The series of public talks programmed for this year by Il-Hagar Museum continues on Friday.

Mgr Dr Joseph Farrugia MOM will be speaking on – The Philosophers of Ggantija – on Friday, the 24th of February at 7.30pm.

Mgr Farrugia, the museum founder and former St George’s Archpriest, was a University lecturer in theology actively involved in the establishment of its Gozo Campus. A popular cultural lecturer, he is presently a fidei donum parish priest in France.

According to recently-deceased Italian philosopher Emanuele Severino, il ricordo è il presente – not only in the sense that remembrance renders present what is past, but rather in the sense that the act of remembering is by itself a fact of the present irrespective of whether what is being brought to mind had actually come to pass or not.

Mgr Farrugia said that this brings to mind Gorg Pisani’s Il-Ggantija t’Ghawdex with its brilliantly visualised and lyrically skillful narrative of the sacrifice of a selfless girl to placate the gods and solicit them to send rain for the germination of the fields and the regeneration of the island.

Whether or not this sacrifice actually happened, the act of invoking it is a fact of the present and gives contemporary relevance and life to a prehistoric relic.

But there is more to Ggantija than imagination, conjecture and hypotheses. The temples are words of truth that thinking beings pronounced and carved in stone in a no less sophisticated manner than the areopagus philosophers inscribed their ideas on parchment.

The question is whether it is possible to elicit – from the remembrance of Ggantija as a fact of today – a knowledge of what they imply and embody as a fact of all time.

This is the Fifth Joseph Vella Memorial lecture, on the occasion of the Maestro’s death anniversary. At the end a documentary exhibition highlighting the Vella Music Archive will be opened.

Other allied events include an instrumental recital on Thursday and a choral concert on Saturday.

Attendance is free but booking on events@heartofgozo.org.mt is recommended. They could also be opportunities to view the Donations & Bequests exhibition set up for the museum anniversary.

Moreover Saturday morning offers an art session for children; Sunday High Mass and Celebratory Luncheon. Details can be found on the events link above.

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