Paola and its coat of arms: an open letter to Silvio Parnis
Throughout the week, Paola’s parish community will be celebrating its annual feast with great pomp and merrymaking. As a person who spent his childhood in Paola, I cannot but dedicate a few words to it. As I grew older and history became my profession, I
Dr Simon Mercieca is senior lecturer, Department of History have already published a number of papers about Paola because I strongly believe that academics have a duty towards their respective communities and should share their knowledge with the rest of the population and not only among their inner circle. For this reason, I have always accepted with pleasure invitations from different associations, whether religious or secular, to write short pieces on some littleknown aspect of Paola’s history.
Today, I wish to discuss a historical issue which has been in abeyance for a long time in the hope that the appointment of Silvio Parnis as Parliamentary Secretary for Local Councils will finally resolve the problem. I am referring to Paola’s coat of arms, which was adopted following Parliament’s approval. Unfortunately, the present one is inaccurate and, frankly, I believe it to be an insult to the historic memory of Paola. Since Mr Parnis was Paola’s mayor back in the 1990s, he is well aware of the controversy when it started. He should, hopefully, recall all the nitty gritty behind the story that led to the present design. The fact remains that those behind the present emblem and the one that preceded it, strongly objected to Paola having, as its coat of arms, the historical emblem bestowed on this commune by none other than Grand Master De Paule in 1630.
When the local councils were set up in the 1990s, I could not understand why the government failed to adopt its historic coat of arms, which had been in use in Paola for over three hundred years. Instead, the administration of the day opted for a new design, which did not relate to the true history of the locality, nor its ethos.
The original coat of arms had been given to Paola by the same Grand Master who had created this “casale” and carried his name. For reasons which still remain unclear to me, the administration back then opted for a new design inspired by the spiral motives found in the Hypogeum and at Tarxien Temples.
This immediately sparked controversy, as those who had the history of Paola at heart could not understand this decision. Instead of listening to the people, the government remained obdurate and refused to admit that this new coat of arms was a mistake. Someone, somewhere in high position, continued to object and supported this illogical choice. The pressure was enormous from all quarters and after lengthy discussions, the government accepted to amend the coat of arms but refused to return to the original historical one. Instead, it opted for a compromise. It kept the spiral motif but introduced the symbol of the peacock which is part of Paola’s historic emblem.
The main reason for objecting was that Paola’s coat of arms was precisely that of Grand Master Antoine De Paule! If I am not mistaken, the Nationalist administration wanted to reserve the Grand Masters’ coats of arms for those towns that were either set up by the Grand Masters of the Order or in cases where a locale had been upgraded to a town by a Grand Master. Even if Paola was created by a Grand Master, it did not qualify, because it was not a ‘town’ but a ‘casale’ a ‘village’.
However, the Nationalist administration made one exception. This was Floriana. Despite the fact that Floriana is not a town, but a suburb, it was assigned the coat of arms of Grand Master Manoel De Vilhena.
When it came to Paola, the Nationalist administration did not realize that by the 17th century, the concept of casale in urban terms was equivalent to the medieval concept of ‘borgo’. Therefore, despite the fact that Paola had a coat of arms older or than that of Floriana, Żejtun, Siġġiewi, Qormi and Żebbuġ, the State is still denying official recognition of this historic fact.
On a separate note, thanks to the work and efforts of the present parish priest, Marc Andre Camilleri, together with the rest of the community, one can start enjoying once again the beauty of Paola’s oldest church, known as Santa Ubaldesca.
St Ubaldesca was a religious nun of the Order of St John who was declared “blessed” by Pope Pius V. A few years later, Grand Master De Paule wanted the village church he himself was founding on an extensive piece of land that belonged to the state and which was known as the fiefdom of Marsa, to be dedicated to this female saint.
The original church was smaller than the current one, but the old part, which is the bema, that is, the part covering the main altar, has survived. This old church was extended after 1900.
On its back wall, one can still admire the original wooden arch set up by the Grandmaster to host within it the main painting portraying St Ubaldesca. This painting by Caragona, included a portrait of the donor, that is, the Grand Master De Paule himself. On top of this arch, the Grand Master placed his personal coat of arms.
When the Council of Government handed over to the Church the church of St Ubaldesca, which eventually was re-dedicated, the coat of arms were left in situ. The old painting was put to the side of the altar. A painting depicting the Sacred Heart of Jesus began to occupy centre stage.
It should be remembered that throughout the time of the Order of St John, Paola was one of the few localities in Malta, that despite not being a parish, was considered an autonomous area, to the extent that its population counts were taken separately from that of the rest of the parish church of Tarxien. All other counts were executed according to parishes and not according to villages.
Moreover, the church of St Ubaldesca did not fall under the jurisdiction of the local bishop nor that, of the parish priest of Tarxien. Grand Master De Paule obtained for St Ubaldesca church special privileges from Rome, which no other rural church in Malta held at the time. This sense of distinctiveness gave a separate identity to the locality. The built-up area was much larger than that of the nearby village of Tarxien, even if, the latter had a larger population. Back then, the population of Paola lived in villas, with large gardens and De Paule’s coat of arms started to feature on a number of residences in the area. Very few survived. The original one inside the church has remained intact. Many were destroyed during the short interim period of French rule in Malta. Pieces of these emblems were rediscovered accidentally during the Second World War, buried in the ground.
One of the quarterly, meaning a quadrant in De Paule’s coatof-arms featuring the peacock, began to be used by one and all in Paola as the emblem of the locality. When the De Paule Band Club was set up in 1910, it rightly adopted this historic coat of arms as its official emblem.
In the wake of the fact that the current Parliamentary Secretary of Local Councils happens to be from Paola, and as stated above, is also the former mayor of the locality, I appeal to him to take the matter in hand and redress this affront to the historic memory of Paola and hope that during his term of office, this historic coat of arms is given the official status that it deserves.
It is high time this injustice is rectified.