MOSAIC DEPICTING “SAINT PAUL’S SHIPWRECK IN MALTA”
Gift of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI on the occasion of his Apostolic Voyage to Malta to the President of the Republic (17 April 2010)
The mosaic was inspired by a fresco, the work of Nicolò Circignani, also known as the “Pomarancio”, which is found in the “Sala della Meridiana” in the “Torre dei Venti” in the Vatican. The fresco depicts the shipwreck of Saint Paul in Malta as it is described in chapter 28 of the Acts of the Apostles, at the moment when … “(3) Paul had collected a bundle of sticks and was putting them on the fire when a viper brought out by the heat attached itself to his hand. (4) When the inhabitants saw the creature hanging from his hand they said to one another, „That man must be a murderer; he may have escaped the sea, but divine justice would not let him live‟. (5) However, he shook the creature off into the fire and came to no harm, (6) although they were expecting him at any moment to swell up or drop dead on the spot. After they had waited a long time without seeing anything out of the ordinary happen to him, they changed their minds and began to say he was a god”
(The New Jerusalem Bible, Darton, Longman & Todd, London, 1985).
The work is a harmonious composition of two scenes: the shipwrecked on the coastal banks with parts of its wreckage carried, by the waves and in the next scene, the image of Saint Paul and others by the fire while the viper attaches the Apostle.
A team of mosaic specialists worked on the piece between December 2009 and March 2010 in the “Studio del Mosaico della Fabrica di San Pietro”. The polychrome enamelled pieces are applied to oiled stucco with a metallic base (dimensions 63.5 x 45.1 cm, without the frame, 79 x 97 cm with the frame). The stucco is made from marble powder combined with a linseed oil base. This same material was used centuries ago to create
the mosaics in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
For this work, the Vatican Mosaic Studio used a particular process, referred to as threaded or spun enamel. The technique was invented in the second half of the XVIII century and allows far the creation of a large range of colour tones by mixing glass enamels in high temperatures. The polychrome enamels also attain an intensity of colour, giving the figures dimension and all the while offering clear and harmonious images.
