- THE Knights of Malta, a powerful but
enigmatic organisation whose traditions and rituals date back to the days
of the Crusaders, this week opened its Rome headquarters to the public.The
decision to reveal what lies behind the doors of the Grand Priory of the
Maltese Order, high on the Aventine Hill above the Tiber, is seen as part
of a move by the order to "open up to the world" and become more
accessible as the new millennium approaches.
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- Earlier this year the order, nowadays
a charitable rather than military organisation, announced it was admitting
women into its hierarchy for the first time in 900 years. The order's leaders,
many of whom are of noble descent and take monastic vows of chastity, poverty
and obedience, also emerged from seclusion to announce that they were campaigning
to be allowed to return to Malta, from where the knights were expelled
in the 18th century.
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- Until now tourists and residents have
only been able to glimpse the tree-lined avenue of the Priory, with its
breathtaking view of the Dome of St Peter's beyond, by peeping through
a keyhole. A few have had access "by special arrangement". But
for the next three months visitors can walk through the shaded gardens
to the knights' holy of holies, the hitherto hidden church of Santa Maria
del Priorato, designed by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-78). The church,
described by La Repubblica as a "secret architectural jewel",
is the knights' richly decorated mortuary chapel, lined with the banners
and medieval tombs of the Crusaders.
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- Previously glimpsed only from the Tiber
embankment below, the church also contains Piranesi's own tomb, topped
by a statue depicting him wearing Roman costume. Piranesi designed a giant
candelabrum for his resting place, incorporating antique fragments from
Hadrian's Villa. (which he mapped during excavations). But his descendants
hated it, and it stands ( forlornly) in the Louvre in Paris.
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- Piranesi was commissioned to design the
church by the then Grand Prior, Giovanni Battista Rezzonico, Pope Clement
XIII's 23-year-old nephew. "Like the Rezzonico family, Piranesi was
from Venice," said John Wilton-Ely, professor emeritus of the history
of art at Hull University and a Piranesi expert. "It was a Venetian
Mafia."
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- Professor Wilton-Ely, author of The Mind
and Art of Piranesi and Piranesi as Architect and Designer, said that although
Piranesi was an engraver of genius, selling his visionary designs profitably
to aristocrats on the Grand Tour, he thought of himself primarily as an
architect. "Piranesi re-designed the east end of St John Lateran,
but the work was never executed for lack of funds. This is the only building
he ever completed. It is extremely well documented. We even have the foreman's
account book."
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- The church facade is a profusion of carved
stone symbols: standards, swords and crescent moons for the heroic exploits
of the Crusaders, as well as serpents (the ancient name for the Aventine
was Mons Serpentarius), and ancient Roman and Etruscan images. When the
setting sun falls across the facade in the evening, it resembles one of
Piranesi's etchings in relief.
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- Inside are superbly preserved white stucco
decorations and an extravagantly Baroque high altar. An exhibition of Piranesi's
sketches drawn from the Vatican Library, the British Museum and other collections
shows his almost manic energy and range, and includes his designs for ornate
clocks and tables (only two Piranesi tables survive). "People thought
Piranesi was quite mad," Professor Wilton-Ely said. Robert Adam, whom
Piranesi influenced and admired, said Piranesi was wonderful in small doses
and "a quarter of an hour will make you sick of his company".
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- Piranesi also incorporated the Maltese
Cross, whose eight points are said to represent the Beatitudes (or the
eight European powers involved in founding the order). The order was founded
during the First Crusade in 1099 and received papal recognition in 1113.
It moved to Acre in 1187, but under Saracen onslaughts withdrew first to
Cyprus in 1290 and then to Rhodes in 1310. Hounded again by the Turks under
Suleiman the Magnificent, the knights settled in Malta in 1530. After Napoleon
seized the island in 1798 they made their home in Rome (after brief periods
in Russia, Trieste, Messina and Ferrara).
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- Like the Vatican, with which it is closely
linked, the order is a Catholic "sovereign state" with its own
diplomatic service, and its properties in Rome are "extra-territorial".
The order has permanent observer status at the UN. It is headed by a Scot,
Andrew Bertie, who until his election ten years ago was a master at a Catholic
public school in Britain. He now has the title of Prince and Grand Master,
and is addressed as "Your Highness".
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- Count Carlo Marullo, Grand Chancellor
of the Order, said women would be admitted to the order's decision-making
bodies ``in accordance with the authentic spirit of Christianity and humanitarianism''
on the eve of the new millennium.
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- There are also hopes that Malta will
return "a small piece of autonomous territory" in the form of
Fort St Angelo, the scene of their most famous victory, where in 1565 they
held out against besieging Turks and so stemmed the tide of Muslim expansion
in the Mediterranean.
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- Malta's Nationalists, led by Eddie Fenech
Adami, are less keen on the return of the order than the previous Labour
Government. Franz von Lobstein, the Grand Prior, said many of the order's
11,000 members hoped to assemble in Malta in December to mark the knights'
900th anniversary.
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