Pace, Filippo Vincenzo (sold)

Filippo Vincenzo Pace (1736 - c. 1776), also known as Vincenzo Pace, was a Maltese painter, draftsman, portraitist, theatrical artist, and copperplate engraver active in Valletta during the 18th-century revival of Maltese art, printing, and scholarship under the Knights Hospitaller. Little is known of his early life or training, although he and his brother, Giuseppe Pace, are associated with the circle of the influential French painter Antoine de Favray (1706 - 1798), who worked extensively in Malta. By 1770, Pace was an established artist, described by the contemporary diarist Fra Giuseppe Agius as a recognized draftsman, painter, and portraitist. He is particularly remembered for his contributions to Giovanni Antonio Ciantar's monumental Malta Illustrata (1772 - 1780), for which he engraved the illustrations accompanying the first volume, excluding the portrait of Grand Master Manuel Pinto da Fonseca. Surviving accounts of the Order of St. John record payments to Pace in June 1771 and July 1772 for this work. Among his most significant achievements is the exceptionally detailed 1771 copperplate map of Malta and Gozo published in Malta Illustrata in 1772. Remarkably, the original engraved copperplate survives in the collections of MUŻA – Heritage Malta in Valletta, where modern researchers have identified and studied it. Pace was also an accomplished religious painter, credited with the 1773 Martyrdom of St. Publius in Floriana, a work formerly associated with Favray and his brother Giuseppe. Between December 1775 and April 1776, he was employed as a theatrical painter at Valletta's Manoel Theatre, demonstrating the breadth of his artistic activities.