If one is interested in a people’s aspirations, one should look at their pretensions. I do not know what it is about coats of arms, but quite clearly the need for personal and family manifests itself throughout these islands in both Malta and Gozo without respite. The ennobled gentleman on his palazzo, the businessman on his commercial logo, the returned emigrant on his newly-built house – they all blazon away.

For the purposes of this article, I have decided to narrow my search and focus only on Maltese escutcheons produced in either local or foreign lace. I have not attempted to make a comprehensive investigation – that can follow – but I have concentrated on a handful of items which I hope will introduce the subject and start the ball rolling for what could be an interesting future study.

The Bishop of Gozo’s alb

I shall start in Gozo with one particular alb which clearly belonged to Mgr Don Antonio Grech Delicata Bishop of Gozo from 1867 to 1877. The quality of the lace is good, and an effort had been made to please His Lordship. This piece is entrenched in the tradition of the past. The more “daring” patterns of the 19th century by which we so easily recognise the laces of Malta and Gozo are not even hinted at. The familiar wheat patterns are absent and we are looking back towards the previous centuries. This alb is rather grand and trails a train which can be carried by an acolyte. It is known as alba con coda or tal-kuda.

The Delicata arms are treated separately and not linked up with those of Grech which appear under the same vescoval hat elsewhere. We also find the “three hills” symbol of Gozo; a mitre and crosier on a shield, and three further coats of arms under the hat of achievement: a Testaferrata bull with neither stars nor eagle; the Briffa arms, and finally a crowned eagle resembling the Budach baronial crest but without the belt in the bird’s beak. The Grech Delicatas were the recipients of a great nobiliary legacy which was challenged in the courts and won elsewhere. His Lordship’s armorial alb is an interesting memorial full of identifying marks and worthy of further study.

The armorial altarpiece

Illustrated is a section of the pattern for the altarpiece which was given to the monks of Worth Preparatory School in Sussex in 1950 for their little Tower House Chapel. A Maltese crest is resplendent and the design is clear and accomplished. The piece was made to order in Gozo and took several months to produce in finest cotton. The background network is again and typically tal-balla. The design is full of confidence and is firm and clear: a craft at its height. I have been told that it cost about £40 in our then sterling currency. This was approximately half a term’s school fees. The fees today are almost £4,000 a term. In our money, the narrow altar cloth should cost about £2,000 sterling or Lm1,300.

A wedding veil

The magnificent Attard Montalto wedding veil is 24 feet long and is a fine piece of cotton lace which took Nazzarena Cauchi of 13 Narrow Street, and Maria Gatt of 84 Archpriest Street, Victoria Gozo from September 1948 to August 1950 to produce. This veil does not bear arms. I mention this because I believe that armorial lace in Malta is reasonably rare. Another family however, did produce what I was looking for: again, on a lavish scale, the wedding veil this time was well enhanced by a large coat of arms, very visible on the long trailing veil. The coat of arms is Testaferrata with Moroni and Viani. There is a coronet with five balls and the apt family motto on this great sea of lace reads Non Nisi Per Ardua (Not Without Effort).

The Florentine alb

The artistic surround at the base of this Florentine alb is not only beautiful but also remarkably sophisticated. This linen vestment must have been created at the tail end of the availability of the great artigianato which is either no more, or else beyond anybody’s pocket.

The detail incorporating the de Piro marchional coat of arms speaks for itself.

The quality of the various patterns and the intricacy of the individual leaves on the tree are only part of what deserves a more detailed and professional description to include the problems and difficulties involved in its making.

Duchesse de Bruxelles

The story of how two Maltese coats of arms came to be worked in Duchesse de Bruxelles lace is, I believe, a happy and quite singular accident. The fourth Marquis of Gnien is-Sultan’s name was Felicissimo Apap Pace Bologna. He had five children: three daughters and two sons. When his youngest child grew up, he took Holy Orders and eventually became a Monsignor. He was the apple of the eye of his mother, the widowed Marchioness. She determined to give her son a fabulous alb to celebrate his elevation to the first rung on the purple ladder. Where she got her advice from is unknown; however, it was arguably accurate, for she was looking for the finest and the best, and she was prepared to pay the price.

The cuffs and the large base border of the alb are a symphony of imaginative and inconceivably intricate mastery. The Monsignor Joseph Apap Bologna’s family escutcheons are to be found on both the cuffs and also on the skirt. They appear in three dimension, and parts of the arms are not only embossed but are made in such a way that, for example, the Apap bees wings will flap as will the Bologna wings if you touch them. The same three-dimensional qualities are to be found in the Manduca arms. Among the quarterings we can see Apap, Sceberras, Bologna, Testaferrata, Manduca, Piscopo and Macedonia.

Carmela, the Marchioness was born a Manduca, and the coats of arms give the full emblazoning not only of the most senior member of his husband’s family, the Apap Bolognas, but also those of the Counts of Mont’Alto, the Manducas. There are coronets and mottos – Hic et Ublique (Here and Everywhere) and Fortitudio et Vigilantia (Fortitude and Vigilance). Good axioms for the Monsignor who joined the diplomatic service of the Vatican and would become confessor of the regent Queen Mother of Spain; good mottos for the young Monsignor who rode in the papal carriage with Leo XIII.

The alb is temporal, dignified and worldly, but the good Monsignor rarely wore it. Instead, he practised humility and turned down a cardinal’s hat. Mgr Joseph Apap Bologna, Archdeacon of the Cathedral died in 1962 and his precious alb was found tucked away among his unused chattels.

Maltese armorial bearings on any textiles will and must tell a story. Whatever has survived should be recorded, as the identity of the Maltese people is closely linked to their aspirations in the past.

Marquis de Piro is the author of several books including “The International Dictionary of Artists who painted Malta” and “The Temple of the Knights of Malta”.

This article first appeared in the Christmas 1999 issue of “Treasures of Malta”, which is published by “Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti”. “Treasures of Malta” is a magazine about art and culture which is published three times a year, and is available from all leading bookshops.