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Karl Schembri and Gilbert Calleja
Religion and the nation are predictably expected to be represented on Malta’s euro coins as most of the people have opted for the Baptism of Christ and Malta’s coat of arms in the dozen thousand votes cast by SMS until late last week.
The selection period launched by the National Euro Changeover Committee (NECC) closes today after two weeks of lobbying by several organisations and individuals, including strong calls for other icons that were not initially proposed such as national poet Dun Karm, the eight-pointed cross and St Paul.
NECC chairman Joseph FX Zahra said the response was satisfactory although he kept expecting further feedback until the competition closes.
“We tend to keep everything for the last minute,” he said. “I want more participation. It was very encouraging to see the feedback and reactions we generated, like the debate about the spelling and the new suggestions for the euro coins. All this helps make the people more aware of the upcoming switch to the new currency.”
Zahra said the committee will be considering the other requests by the Akkademja tal-Malti for Dun Karm’s icon and other suggestions despite the NECC’s initial policy to exclude personalities “to avoid controversy”.
On the other hand the eight-pointed cross is considered to be contentious because of the ownership by the Knights of St John, while Fort St Angelo – the site of the 1565 victory over the Ottomans, proposed by NECC, will probably generate a smirk or two on Turks’ faces if they ever join the EU.
For the voting, the public had a selection of heritage sites and symbols meant to represent Malta’s historical timeline but public debate about the issue was dominated by ‘who’ deserves to represent the Maltese.
The Akkademja tal-Malti reacted by issuing a press release calling to vote for Dun Karm as the only representative of Maltese identity, and went as far as issuing an indication of how the national poet would look embossed on the coin as depicted by artist Luciano Micallef.
A spokesman for l-akkademja said Dun Karm was favoured over Mikiel Anton Vassalli – the father of the Maltese language – because the latter is less popular with the Maltese and no true image of him exists.
This proposal received mixed reactions in kelmet, the Akkademja’s internet discussion group. One contributor, disagreeing with the proposal wrote that the coin ‘will end up with the face of an unrecognisable old man’ (“b’wicc ta’ ragel xih li ma jingharafx minn Adam”).
And according to the NECC chairman, the personality has to be “of European significance”, citing Dante as an example.
Ironically, that would tip the balance more towards Vassalli, who in the true European spirit prevailing at his time had conspired with the French to get rid of the regime of the Order of St John and modernise Malta on the values of the enlightenment. On the other hand, the national poet had only emulated the European romantic poets a century late, making him look utterly passé among his European counterparts.
And the committee’s ban on personalities still did not apply to Christ, the Baptist, and St Paul – all proposed icons that are still being voted for.
According to the La Valette philharmonic society, Melchiorre Gafa’s sculpture of St Paul is the true reflection of Maltese identity.
“We urge everyone to back our suggestion and propose the statue of our father St Paul on the euro coins so that the world and Europe would know about our association with Catholicism since 60 AD,” the society said in a press release.
The Baptism of Christ is listed by the committee as an example of “Renaissance Malta” – an unforgivable mistake given that it is a sculptural masterpiece by the late Baroque sculptor Giuseppe Mazzuoli.
Justifying this, the NECC suggested the improbable link between the sculpture and the image of St John which the Knights’ coins bore during the 1530-1798 period. The two images of St John have nothing in common other than the standard iconographical attributes by which the saint is identified.
Auberge de Castille’s façade was also listed under the Renaissance Malta selection. The caption accompanying the façade’s picture informs of the Renaissance origins of the auberge in 1574. However, the link is pushed to extremes when it is said that: “the extensive reconstructions directed by architect Domenico Cachia were undertaken in 1744 during Grand Master Pinto de Fonseca’s term of office. The doorway, or a detail from it, is being proposed as one of the subjects to represent renaissance Malta on the Maltese euro coins.”
In fact, the flamboyancy of the reconstructions and decorations as wanted by Pinto are far removed from the sense of harmony and balance so important to Renaissance architects.
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
gcalleja@mediatoday.com.mt
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