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The simple, sober façade of
St John's gives no hint of its lavish interior. It was built as the
conventual church of the Order and the Knights spent enormous sums of money
embellishing the chapels of their langues. Almost every last piece of the
walls, vault and chapels is painted, gilded or carved. Knights and Grand
Masters are omnipresent in the form of their heraldic arms, monuments and
mausoleums. The pavimento (floor paving) consists of numerous
multi-coloured marble tombstones, bearing - along with carvings of
skeletons and symbolic death - the names and escutcheons of past members of
the Order.
The cathedral was built between 1572 and 1581 by Geralomo Cassar, and his
training as a military engineer accounts for the sober exterior. Nearly a
century later the prolific Italian artist, Mattia Preti, transformed
Cassar's severe interior into a glowing showpiece of baroque art. His
greatest task, which occupied him for five years, was the decoration of the
vault. This he enriched with a narrative cycle depicting the life of St
John the Baptist, painting with oils straight on the stone.
Each of the side chapels belonged to the langues. They are variously
decorated, but characteristic features are the symbols of the individual
langues and the arms of the various Grand Masters. Preti's painting decorates
many of the chapels; worth singling out are the St George and the Dragon in
the Chapel of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre and the serene Mystical
Marriage of St Catherine in the Chapel of Italy. This latter chapel also
contains Caravaggio's painting of St Jerome. The monuments to the Grand
Masters are works of art in their own right, the very finest being the
richly decorated marble and bronze mausoleums to Grand Masters Nicolas
Cotoner and Ramon Perellos in the Chapel of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre.
The remains of 12 Grand Masters are buried in the Crypt, mostly in
sarcophagi. The only ordinary Knight to have the honour of bering buried
here, is Sir Oliver Starkey, English secretary to Grand Master Jean Parisot
de La Vallette during the Great Siege.
Museum and Oratory
Of all the artistic treasures in the church, the piece-de-resistance is
generally considered to be Caravaggio's painting of The Beheading of St
John. This huge, vigorous work of art dominates the oratory.
The highlights of the museum are the splendid Belgian tapestries based on
paintings by Poussin and Rubens. During June, the month of the festa of St
John, the tapestries are brought out of the museum to adorn the church
interior.
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