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Published by the Embassy of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta to the Holy See.
Photographs: Tomasz Gudzowaty
Publication date: December 2022
Publisher: Tipografia Mariti, Rome
Tomasz Gudzowaty, who is perhaps the best known Polish photographer today, spent not just a few weeks on holiday in Africa, the Antarctic and the Far East, but months and in some cases years of hard and passionate work. The result has been documentaries, books, exhibitions, front pages of the most authoritative magazines and a large number of astonishing images, a selection of which he now donates to the San Giovanni Battista Hospital at Magliana, owned and managed by the Italian Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
This gesture was inspired by great generosity and follows a line that we have been trying to follow for some time, inspired by reading a golden booklet containing the Regulations of the Sacra Infermeria di Malta, i.e. the Hospital maintained and managed by the Order of St. John over the three centuries in Malta. The Regulations show that in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Order was absolutely at the forefront in Europe in terms of the management of hospitals and infirmaries. In addition to great care in feeding the patients, for whom silver plates and cutlery were reserved, it is striking that the Knights had perfectly realised the connection between state of mind and health: in order to heal quickly and well, the wounded and sick not only had to be fed and cared for well, but they also had to see beautiful and cheerful things. This is why the Regulations prescribed that in winter the walls of the great halls of the Infirmary (which was in reality a grandiose Hospital) be adorned with tapestries, which in summer gave way to paintings ‘symmetrically arranged’. This is a very modern and beautiful concept.
The small exhibition inaugurated on 13 December brings together in the hall of the ‘Castello della Magliana’ the Maestro’s works, which in the following days will be arranged in the outpatient clinics and wards of the hospital.
