We have our local Elgin Marbles under our noses.

Something, in other words, of high cultural value, that does not belong to us but which has ended in our possession through possession made possible through war.

Every so often the Greeks remember what the world knows as the Elgin Marbles, ie the marble fringe that surrounded the Acropolis which the British, in the short period in which they were the overlords of Greece, dismantled and took away. They are now to be enjoyed at the British Museum in London.

Actually the Brits got the Maltese to help them out. The first port the Marbles came to was, surprise, surprise, Malta where the Marbles could be prepared for the seas that were to be crossed.

Anyway, this John Bull attitude rubbed off and the British lost no time in using it here. They had come here by invitation as they always reminded us.

They were supported by the population which rejoiced the Knights had been kicked out. And Bonaparte kicked out too. But soon the welcome soured.

For the British then with their Protestant ardour, the Catholic ritual and bells and incense were something from the Middle Ages.

And after the pillage carried out by the French in the short period they were here, who would bother about a painting or two that went amiss?

The British then felt they had every right to take over what the French had left behind and give it to who proved to be loyal.

Which leads me to speak about one of the treasures in the Palace that used to be the chapel of the Grand Masters - one of the two chapels in it.

This was the chapel adorned with the Renaissance frescos by Filippo Paladini showing the life of the Baptist just across the corridor from the Grand Master's bedroom.

It is a miracle the Paladini frescos have come down to us. The cycle suffered greatly when the palace was bombed during the war and it was only the ingenuity of a presumably Maltese worker who saved the fresco by tacking it to the pages of lotto books he must have found in the Palace.

The chapel itself became a bedroom and there is still a plaque that says this is the Prince of Wales room because one such prince slept in it.

Such was the disregard that one British governor gave away the main altarpiece to the local bishop, who kept it at the Archbishop's palace which is where this painting is still to be found (not that too many Masses are celebrated there).

Meanwhile, the rest of the Paladini cycle has been painstakingly restored (at great expense) by the Courtaulds experts and can henceforth be admired when these rooms are finally opened to the public.

But the altarpiece, the key painting in the cycle, will not be there. To find it and see it you have to exit from the Palace and go down Archbishop's Street and maybe you may be lucky and they allow you to see it. But it will still be cut off from the entire cycle, the crown without its main jewel, so to speak.

The only place for it to be is and can only be within the cycle.

I remember when that room with the adjacent ones was still considered as part of Parliament and when there was some function or party, many times I saw the catering people set up station inside the chapel including fires and hot plates.

That was desecration enough. Keeping the cycle deprived is not much worse.

And on those rare occasions when a Mass is celebrated in the Throne Room of the Archbishop's palace doesn't the celebrant get a faint message from his conscience that he is celebrating in front of a painting that is crying out to be reunited with the rest of Paladini's cycle?

That's apart from all the strictures in the Bible against reliance on graven images.

This is not a one-off. When Selmun Castle became a hotel and the chapel became a dining room the precious painting by Antoine Favray was taken away and it is now to be found in the new chapel down the road despite being completely out of context in the modern church.

[email protected]