In 1778 the new librarian of the library of the Order of St John in Malta, the learned Giocacchino Navarro, published an exhaustive dissertazione on the iconography and history of three ancient marble bas-reliefs which, according to their inscriptions, depicted Pe(n)tesilea (according to classical literature the Queen of the Amazons), Zenobia Orientis Domina An. DNI CCLXXVI (Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra) and Tuliola M. Tulii F. (Tullia, daughter of Marcus Tullius) and Claudia Metelli (Claudia, the wife of Metellus).
They were originally integrated in the walls of the fountain in the palace, but in 1775 were transferred to the new gallery of the palace and later added to the library of the Order. Navarro believed in the authenticity of these marble reliefs, despite the likelihood that the inscriptions were added much later. In fact, some modern scholars doubt the authenticity of these artefacts. This paper however does not aim to comment either on the authenticity or the inartistic value of the artefacts, or their iconographical interpretations, but to shed new light on the history of their discovery. For some hundred years, these bas-reliefs have attracted the interest of local and foreign scholars and amateurs alike. This is attested by 18th- and 19th-century historians who have published overall descriptions of the history and culture of the Maltese islands and who thus make mention of them. Among these historian writers, one finds Count Gian Antonio Ciantar, with his Malta Illustrate (1172) and the Knight of the Order of St John, Louis de Boisgelin in Ancient and Modern Malta (1804). In terms of artistic quality, the best description of the three reliefs is to be found in volume four of Jean Houel’s Voyage Pittoresque (1787). Houel had seen them when he visited Malta in 1770, and again in 1777. From his ambitious collection of drawings he depicted them fairly accurately in the restrained classicist style which was in vogue in Europe.
Navarro’s dissertation was considered by most of his contemporaries as the ultimate word on these interesting ancient artefacts and their discovery. It was thought that these reliefs were found during excavation works in the precincts of Birgu between 1647 and 1668, as Navarro maintained. These dates were established by Navarro, as Abela in his epochal Descrittione di Malta, published in 1647, had not mentioned them. According to Navarro, the first person to mention the reliefs was the Dutch compiler Olfert Dapper in his Naukerige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaansche gewesten published in 1668.
This was contradicted in 1816 by the Maltese classical scholar and chaplain Onorato Bres who in his Malta antica presents a different opinion. Bres dates the finding somewhere in the second half of the 16th century as he knew that in 1624, the German traveller and scholar from Augsburg Georg Walter had already sent them in Malta. In fact, in his book Siciliae obiacentium Inulae et bruttiorum antiquae et tabulae (1625), Walter explicitly states that it had been Giovanni Francesco Abela who had shown him these reliefs in the court of the Grand Master’s Palace in Valletta.
Walter copied the inscriptions of Tulliola. M. Tullii. F. Claudia Metelli, Pentesilea and a certain Virginia. Bres suggested that at the time of Walter’s visit to Malta, there had been Virginia inscribed instead of Zenobia Orientis Domina An. DNI CCLXXVI. This however, could not be so as the latter inscription was already known by this version in 1588. It is more likely that in 1624 there were still more bas-reliefs placed in the courtyard of the Grand Master’s Palace.
Bres, however, is mistaken when he states that Guglielmo Rovilio in his compilation Promptuarium Iconum insigniorum (1581) already makes mention of these images of Pentesilea, Claudia Metelli and Zenobia. The depictions Rovilio referred to were on medals and had nothing to do with the bas-reliefs of Malta. According to Bres, the marble reliefs were found during excavation works of a ditch between Fort St Angelo and Birgu and would have formed part of the ancient temple of Juno. Therefore it was not difficult for the Maltese chaplain to conclude that these reliefs did not depict the person referred to in the inscriptions added later, but Roman empresses or goddesses.
