Deguara, Aloysius (2008). The Metropolitan Cathedral – Mdina. Santa Venera: Heritage Books (subsidiary of Midsea Books Ltd). ISBN 9789993271727.
Gaul, Simon (2007). Malta, Gozo and Comino. New Holland Publishers. ISBN 9781860113659.
MacGill, Thomas (1839). A hand book, or guide, for strangers visiting Malta. Malta: Luigi Tonna.

External links

Official website

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[1] Mahoney, Leonard (1996). 5000 Years of Architecture in Malta. Valletta Pub. p. 41. ISBN 9789990958157.

[snapshots-2] 1 2 "St Paul's Cathedral, Mdina". Snapshots of an Island. 31 July 2012. Archived from the original on 28 May 2016.

[3] Brincat, Joseph M. (1995). "Malta 870–1054 Al-Himyari's Account and its Linguistic Implications" (PDF). Valletta: Said International: 11–16. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 June 2015.

[4] Deguara 2008 , pp. 6–7

[heritage-5] 1 2 3 De Lucca, Denis (1979). "Mdina: the Cathedral area". Heritage: An encyclopedia of Maltese culture and civilization. Midsea Books Ltd. 1: 121–124.

[deguara14–17-6] 1 2 3 Deguara 2008 , pp. 14–17

[7] Alexander, Lisa. "11 Top-Rated Tourist Attractions in Mdina". planetware. Archived from the original on 7 April 2016.

[nicpmi-8] 1 2 3 "Cathedral of St Paul" (PDF). National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands. 28 March 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 December 2015.

[9] Deguara 2008 , p. 4

[10] Deguara 2008 , p. 10

[11] Cassar, Paul (April 1977). "An eighteenth-century bill of health of the Order of St. John From Malta". Medical History. 21 (2): 182–186. doi:10.1017/S0025727300037704. PMC 1081949 . PMID 325307. Archived from the original on 2 January 2018.

[12] Montanaro Gauci, Gerald (11 January 2015). "Mdina cathedral destroyed in the 1693 earthquake". Times of Malta . Archived from the original on 13 December 2015.

[deguara18–40-13] 1 2 Deguara 2008 , pp. 18–40

[14] "Homepage". Metropolitan Cathedral. Archived from the original on 27 March 2016.

[15] Schiavone, Michael J. (2009). Dictionary of Maltese Biographies Vol. 1 A-F. Pietà: Pubblikazzjonijiet Indipendenza. pp. 174, 192. ISBN 9789993291329.

[16] "Mdina Cathedral". Sacred Destinations. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.

[Acts 28:1-10]