St. Paul's Cathedral, Mdina
Encyclopedia
Cathedral
A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...
in the city of Mdina
Mdina
Mdina, Città Vecchia, or Città Notabile, is the old capital of Malta. Mdina is a medieval walled town situated on a hill in the centre of the island. Punic remains uncovered beyond the city’s walls suggest the importance of the general region to Malta’s Phoenician settlers. Mdina is commonly...
, in Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
. It is built on the site where governor Publius
Saint Publius
Saint Publius is the first maltese Saint. He is venerated as the first Bishop of Malta. Publius' conversion led to Malta being the first Christian nation in the West, and one of the first in the world....
was reported to have met Saint Paul following his shipwreck off the Maltese coast.
History
According to tradition, the first Cathedral of Malta was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God but, having fallen into ruin during the Muslim period, it was rebuilt following the Norman conquest and re-dedicated to St Paul. The old church was modified and enlarged several times.The building we can see today was designed by the architect Lorenzo Gafa
Lorenzo Gafà
Lorenzo Gafà was a Maltese baroque architect.Born in Vittoriosa , Gafà began his working life as a stone carver and his brother was the renowned sculptor Melchiorre. By the early 1660s he had developed a strong interest in architectural design and in 1661 is known to have been involved in the...
, it was built between 1697 and 1702 to replace a ruined Norman
Norman architecture
About|Romanesque architecture, primarily English|other buildings in Normandy|Architecture of Normandy.File:Durham Cathedral. Nave by James Valentine c.1890.jpg|thumb|200px|The nave of Durham Cathedral demonstrates the characteristic round arched style, though use of shallow pointed arches above the...
cathedral destroyed by the 1693 earthquake
1693 Sicily earthquake
The 1693 Sicily earthquake refers to a powerful earthquake that struck parts of southern Italy, notably Sicily, Calabria and Malta on January 11, 1693 around 9 pm local time. This earthquake was preceded by a damaging foreshock on January 9th...
on Malta. Despite this, several artifacts and edifices survived including the painting by the Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
n artist Mattia Preti
Mattia Preti
Mattia Preti was an Italian Baroque artist who worked in Italy and Malta.- Biography :Born in the small town of Taverna in Calabria, Preti was sometimes called Il Cavalier Calabrese...
depicting the conversion of Saint Paul
Conversion of Paul
The Conversion of Paul the Apostle, as depicted in the Christian Bible, refers to an event reported to have taken place in the life of Paul of Tarsus which led him to cease persecuting early Christians and to himself become a follower of Jesus; it is normally dated by researchers to AD 33–36...
, a 15th-century Tuscan
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
painting of the Madonna and Child, and fresco
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
es in the apse
Apse
In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...
which illustrate Paul's shipwreck.
Architecture
The architect Lorenzo GafaLorenzo Gafà
Lorenzo Gafà was a Maltese baroque architect.Born in Vittoriosa , Gafà began his working life as a stone carver and his brother was the renowned sculptor Melchiorre. By the early 1660s he had developed a strong interest in architectural design and in 1661 is known to have been involved in the...
designed the Cathedral in Baroque style. It sits at the end of a rectangular square. The near-square facade is cleanly divided in three bays by the Corinthian order
Corinthian order
The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...
of pilasters. There are two bell towers at the both corners. The plan is a Latin cross with a vaulted nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
, two aisles and two small side chapels. The Cathedral has a light octagonal dome
Dome
A dome is a structural element of architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. Dome structures made of various materials have a long architectural lineage extending into prehistory....
, with eight stone scrolls above a high drum
Tholobate
A tholobate or drum, in architecture, is the upright part of a building on which a dome is raised. It is generally in the shape of a cylinder or a polygonal prism....
leading up to a neat lantern
Lantern (disambiguation)
A lantern is a portable lighting device used to illuminate broad areas.Lantern may also refer to:* Lantern , an album by the band Clogs*The Lantern, a student-run newspaper at The Ohio State University...
.
One of the main features of the interior is the rich colorful tessellated floor.
Many of the furnishings of the cathedral, including the baptismal font
Baptismal font
A baptismal font is an article of church furniture or a fixture used for the baptism of children and adults.-Aspersion and affusion fonts:...
and the portal, are carved out of Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
wood.
The cathedral also has a substantial collection of silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
plates and coins, and some carvings by the German artist Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
.