Ian Borg’s roadbuilders want Virgin Mary instead of Anton Agius sculpture

The roads agency Infrastructure Malta has filed a bizarre planning request to relocate the existing monument by Anton Agius in Mosta, and make way for a bombastic monument dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

As expected, the transport minister Ian Borg’s agency’s ‘religious’ inspired request has drawn the ire of the Superintendent for Cultural Heritage.

IM wants the Agius monument dedicated to Maltese missionaries, currently located on the roundabout junction between Triq id-Difiza Civili and Triq il-Missjunarji Maltin, to be relocated to the entrance of the Mount Saint Joseph retreat house.

But plans for a new, 7m-high monument dedicated to the Virgin Mary, set on an ornate pedestal, were also inserted in plans for changes to the roundabout junction and bypass lanes approved in April.

The Mosta local council endorsed the plans.

But now the cultural heritage watchdog is insisting that Agius’s ‘Monument to the Maltese Missionaries’, meant to commemorate the Christian Jubilee Year in 2000, was “purposely created to be viewed prominently and with a 360 degrees viewpoint and should not be relocated to a less prominent location.”

The SCH reminded the Planning Authority of the cultural heritage significance of the monument which “forms part of the artistic oeuvre of the Maltese sculptor Anton Agius”, whose repertoire includes the Sette Giugno monument as well as the Manwel Dimech statue in Valletta.

The monument was also cast by “an important contemporary Italian bronze founder” who was commissioned a number of important artistic works in Malta, including the Sette Giugno monument. “Should the monument be relocated as proposed, the significance of its design and its surrounding plaques will be completely lost and therefore from a cultural heritage point of view, this will be not desirable,” the SCH said.

The SCH warned the significance of its design will be completely lost if relocated, and wants the Agius sculpture retained in its central position in a roundabout within the street bearing its name.