On clear nights, when the moon has not risen yet, the sky fills up with so many stars, otherwise invisible when the moon appears.

So too in the history of art in these islands, between the twin genii of Caravaggio and Mattia Preti, the local art scene was not completely barren. Once we turn our attention away from the twin giants, we start to notice lesser stars that we would otherwise have missed.

This gloriously coloured book by one of the foremost writers, researchers and lecturers on the history of art in Malta in the 17^th century opens up interesting panoramas that would not be known to the non-expert ordinary reader.

One interesting fact to note is the amount of 17^th century art by masters in private hands, unfortunately and understandably unidentified. Still, we sometimes get photos of the paintings in question.

After the Great Siege of 1565, the Order of St John consolidated its rule over Malta, hitherto rather fragile. The creation of Valletta, the new capital city, brought about a huge building spree as palaces, churches and residential buildings were rapidly built. Those built by the Knights, coming from among the most noble families of Europe, soon created a sort of competition drawing from the best talents on the continent.

Some knights brought with them paintings from the best artists of the time. Some records speak of paintings by Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Rubens and Van Eyck being brought to Malta and then maybe taken back when the knight in question returned home.

Other paintings by Jusepe Ribera, Luca Giordano and others remained here maybe because their owners died in Malta and the paintings along with other objects were transferred to the Order.

The native Maltese artists, still anchored in the artistic language of the past, could not provide the art required by the new buildings. Hence the knights turned to mainland Italy to get the paintings from the contemporary and fashionable artists and thus enhance their standing.

The first arrival in this new wave was Matteo Perez d'Aleccio from the late Mannerist school of Rome who was brought to Malta in 1576 to narrate the most important scenes from the Great Siege in the Grand Council Chamber within the newly-constructed Grand Master's palace, a pictorial sequence of 12 bird's eye views of the most important events of the Siege.

D'Aleccio was also chosen to paint the titular altarpieces for the conventual church of Saint John's and that of the new parish church of Saint Paul Shipwrecked.

Other Italian artists who may have come to Malta in those years were Stefano Pieri, Daniele da Volterra and Francesco Potenzano.

A more important visitor in those days was the Florentine Filippo Paladini who managed to trade his place on the rowers' bench of Tuscan galleys with a stay in Malta as the guest of the grand master. He decorated the grand master's private chapel in the palace in Valletta as well as the grand master's new hunting lodge at Boschetto near Rabat.

Next to come to Malta was Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio whose short and eventful stay began in July 1607 while escaping from Rome and was to end ignominiously with his escape from prison in Malta in October 1608.

Caravaggio painted the huge Beheading of St John the Baptist, the St Jerome and also the Portrait of Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt, now in the Louvre.

After the Michelangelo saga the Order brought to Malta Leonello Spada from Bologna who painted no less than 24 scenes from the history of the Order from its foundation in the kingdom of Jerusalem to its expulsion from Rhodes in 1522.

The paintings cover the walls of the grand master's office, now known as the Yellow Room, continue in the next one, the Pages' Room and next in the Ambassadors' Room.

The years following Spada's departure from Malta might seem like dead, uneventful years in that no big name appeared in these islands. However, one can find some local Caravaggisti present, together with imports of works by Caravaggio's Roman followers. It was said, and Mattia Preti alludes to this in a letter of his, that there were a number of paintings attributed to Caravaggio in private collections in Malta but most probably they were copies. Considerable controversy has erupted regarding a St Francis in Meditation in a private collection in Malta and one in the Galleria Nazionale in Palazzo Barberini in Rome, with solid arguments brought on both sides.

In the 1620s, the Jesuit church in Valletta was being built and one can find a number of paintings by Caravaggisti in it, such as Giovanni Battista Caracciolo's The Rest on the Flight into Egypt and a Guardian Angel usually attributed to Louis Finson but which the author ascribes to an artist close to Caracciolo, such as Paolo Finoglia or Filippo Vitale.

One artist who was close to Caravaggio also in his laddish behaviour was Mario Minniti. At 15, Minniti escaped from Syracuse to Malta, thence to Rome where he may have lodged with Caravaggio; he also received the artist in Syracuse after Caravaggio's dramatic escape from Malta in 1608.

