20. Perellos Hall
Some of the Flemish tapestries at St John’s Co-Cathedral, the largest complete series in the world, are on display in the Perellos Hall. More of these tapestries are exhibited in the Vestments Hall and the Ciro Ferri Hall. The whole set of tapestries consists of twenty nine pieces and was ordered from the Brussels atelier of Judecos de Vos for the sum of 40,000 scudi and was based on cartoons of the same subjects by Peter Paul Rubens. Tradition required that on his appointment, the new Grand Master would present the church with a gift or ‘gioia’. This collection of tapestries was the gift of the Aragonese Grand Master Ramon Perellos y Roccaful elected in 1697.
By 1701 the set had reached Malta. The entire set of tapestries consists of fourteen large scenes depicting the life of Christ and allegories and fourteen panels representing the Virgin Mary, Christ the Saviour and the Apostles.
This grand series of tapestries portrays the principal and fundamental Divine truths of the Catholic faith and were intended to convey a message of the supremacy of the Catholic Church and the fame and grandeur of the Grand Master and the Order.
The set also includes a tapestry portraying the donor, Grand Master Ramon Perellos y Roccaful. The tapestries were originally suspended from the main cornice along the nave of the church during important occasions such as the feast of St John the Baptist.