The collegiate church of San Paolo in Rabat, which the Pope will visit tomorrow morning during his apostolic journey to Malta which will see him pray at the Grotto of San Paolo, houses numerous works by the Calabrian painter Mattia Preti (1613-1699), among the major exponents of the Baroque, active in particular in Rome, Naples and precisely in Malta. On the island the artist, originally from Taverna, today in the province of Catanzaro, created dozens of masterpieces that place him among the greatest exponents of 17th-century European Baroque painting.
In particular, in the church of San Paolo in Rabat there are three paintings by Mattia Preti, who was nicknamed ‘the Calabrian Knight’: a ‘Virgin and Child’ depicted with St. John the Baptist and St. Publius, a ‘Stoning of St. Stephen’ and a ‘San Michele Arcangelo’.