Last evening, Director's Guest Dane Munro, a Knight of Malta, talked about the funerary floor of St. John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta.
This is one of the images he showed, one of his favorite tombs. Of it he said,
"This is one of my favorite images of the tombs of the Knights of Malta. It represents the personification of Death, sitting of a wheel of fortune, which is a clock as well, decorated with the map of the Mediterranean Sea, the realm of power of the Order of St John. The clock has no arms (wheel of fortune) because Death is not going to tell you what time exactly he will arrive. Hence the text 'venit hora eius,veniet et tua', (his hours has come and yours will come). This is not a threat but a promise, reminding us of our mortality. Death doubles as Fama, the Roman Goddess who blows your reputation over the four directions of the wind. The scythe is used to cut you of your roots so that the angels can carry away your soul to Heaven. The two wings stand for the Latin expression 'tempus fugit', time flies."
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