Cantate Domino

The ten volumes of graduals commissioned by Philippe Villiers de L'Isle Adam, elected Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller of St John in 1521, are one of the treasures of the Co-Cathedral of St John in Valletta.  Their size and their extensive and very beautiful decoration cannot fail to impress the visitors who see them in their display cases, but behind their grandeur (in no small part due to their great size) lies a complex artistic and liturgical history, which is the subject of the detailed account by Dr Theresa Zammit Lupi.  They were written in 1533, shortly before L'Isle Adam's death in 1534, and following a disastrous fire in the Church of St Lawrence in Birgu.  After the consecration of the new Co-Cathedral in Valletta, the graduals were moved to this church, where they have remained ever since, and, as Thersa Zammit Lupi shows in her historical account, remained in use there for more than four centuries, being repeatedly adapted for successive changes in the liturgy.

From tracing the history of the chorals and their manufacture, to making a convincing attribution to the artist Jean Pichore, whose collaborators were most probably responsible for the major decoration of the manuscripts in 1533, Theresa Zammit Lupi's work is an exemplary case of how the future preservation of a set of complex manuscript volumes involves a thorough awareness of the historical, liturgical, codicological, material, conservation and exhibition issues that they raise.

(From the foreword by Professor Nicholas Pickwoad)

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CONTENTS

Historical background to the graduals

The manufacturing techniques of the textblock

The manufacturing techniques of the sewing and binding

Visual analysis and historical considerations

Conclusion

Glossary of technical terms

List of historiated initials

The case of Volume 8