A series of lectures about Italian art by Fr Marius Zerafa
The life and works of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio have always been shrouded in significant secrets, mysteries, enigmas and twists of fate.
Beginning from a news story of recent times, Fr Marius Zerafa, an internationally known adacemic for his studies on Caravaggio, will illustrate the life, works and techniques of the great Italian painter and will give the public a first-hand account of the clamorous theft and the return back home of the painting in Malta.
Exactly 30 years ago, the painting by Caravaggio, “St. Jerome”, was smuggled from the Museum of St John’s co-Cathedral in Valletta. Two years later, a young man went to Fr Zerafa. He was carrying in an envelope a photo of the painting and a tape, asking for a ransom of half a million Maltese liri. From that day onwards, Fr Zerafa received, on a daily basis, telephone calls and pieces of the painting. On 4 August 1987, the ruined painting was found and Fr Zerafa, thanks to the collaboration from Italy, was able to send it to Rome on an Italian military aeroplane for the restoration.
A year later, another “Maltese” work of Caravaggio, the majestic “Beheading of St. John the Baptist” was involved in another impressive operation, where it was transported to Italy for restoration at Opificio delle Pietre Dure di Firenze.