Mattia Preti
The cathedral vault's painter in his own canvases.
Matthew Axiak — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Kroton — CC BY 3.0 · Frank Vincentz — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Frank Vincentz — CC BY-SA 3.0
The Knights' residences divided by language: an auberge for each langue (Italy, France, Castile, Aragon…) housing and feeding its knights — most are government buildings today, with the Auberge de Castille the Prime Minister's office.
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The national art museum in the Italian knights' auberge: Malta's art museum moved in 2018 into the Auberge d'Italie — the sixteenth-century seat of the Order's Italian langue — after a full restoration, and was renamed MUŻA, both an acronym of its Maltese name and the word for a muse. What distinguishes its display is that it does not arrange paintings chronologically but thematically, in four strands: the Mediterranean, the European, art and craft, and Malta in the world — so a Maltese work hangs beside a European one to be read in context, a bold arrangement rare in national museums. The collection holds Mattia Preti (who painted St John's Co-Cathedral's vault), Antoine Favray, Turner and Valentin de Boulogne, along with Maltese sculpture and silver. The building itself, with its courtyard and stairs, is part of the visit — and it is Valletta's quietest, least crowded museum.
The cathedral vault's painter in his own canvases.
Sixteenth-century courtyard and stairs.
Auberge d'Italie, Valletta