Emma Borg

The Mdina Cathedral Museum is home to a series of impressive artefacts and artworks ranging from prints by the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, a work by Caravaggist painter Mario Minniti, as well as paintings by the Italian artists Mattia Preti and Agostino Carracci. Without a doubt, it is one of Malta's most formidable collections of art and historical artefacts. The museum curator Dun Edgar Vella has been working on improving the display of these priceless objects through the restoration and renovation of the building in which they are housed for the museum to reach the standards that its contents merit.

I sat down with Dun Edgar Vella and asked him about the plans for the ongoing restoration/renovation project. Dun Edgar patiently explained to me that the museum had been undergoing essential changes for quite a few years. A number of impressive projects have finally been completed. These including works on the Marchese Hall and the Baroque Hall. For this part of the project, all the soffits and the halogen lights were removed and the artworks were rearranged to be presented in a chronological manner instead of a 'fragmented' one, to use Dun Edgar's words.

Work is currently being held in the Nobile room. The Nobile room will be highlighting a collection of vestments, a new collections of works (yet to be unveiled), and the museum chapel. Throughout the process of this restoration a series of things have come to be unveiled, especially with regards to the history of decoration of the chapel. Dun Edgar excitedly revealed that the chapel "was actually part and parcel of the rest of the room unlike how it is seen today." The chapel was whitewashed for over 200 years but as restoration works went on it became very clear that it originally looked very different. Underneath the two layers of colour was found a fake dome with architectural motifs. It also features symbolic designs such as those of the scallop shell and of festoons. All this was a huge surprise for the team working on it and it is clear that Dun Edgar found this result to be very exciting. He remarked that he had a longheld suspicion that something very interesting lay beneath the superficial layers, therefore the findings of the restoration works proved him right.

One of the most significant and needed renovations that the Mdina Cathedral Museum plans to undertake is that of improving the rooms that host their Dürer collection. Dürer was a print maker, painter and theorist whose pieces are found in the collections of major art institutions, including the Albertina in Vienna, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The Mdina Cathedral Museum currently hosts an impressive collection of woodcuts and copper plates by the artist, and strongly recognises the importance of renovating the rooms where they are held. They truly deserve a better and more modern display. Other future projects include the renovation of the Dun Karm Psaila room on the museum ground floor. Dun Edgar's plan is to make the room more interactive for visitors by means of the latest technology.

The Mdina Cathedral Museum's revamping should be mostly complete by 2018, which means that the participants of the Mdina Biennale will be able to highlight their works in a fantastic museum with an incredibly eclectic collection that is also a project in motion. Dr. Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci, the artistic director of The Mdina Cathedral APS Contemporary Art Biennale, which will be taking place between 13 November 2017 and 7 January 2018, claims that  the renovations will not hinder the organisation of the Mdina Biennale in any way. In fact, he foresees that artists will be able to utilise all that the museum has to offer. Not simply by exhibiting in the recently renovated corridors, the refurbished Piano Nobile, and the courtyard, but also in spaces where works will be undertaken during the days of the Mdina Biennale. Such attempts will not only showcase the artwork but also the initiative of the Mdina Cathedral Museum to achieve its full potential as a multi-levelled heritage site.

The Mdina Cathedral Museum will be playing a very important role in The Mdina Cathedral APS Contemporary Art Biennale this year as it is going to be the sole location used for the international contemporary art exhibition. The previous edition of the biennale made use of a number of venues around Mdina, but it has been decided that this year's project will focus solely on the museum for all artists to directly interact with its collection and history. The space will be a perfect setting for artists to explore the present theme; The Mediterranean: A Sea of Conflicting Spiritualities. The museum itself historically defines what a spiritual Mediterranean encompasses and looks like. More significantly, it is also a welcome space for contemporary interpretations of Mediterranean identity.