The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, hosted the illustrated symposium ‘Caravaggio and the Knights of Malta: a 400-Year Perspective’ on 24 October. The meeting was attended by art experts and aficionados and by a sizeable contingent of American-based Knights of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Prof. David M. Stone of the University of Delaware’s Art History Department, organised the symposium to celebrate the quadricentennial of Caravaggio’s historic visit to Malta (1607-1608). He underlined that “Caravaggio made some of his greatest works in Malta, including his largest and only signed painting, ‘The Beheading of St John the Baptist’ (1608), painted for the Oratory of San Giovanni Decollato in the Annex of St John’s Co-Cathedral.”
Three internationally known Caravaggio scholars presented new research on the artist: Prof. David M. Stone (University of Delaware), Prof. Catherine Puglisi (Rutgers University), and Prof. Keith Sciberras (University of Malta).