In Malta Minniti left a small Flagellation now in the Cathedral Museum in Mdina and a large altarpiece of the Baptism of Christ at the church of Saint Ursola in Valletta.

The most interesting and fascinating of the Caravaggist altar paintings in Malta is the Martyrdom of St Catherine by an unknown author, now in the Zejtun parish museum. This dates from c.1614 and was painted by someone with an intimate knowledge of Caravaggio's Sicilian and Maltese works.

Some examples of high art did nevertheless make it to Malta. One such example is Guido Reni's Christ embracing the Cross, maybe originally for the palace in Valletta and now at the National Museum of Fine Arts.

A large Salome with the Head of the Baptist by Luca Giordano, today in a private collection, may have probably been brought to Malta by an individual knight.

A welcome novelty, at least to the non-expert audience, is Francesco Noletti, also called Il Maltese or also Francesco Fieravino, who painted mainly in Rome and whose speciality was theatrically-placed heavy-folded carpets. He seems to have died prematurely at 43.

The most prolific village artist of the mid-17th century was Filippino Dingli, brother of the architect Tommaso Dingli. Over 20 altar paintings by the artist survive, mostly in the central and western parts of Malta.

A French knight servant-at-arms of the Order, Lucas Garnier, emerged as the most important upcoming artist before the advent of Mattia Preti. His main paintings are in the Zebbug parish church but he may have also produced paintings for the conventual church of Saint John's.

And finally, Mattia Preti. He brought to Malta that qualitative leap that was necessary for Malta to fully embrace the real spirit of Baroque art.

He stayed in Malta from 1661 till his death in 1699. Apart from his monumental mural undertaking for the vault of St John's, around 270 works in oils on canvas are the prodigious output for those years, some 140 are in Malta and 130 are dispersed around the world.

Although he himself had offered to paint the vault gratis, by 1663 he started to complain bitterly about his financial distress. He may have been right - a conservative estimate puts the real worth of covering the enormous vault at five times what he actually got.

It has been claimed that through staying all that time in Malta cut him off from contemporary artistic developments in Rome. But his art does evolve - his dynamic movements gradually became calmer and his palette became gradually darker.

Preti's entire oeuvre has to be carefully differentiated between those works which are completely autograph and those which have the intervention of assistants, which gradually increased as the artist grew older.

Preti's bottega was a large one and we have to further subdivide. There are paintings which are obviously invented by Preti but painted to a considerable extent by the bottega, with the artist doing some final touches. These are generally classified as being by "Mattia Preti and bottega".

There are others which are entirely by the bottega, but the general stylistic and technical character suggests that these paintings may have been painted under some sort of supervision (but possibly not intervention) by Preti. These are generally classified as "bottega of Mattia Preti".

Then there are those paintings classified as "follower of Preti" which show evident signs of inventive, compositional and technical weaknesses or inconsistencies that suggest that these were painted without any sort of assistance by the master.

In the last period of his life, Preti, helped by his bottega, undertook huge commissions for the Oratory of the Decollato in St John's, the church of Saint Paul in Rabat and then an even bigger one for the newly-constructed cathedral at Mdina.

The amount of paintings attributed to the bottega now became a flood. A number of Preti's assistants have now been identified - Raimondo Dr Dominici, the Carmelite nun Suor Maria De Dominici, the slave Giuseppe Cianferli and a certain Demetrio Farrugia.

Other artists documented close to Preti include Gioacchino Loretta and above all Giuseppe D'Arena, who though emerging at one point as an independent master, was very much influenced by Preti.

The last great figure in this panorama is Stefano Erardi who was slightly influenced by Preti but remained significantly aloof. He also made inroads in Preti's stronghold, St John's where there are some notable paintings by him such as the Adoration of the Magi in the chapel of Germany.

Another painting is the monumental altar painting of the Shipwreck of St Paul in Malta, one of the largest canvases of the Maltese Baroque.

The 'Maltese' century ended with the death of its protagonist Mattia Preti and the gradual decline of Stefano Erardi. Giuseppe D'Arena was at his peak but his art could not be stylistically carried much further. New stimuli were required and these were to be provided by Alessio Erardi, Stefano's son.