In the Footsteps of Antonello da Messina By Charlene Vella Published by Midsea Books, 2022 Differently from most ‘cultural’ volumes published in Malta (including my own), this is not quite a Melitensia book. Or rather, it is also, marginally, a book in which Malta figures, but its horizons span a far wider Europe, and the author successfully breaks all provincial, not to say parochial, barriers. The painter Antonello da Messina (c. 1430–1479), like many other geniuses, left a durable artistic heritage, a ‘school’. Rather particular to Antonello is the fact that his ‘school’, the Antonelliani, consisted almost exclusively of those who carried his DNA – sons, nephews, cousins. By design or coincidence, he managed to keep it all in the family. Together, they imprinted a lasting mark on the religious iconography of Sicily, Southern Italy, Venice and Malta. Antonio de Saliba, 'Madonna and Child with St John the Baptist', Nebraska, USA. Antonello has long been the focus of extended study by art historians who quite early realised his colossal stature in the creative world. Literature about him abounds. Not so his school. I believe Charlene Vella’s to be the very first major and...