Cutajar Dominic. Malta: History and Works of Art of St. John's Church Valetta

M. J. Publications Ltd., 1992. — 116 p.One cannot but feel over-awed in having to write about as splendid a monument as St John's Co-Cathedral, once known as the Conventual Church of the Order of the Knights of St John. It is easily the most glorious and magnificent artistic entity in the Maltese islands — a vast treasure-house that continues to hold surprises down to our time.
The same feeling of diffidence is enhanced by having to write a sequel after such a memorable publication as Sir Hannibal Scicluna's "The Church of St John's in Valletta" — a work of such pains-taking patience and detail that it would be presumptuous to vie with it at all. Indeed Sir Hannibal Scicluna's great work will continue to be an unrivalled basic text for all those desirous of learning the history-laden significance of this beautiful temple.
My own aim has been altogether more modest — to evaluate and document more fully the artistic heritage that St John's houses. My effort has therefore been largely an exercise in gap-filling, resorting to sources which Sir Hannibal Scicluna had not utilised. So that I have studiously avoided quoting sources already given by my predecessor, but chose to expand precisely to those new sources which bring into sharper light the history and art contained in this great church. The reader will thus have the benefit of savouring a coherent history of the conventual church of the Order of St John's, as well as reviewing its great works-of-art in the light of more recent scholarly contributions, together with the fruits of the present writer's own researches con-ducted over the last decade.