Lorenzo Zahra
An oil-on-canvas with gilded frame was recently donated to the Wignacourt Museum, Rabat, by renowned cartographer Dr Albert Ganado. The painting was received by Museum Director, Mgr. Gwann Azzopardi and will be added to the Museum's collection of historical artistic paintings.
It is a portrait by an unknown artist of an unidentified prelate wearing a priestly cap on his head and with look of satisfaction holding in his hand for the full view of the onlooker a plan of what seems to be a building. Significantly, he is posing with a Crucifix stand in the background.
An examination of the plan in the painting reveals that it is in fact the site of the Oratory of the Holy Crucifix at Vittoriosa in the precincts of St Lawrence parish church. The Oratory was owned and administered by the Confraternity of the Holy Crucifix.
This Oratory was built in 1720-22 through the effort of the parish priest of Vittoriosa, Don Carlo Cologna (1701-1733). The Confraternity had just been erected and he was keen for the fratelli to have a meeting location and place of worship. So it is most likely that the portrait in the painting is none other than Don Carlo Cologna.
Devotion to the Holy Crucifix spread some years earlier when in 1657 two mystic Crucifixes were brought from Candia by a Maltese seaman during the height of the Battle of the Dardanelles between Christians and Ottomans. The two Crucifixes were placed respectively in the Vittoriosa and Cospicua parish churches. At St Lawrence Church, the Vittoriosa Jurat Cristoforo Menna created a perpetual foundation for the veneration of the Holy Crucifix while Dama Lucrezia Falzon paid for the erection of a chapel within St Lawrence Church where the Candia Crucifix could be hung.
By 1715 there was so much devotion toward the Holy Crucifix at Vittoriosa that some 70 gentlemen made a request for the establishment of a Confraternity to assume responsibility for the organisation of the Good Friday procession. The decree for the approval of the Confraternity was issued 1718. The solemn investiture took place in the chapel of the Holy Crucifix at St Lawrence Church
The parish priest Don Carlo Cologna was so anxious to see the Confraternity established and active that he submitted a formal supplica for the building of an Oratory for the Confraternity within the existing ancient cemetery adjoining the Church of St Lawrence, the same cemetery where victims of the sieges of 1551 and 1565 were buried. Don Carlo attached a plan of the Oratory to his supplica, and added that he would procure the necessary funds from the members.
The foundation stone was laid on 18 December 1720 and within a couple of years the Oratory was completed. The rectangular structure of the Oratory can be recognized from the plan in the painting, with the typical flight of steps leading to the main door, and the triangular shaped sacristy at the back, popularly known as Il-Genna. Originally, the Oratory was dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows but from the 19th century, when the Good Friday processional statue of the Crucifixion was placed on the main altar, it started to be referred to as the Oratory of the Holy Crucifix as it is still known today.
The parish church of St Lawrence had become the church of the Inquisition and the Inquisitors had become patrons of the church. The clergy of St. Lawrence formed part of a College of Beneficiaries and received periodic endowments from the Inquisitors. Don Carlo Cologna was a beneficiario; he is in fact shown in the painting bearing the medal of the Inquisition. The College of Beneficiaries was established by the incumbent Inquisitor, Mgr. Antonio Ruffo in 1725. This means that the painting must have been commissioned in or after that date.
In subsequent years, the Confraternity of the Holy Crucifix found another great supporter: the Vittoriosa priest Don Michele Grima. He had high-level contacts with dignitaries in the Vatican. In 1751 he set out for Rome and after two hectic years of pleadings, with the help of the Inquisitor Mgr. Paolo Passionei, he returned to Birgu bringing with him a unique multiple reliquary of the Holy Passion: an icon of the Volto Santo and 20 relics all relating to Christ's Passion, among which the most precious being the Vero Ligno, a splinter from the Holy Cross. These were fitted together in a silver container decorated with filigree at the expense of Dama Caterina Bernarda Cassar Desain. Upon its arrival at Vittoriosa on 10 June 1753, the precious reliquary was transferred solemnly from the inquisitors' Palace to St Lawrence Church. It is still devoutly venerated in the Chapel of the Holy Crucifix.