Bres also refutes what the French traveller Chaillou – after his visit of Malta in 1680 – had written on these reliefs, namely that they were not old but imitations made in the 16th century. Chaillou’s opinion had been published in Jakob Spon’s Recherches curiuses de l’antiquité (1683). What is even more interesting is that Bres light-heartedly discarded what the great French archaeologist and compiler Comte de Caylus said regarding these reliefs. According to Caylus, they were brought over to Malta from a city in the Levant by some knights of the Order of St John. Maybe Bres did not know that Caylus had visited Malta in June 1715, and during this visit had interested himself in several ancient artefacts displayed on the island. During his visit, the French archaeologist might have heard the story about the finding of the bas-reliefs. We shall now see how close Caylus had been to the truth.
The veracity of this version is to be found in the diary of a traveller who never came to Malta. In the summer of 1587 while in Constantinople, the German traveller and physician, Reinhold Lubenau, met the Austrian Knight of St John Karl Tetauer von Tettau, who had just arrived as an imperial envoy to the Grand Porte. Tettau recounted to Lubenau a thrilling story which was recorded in Lubenau’s travel diary which had to wait for a publication until 1912.
In 1584, the young Duc d’Aumale, a nephew of the powerful Duc de Guise, had fitted out a galley and sailed to Malta to participate in the celebrated and prestigious caravans of the Order. In August 1584, only a few days after his arrival, he sailed to the Barbary Coast. Nominally the ship sailed under the command of the young duke but in fact the galley was commanded by the more experienced Knight Philibert de Foissy Chamesson.
For a single ship, a voyage in the Levantine waters seemed too risky, so it was decided to proceed in a southern direction and to chase North African merchant vessels. In fact, after only a few days’ journey, not far away from Tripoli, D’Aumale’s galley encountered a Muslim merchant vessel on its way to Tunis. It did not take too long to capture it as the Muslim crew soon surrendered. The proud D’Aumale carried 50 moors back to Malta into slavery. But the real coup was still to come. D’Aumale’s ship had landed on the shores near the Tunisian town of Mahdia. Besides the capture and bondage of the local population, the crew – most likely encouraged by the refined D’Aumale, Chamesson and their friends – also found time to carry out some excavations in the old ruins of the town formerly known as Africa and to carry some ancient artefacts, among them the abovementioned marble reliefs which were forthwith loaded on the ships. Following the transportation of these items to Malta, the art-loving Grand Master Verdalle ordered them to be utilised as decoration for the fountain in the courtyard of his palace in Valletta. Here they were perfectly adapted to the mannerist taste of the time.
The learned Lubenau was fascinated by this story. The placing of the same marble reliefs in the courtyard must have happened some time after October 1586 because the traveller Hans Ludwig von Lichtenstein – who later would meet Lubenau in Constantinople – had not yet seen them when he was in Malta. However, Lichtenstein’s friends, Michael Heberer and Hans Ludwig von Muenster, who arrived in Malta from Constantinople in May 1588, had occasion to admire them.
The philologist Heberre, in his book Aegyptiaca Servitus (1510) keenly reproduced drawings of these objects on the spot, adding a lengthy description of their historical and iconographical background. In summer 1588, Heberer had copied the inscriptions of Tuliola. M. Tullii. F., Cla(u)dia Metelli, Pentesilea, and Zenobia Orientis Domina AN. DNI CCLXXVI. This proves that by then – contrary to what Onorato Bres declared – the latter inscriptions existed. But the German philologist also said that there were more bas-reliefs in the palace courtyard but their features and inscriptions were however no longer clearly readable.
The engravings in Heberer’s book were made by the court painter of the duke elector of the Palatinate, Friedrich Hummel. In 1600, long after his return from the Levant, Reinhold Lubenau, while lodging in a guesthouse in The Franconian town of Ansbach, met the Knight of St John Valtin von Hese who had just returned from Malta. The story of the excavation of the old artefacts unearthed in Africa was still very much the talk of the day.
This article first appeared in the Easter 2003 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