After more than 200 years since Good Friday processions were introduced to the Maltese Islands, by the 19th century the number of statues (locally known as vari) in these processions had been standardised to the following eight: the ‘Agony in the Garden’; the ‘Scourging at the Pillar’; the ‘Crowning with Thorns’; ‘Jesus falling under the Cross;’ ‘Veronica’; ‘The Crucifixion’; ‘The Burial of Jesus’ and ‘Our Lady of Sorrows’. No real innovations were introduced throughout the 19th century except for the addition of an angel to Cospicua’s and Qormi’s ‘Agony in the Garden’ and that of a girl for Mosta’s ‘Veronica’. The first real breakthrough only came in 1908 when Qormi added another original statue to its set of ‘The Betrayal’, the work of Carlo Darmanin (1825-1909) who was also responsible for the slight improvements already mentioned. No further changes are recorded before 1961. That year saw important iconographical developments that opened the floodgates to many, many changes in the subsequent years.

New additions at Qormi

In 1961, the organisers of the Qormi procession imported two new statuary groups of Passion episodes that had never before been featured in local Good Friday processions − ‘The Last Supper’ and ‘Jesus Meets His Holy Mother’, both manufactured in Bari, Italy by Salvatore Bruno in papier-mâché but with porcelain heads. The idea to import a ‘Last Supper’ from Spain had been mooted a few years before but the final choice fell on the Bari statuary, probably because of the costs involved.

Salvatore Bruno was born in Lecce on 18 December 1883 and learnt his craft from De Lucrezi and Antonio Maccagnani. At first he shared a bottega with his brother Carmelo, a well-known and highly-respected statue maker, and later opened his own bottega in 1933 in Bari, where he died in 1988 at the venerable age of 105 years. He was also a restorer of statues.

‘The Last Supper’, a very large statuary group with no less than 13 figures, was manufactured to certain specifications so that it would be carried through the church door in the same way as the other statues of the Qormi group. Many people thought it was not possible to have such a large vara carried by just 12 men and I personally remember the vast crowd of people who thronged the Qormi streets to see for themselves what was considered to be a new creation. One must keep in mind that there were no local television stations relaying such events in those days, unlike the present when each local TV station relays a different procession. The advent of local TV also partly explains why spectators at Good Friday processions are now smaller than they used to be.

There was great competition among the Qormi bearers to have the “honour” of carrying the statue for the first time and each actually forked out £5 for the privilege, quite a hefty sum in those days and equivalent to about five days’ wages for a labourer. This extra-large Qormi vara – still being carried in procession after 50 years – remained unique in Malta though a similar one was manufactured for Żebbuġ, Gozo, in 1968, the work of Agostino Camilleri. It is different in the sense that it is presented in a different format and it also displays dressed mannequins like the other Żebbuġ statues.

The statuary group of ‘Jesus Meets His Holy Mother’ (a donation by Chev. Consiglio Damato) consisted of three statues − Jesus carrying the cross, Our Lady, and a Roman soldier in the act of separating them. It did not cause the great stir occasioned by ‘The Last Supper’ but it was also an innovation in its own right. Unfortunately, due to shoddy workmanship leading to the deterioration of the papier-mâché figures, this vara had to be replaced in 1980 by another group of four statues – the original three plus the figure of St John the Evangelist – by Alfred Camilleri Cauchi. Later, two other localities also introduced this Passion episode in their processions: Paola in 1976 by Antonio Farrugia but replaced by another group in 1987 by Alfred Camilleri Cauchi, and Xagħra (Gozo) in 1987 by Michael Camilleri Cauchi.

Emulating ‘The Betrayal’ statuary group

As already mentioned, Qormi had a statue of ‘The Betrayal’ from as far back as 1908. In 1961, the Żejtun organisers imitated the Qormin by importing a similar papier-mâché statuary group from Lecce, Italy, the work of Angelo Capoccia. This addition is also important because it paved the way for the introduction of similar statues in subsequent years to these processions: Mosta in 1963, Xagħra (Gozo) in 1964, Paola in 1971, Cospicua in 1972, Luqa in 1973, Naxxar in 1975, Żebbuġ (Malta) in 1978, and Rabat (Malta) in 1982. The statues of Paola and Cospicua were later replaced.

Angelo Capoccia was born at Lecce in 1909 and learnt the craft from his father Gabriele. Angelo became well known for his work in Italy and was still making statues in 1988 when he opened his latest bottega at Via F. Turati in Lecce. He also carried out restoration work on statues.

The aftermath

After 1961, the floodgates were literally opened for the addition and elaboration of other statues in quite a number of Maltese and Gozitan processions. Some were imported but others were made locally. Together with the two types of development noted above – new episodes and the emulation of The Betrayal group – there was now a new development: the expansion of existent episodes with the addition of new statues within the same group. This development – one may even add frenetic – started in 1962 and is really the basis of another story which, however, tends to emphasise the importance of 1961 as possibly being the most important landmark in the modern development of the iconography of the statues of Holy Week in the Maltese Islands.

All photographs are from the

J. F. Grima collection.

Dr Grima has published researched books and articles about his native Qormi, Holy Week in Malta, Histories of the Order of St John and the French in Malta, and the Maltese Architectural Heritage. He is the Hon Secretary of the Malta Historical Society and the Qormi Good Friday Committee.