My second post about Malta and perhaps arguably I’m not mad after all. You might, indeed, wonder what this is all about….
The photograph above is of the cathedral in Victoria, the honey-coloured capital of Gozo, a small island about a mile off the Maltese coast.
I vaguely remembered going there about 35 years ago but it was all a bit hazy in my mind. Then I remembered being told the story of the cathedral’s construction but I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or if I had remembered correctly.
The story goes roughly as follows….
Back then, it was the norm to have a dome, as large as possible, to finish off your village church. This was especially applicable to the cathedral which was supposedly the most important church building, more important than anything else on the island. Trouble was, as construction was progressing, they ran out of money and all they could afford was a flat roof. If you look carefully in the above photo, you can see where the base of a dome is actually in place.
To solve the ‘problem’ an artist was commissioned to paint the ceiling to make it appear that it was a dome, a kind of optical illusion. The artist was skilled and did a brilliant job at producing an optical illusion, as you can just see in the photo below.
I’m sorry I wasn’t able to go inside on the day we were there, for some reason it was closed. So you’ll need to make do with a photo I have lifted from those nice people at Wikipedia and I do hope they won’t mind too much. Look carefully and you can see a little of the flat roof which is painted like a dome.
Quite an astonishing work of art, especially as an optical illusion, and indeed the whole cathedral is testament to the skill of those craftsmen in those days and everyone who was behind the construction. It must have been about giving glory to God as best they could. They certainly have done a fantastic work.
I was so pleased when I checked the story out with our guide. She confirmed I had remembered correctly and that I [probably] wasn’t going completely mad.
Such a relief. There are all kinds of things stuffed into the filing cabinet in my head. For something which I’d pretty much forgotten, only to find that after 35 years, I was correct was something of a relief. It is all too easy for us to remember little bits of things and then, maybe, our imaginations will fill in the gaps. At least this time, I was right, not mad at all!