Un Altro Mediterraneo Una storia comune fra scontri e integrazioni by Salvatore Bono (review)

442 and elsewhere (Maria Giulia Barberini), an account of Cafà’s seven year period in Rome (Elena Bianca di Gioia) and a very short piece focusing on the artist as he features in the historical archives of Rome’s St. Luke Academy (Angela Cipriani). The volume also includes essays focusing on specific works: the commission for the ‘Baptism of Christ’ group for St. John’s (Keith Sciberras); the statue of St. Catherine at Magnanapoli (Gerhard Bissell); the statue of the dying (or dead) St. Rose of Lima (Alessandra Anselmi) andthevariousrelatedcaststhatbelongto different collections, including that of the renowned Italian art critic, politician and TV personality, Vittorio Sgarbi; the already mentioned statue of the Apostle Paul for St. Paul’s Grotto at Rabat (John Azzopardi); two reliefs at the Descalzas Reales in Madrid (Tomaso Montanari); the thesis broadsheet of Giovanni Francesco Rota (Louise Rice); three models, including two situated at Malta’s National Museum of Fine Arts (Tuccio Sante Guido). The models at Malta’s Fine Arts Museum, featuring martyr saints, could well have been intended, according to Sciberras (p. 11), as preparatory works for the Vatican colonnade. This book is a boon for history of art scholars, art lovers and anyone interested in Baroque studies. Naturally, as is often the case with edited compendia of essays focusing on the same person, there tends to be a lot of repetition, throughout the volume,withrespecttobiographicalbackground . This is understandable and probably inevitable. We tend to use the word ‘genius’ rather loosely these days, but this book certainly pays due homage to one of the very few artists of truly international calibre that Malta has ever produced. It provides considerable insight into the history and development of different strandsoftheBaroqueandintothepolitics of representation connected with the Counter-Reformation. Reference Mayo,P(1997),TreasuresofArtinMalta: TheNationalMuseumofFineArts,Malta; Midsea Books. Peter Mayo University of Malta Bono Salvatore, 2008. Un Altro Mediterraneo Una storia comune fra scontri e integrazioni, Roma: Salerno Editrice, ISBN 978-88-8402-615-6, ¤21. In this work, Salvatore Bono tries to adopt a holistic approach to the Mediterranean world, recounting its history from the premondial until modern times to move on to discuss how contemporary European politics is effecting this region. He undertakes the task to outline the geopolitical contours of the Mediterranean ; a sea, Bono notes that could not exist without the Black Sea that through its rivers, in particular the Danube, indirectly supplies the Mediterranean with water thus compensating for the high evaporation that takes place. From the first chapter, Bono sets the Ariadne thread to his entire work; the Mediterranean world is a world of contrasts . It is a world depicted bright in colours, a world full of light. At the same time, it is a world where man has to battle against the elements; a world stricken by earthquakes, where seasonal heavy rains cause more harm than good. (13) Last pages 24.10.17, 11:07 442 443 Bono follows Braudel’s reasoning that the islands are an isolated world but also observes that, nowadays, practically all the Mediterranean Islands are part of the European world. The sense of isolation that was once experienced by the Mediterranean islands is a phenomenon being experienced by a contemporary European culture. Since the Euro-Mediterraenan zone has now been extended with the recent enlargement of the EU by including Poland and the Baltic States, Bono pleads for a political extension of the Mediterranean and sees no harm that the Southern zone is extended to countries such as Iraq if not Iran. Europe’s culture stands to gain from such expansion. Bono refers to demography in support of his claims. Originally, it was thought that the Mediterranean was a region of demographic contrast between the Mediterranean North and the Mediterranean South. This is only partially true. The South is now more populated than the North. Bono acknowledges that in recent times, the South too began to experience a decrease in birth rate. More importantly, recent demographic studies conducted by Pierre Chaunu and Jacques Renard, in their book La Femme et Dieu, have convincingly shown that even the Southern part of the Mediterranean has entered what in demography is called ‘the demographic transition’, that is when a...