Maria de Dominici

Biography

The historian Giovannantonio Ciantar, in “Malta Illustrata” (1772), left this remark about her: as a child she felt a repugnance for “female duties” and drew whatever she pleased. Her parents scolded her, then gave in and found her a teacher.

Maria was born on 6 December 1645 in Vittoriosa, now Birgu, the daughter of a goldsmith who worked for the Order of St John, the Knights of Malta. Her two brothers, Raimondo and Francesco, were painters too. Raimondo’s son Bernardo became an art historian and wrote a book in which he mentioned his aunt.

Her teacher was Mattia Preti, a painter and sculptor who was then decorating St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta. She is believed to have assisted him in 1661–1666 on the large cycle of the life and martyrdom of St John the Baptist on the vaults of the church. Ciantar reports that Preti entrusted her with some of the female figures and that hers turned out almost better than the master’s own. The historian Giuseppe Maria de Piro wrote in 1839 that she surpassed Preti’s other pupils and that the female figures on the vaults and walls were largely painted by her. These judgements are late and enthusiastic, and it is hard to tell her hand from her teacher’s; to my mind it is safer to speak of a collaboration documented only in general terms. Maria was a Carmelite tertiary, that is, a lay nun, and so was free to live outside the convent walls, away from her family. Her character is judged from her two wills, whose author is described as a determined and versatile person.

In 1682 she left Malta, probably in the entourage of the Grand Master’s nephew and his wife, Isabella d’Avalos d’Aquino d’Aragona. According to some accounts, both Isabella and Preti encouraged her to go. In Rome she had her own studio near the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, where she received commissions for sculptures and paintings: the Grand Master had given her letters of introduction. According to one account, she lived there with a woman companion.

In Malta Maria made portable figures of saints, which were carried at religious festivals and in street processions. Several works are attributed to her, not all of them easy to see. Among those named are “The Visitation” in the parish church of Żebbuġ, “Beato Franco” in the Carmelite church in Valletta and “Annunciation” in the Cathedral Museum in Valletta.

Maria de Dominici died on 18 March 1703 in Rome and was buried in the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina. Her profile is included in the two-volume Dictionary of Women Artists, edited by Delia Gaze. In 2010, after the dictionary was included in the name bank for Mercury, one of the planet’s craters was named after Maria de Dominici.