As part of the events marking the first centenary of the great Mgr Giuseppe Farrugia’s (1852–1925) death, Professor Maria Frendo will deliver a public talk at Il-Ħaġar Museum on Saturday 22nd March at 11.00am.

Abstract:

‘𝘏𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘩𝘪𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧.’

Orator, Musician, Designer, a polymath like no other Gozo had seen. Mgr Farrugia’s peculiar power is to astonish even a hundred years after his passing.

Synthesising the quality of his talents, this paper looks at Farrugia as a man of high culture steeped in the European civilisation into which he was born, bred and nurtured. The concepts of civilitas and urbanitas as advocated by Cicero will be discussed with regard to Farrugia’s engagement in his work with the refinement of manners in the Classical sense, operating to the high standards he set himself in an insular climate that could not understand him all the time.