End of trilogy

MEMORIES 1988-2017 Author: Peter Apap Bologna Publisher: Salesian Press Year: 2017

Pages: 256

This book review had already been written and was waiting its turn to be published when news came that Peter Apap Bologna had died.

I only met Peter in a fleeting occasion at the Art Gallery many years ago but have been reading and reviewing his autobiography since then.

This is my review of his last book. Condolences to his family about whom he writes so glowingly.

Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres – Gaul is subdivided into three parts. Thus begins Caesar’s De Bello Gallico.

And a person’s life may likewise be divided into three parts. So the author must have reasoned when he came to write his memories. This is thus the third and last part of his chatty autobiography.

This third volume takes us from 1988 to the present day.

Peter had started to prepare for his return to Malta in 1988 after 15 years abroad. What encouraged him to come back after so many years of high-powered networking in the financial sector was the change of government in 1987 after 16 years of aggressive socialist rule which had precipitated his departure in the first place.

In the opening chapter of this book he describes the surge of optimism that swept Eddie Fenech Adami to power in May 1987. That victory changed the face of Malta and led to Malta’s accession to the EU in 2004.

Peter gets caught up in the national wave of optimism which led him to his venture of the Melitensia Art Gallery in Lija. It quickly became the focal point of this wave of national optimism, with its selection of old maps and paintings with a connection to Malta and its book collections and launches.

The exhibitions were presented with an unusual flair and caught the imagination of many people.

The enthusiasm led to many other initiatives such as the signal exhibitions of 150 Girolamo Gianni paintings and the Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti of Maltese silver which has never been equaled.

These ventures were the fruit not only of Peter’s initiative and optimism but also of his new wife Alaine.

At the same time, the book tells us how Peter and his wife Annie drew apart, mostly because they were living in different countries and how he met Alaine and how they fitted together. This is a story of real lives, not a story from a book.

The book is also a story of many painful farewells – of his mother Amy aged 96 and more of his sister Anna. It is also the story of so many artists whose exhibitions were held at the Gallery, of the very extended family with baptisms, marriages and parties following each other all the time, and also of the very wide circle of friends that gravitated around the family, including people such as Maurice de Giorgio, Nicholas de Piro, Martin Scicluna and even our own Marie Benoit who features in many photos.

There is a time for everything and even a venture like the Gallery was born, flourished and then declined and had to be put to sleep. Rather than look back with sorrow, the author looks back with gratitude and the same optimism that galvanized him throughout.

Earlier on, I mentioned politics. What follows is the author’s itinerary as disclosed by him: he left Malta because of Mintoff, came back when the Nationalists came to power but then the 1980s and the 1990s took their toll and Peter grew enamoured of Joseph Muscat and voted for him. This led to his being ostracized by many “bigots”.

Then in the divorce debate, he spoke in public in favour of divorce, giving his own life as an example how divorce and remarriage can enhance a relationship.

The Apap Bolognas moved from Lija to Sliema where they became a living fixture at the Salesian church, taking part in its many activities and helping out in general.

There we leave them, with Peter, the optimist ending by saying that “even our own PN may one day recover the stature it once had” or the PL become an oligarchy and reigns for 60 years as the Mexican PRI did.