Tuitio Fidei – An exhibition by Tonio Mallia
Tuitio Fidei - titled after the Knights of Malta’s Latin motto, Defence of the Faith - is an exhibition of large oil paintings by Tonio Mallia, displayed at MUZA’s imposing Camerone Hall.
This series explores the psychological and cultural dimensions of 16th-century life, particularly the Siege of 1565. Drawing on historical research and symbolic abstraction, Mallia delves into the emotional terrain of those who endured the siege – from the might of the Ottoman Empire to the spiritually charged defences of the Christian Order.
The works do not illustrate. They allude. They bypass reenactment in favour of something more elusive: the felt reality of living through siege, fear, and belief. The charged stillness before an assault, the expectancy of prayer, the ritual of survival – these are evoked not through depiction, but through surface, scale, and form. Atmosphere replaces narrative. Texture becomes testimony.
Stylistically, the paintings draw from religious and symbolic visual roots. Byzantine and early Christian influences, votive painting styles, and 19th-century symbolism are reinterpreted through a contemporary sensibility. Their ritualistic, devotional quality evokes not only the sacred, but also the broken, remembered, and worn. The deliberately aged surfaces do not imitate the past – they carry its weight.
Symbolic motifs – the shield, the cross, the ship, the candle – emerge and recede as fragments of a collective subconscious. Not declarations but traces, they evoke the burden borne by both defenders and attackers. Across Christian and Ottoman divides, fervour and dread coexisted. The paintings speak to this shared intensity without assigning victory or guilt.
A strong maritime undercurrent runs through the works: a quiet homage to life shaped by the sea. Rhythms of naval power, isolation, and dependence echo across the canvases. The dual identity of the Knights Hospitaller – caregivers and warriors – casts a shadowed presence. This contradiction is not resolved, but held in tension.
Amid these dominant forces, the endurance of the Maltese rises with understated strength. Their courage, so unacknowledged by history, silently emerges through the peripheral zones of the paintings.
Set within the Camerone Hall of the Auberge d’Italie – the historic refectory of the Italian Knights – the paintings resonate with the surrounding architecture. Once a place of ritual gathering, the hall becomes a chamber for reflection. The works, adapted in scale and placement, inhabit the room’s periphery, aligning with the marginal narratives they suggest.
In that dark space of reflection, what remains is not conquest or sacrifice, but something more elemental: the enduring presence of human vulnerability – and the question it leaves behind- not of who they were, but who we choose to be in their shadow.
The exhibition runs from 7 August to 21 September at MUŻA , Auberge d’Italie, Merchant Street, Valletta.
