Surveying and Dating the Wooden Roof Structure of St Francis of Assisi Church in Valletta, Malta

ABSTRACT

St Francis of Assisi Church is an historic religious building in the centre of Valletta, Malta’s capital. Through analysis of the roof structure we have determined the timber species used in its construction, their state of conservation and the date of different building phases and maintenance work. The study provides an historical and cultural framework for the entire building. Apart from identifying the type of timber and typically English way of construction, dendrochronological dating has revealed two precise phases of intensive restoration, dating to 1681 and 1876, respectively. For both periods, the timber’s provenance points to the Eastern Alps, based on dendrochronological master chronologies of European larch (Larix decidua). Furthermore, a single Norway spruce (Picea abies) board from the vault was dated to 1684. This church is a typical example of Maltese culture, intermingled with other cultures that have resulted in a very particular architectural-work.

KEYWORDS:

• Analytical survey
• dating
• dendrochronology
• Larix decidua
• Malta
• wood identification

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully thank the monks of the St Francis church, Monica Bartolomei, Paolo Burato and Diego Magnago for their help during the survey, Matthew Haworth for language editing and proofreading and the four anonymous reviewers whose valuable comments and suggestions have improved this manuscript.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary Material

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