Prime Minister Joseph Muscat received a signed copy of “The National Portrait Gallery” from author Nicholas de Piro and editorial coordinator Joe Vella, during a visit that coincided with his birthday.

Illustrating a collection of so many hundreds of portraits, mostly photographed professionally by Peter Bartolo Parnis, the book offers a first-time visual narrative of the country’s past and present well-known, lesser-known and even unknown personalities from every section of society.

Nicholas de Piro told the Prime Minister he hopes his publication gives our people an opportunity to examine the aspirations, the pretensions, our taste including the genius of sophistication and sometimes the charm of the naïve in and around our people covering a period of many generations.

“The National Portrait Gallery of Malta was a pleasure assembling. We visited hundreds of collections over a span of ten years, and this book could be said to be a bit of a national monument replacing the need of yet another museum,” he added.

“The book is both useful in triggering our abilities of estimation and serves sentiment, education, emotion, option, attitude and diversion,” said editorial coordinator Joe Vella, who contributed a great deal of energy to the project.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat thanked both Marquis de Piro and Joe Vella for their visit and congratulated them on the exciting project, as the three leafed through the magnificent portraits depicted in the book.

Published by Miller Publishing with a foreword by Giovanni Bonello, ‘The National Portrait Gallery of Malta‘ is available for the price of €120 in all leading bookshops and all Agenda Bookshop outlets across Malta.

For more information visit www.agendamalta.com