On a clear summer’s day in July last year, Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Francis M.J. Fernandez stood knocking at the doors of the Accademia Carrara of Bergamo in the Alpine Valley in Italy. He was on a quest to learn about an alumnus Fra Antonio Moscheni, the artist whose works adorn the Santa Cruz Cathedral Basilica in Fort Kochi. After Fr. Francis took over in 2011 as parish priest there, it was the paintings – a series on the crucifixion of Christ, The Last Supper, frescoes on pillars, arches and walls, the angelic cherubs – that mesmerised him daily. He wished to gather information about the artist, his life, his journey to India and his paintings in the Basilica in the years between 1903-1905.
Last year, between his wait to move to New Zealand on his new appointment, Fr. Francis undertook the trip to attend the deaconate ordination in Fermo, and in search of Antonio’s antecedents. All he had as clue, from the Internet, was the fact that Antonio studied at Bergamo in an Arts’ School. So he stood with great expectation and delight at the place where the artist studied, only to learn with disappointment that Antonio Moscheni was not born in the city of Bergamo and that the Accademia was closed for summer.
Disheartened Fr. Francis walked around the streets of Bergamo and stepped in to see an ongoing art show. To his great surprise the curator of the show, a woman, gave him information that Antonio lived in Stezzano, a village close by. Fr. Francis was on the next move to the village and headed to the parish priest there, something “which we priests do when we reach any town.” “I will show you the birth place of Fra Antonio Moscheni,” said the parish priest and led Fr. Francis to a house opposite the church. It was the beginning of a trail that is still underway, says Fr. Francis.
Fra Antonio Moscheni was born on January 17, 1854 in Stezzano, Italy. His talent for art was detected early and he studied art in a school in Bergamo. Later he pursued the Michelangelo style of art in Rome. He renounced worldly life and became a Jesuit brother. His talent found him as the one deputed to decorate frescoes in churches in Albania and later in India. One of his best works is the St Aloysius chapel in Mangalore where he has covered the ceiling, walls and pillars of the chapel with his excessive baroque style. His other work in India is at the Holy Name Cathedral in Mumbai.
Santa Cruz Cathedral Basilica has a fortuitous history. The first Santa Cruz church, a Portuguese church, was near the present children’s park in Fort Cochin, “beside the river.” As a relic, only a pillar of it remains today at the south-east corner of the present Basilica. In the hands of the succeeding powers, the Dutch and the English, the church was converted into an ammunition depot. It was finally razed to the ground by the British, who later invited the exiled catholic Portuguese bishops from Kollam to build their church.
The foundation for the second and the present Santa Cruz Cathedral Basilica was laid on May 3, 1887.
The then Bishop, Dom Joao Gomez Ferreira commissioned work on the church but died of a heart failure in Portugal when he learnt that the construction had fallen down. The construction was restarted by his successor Bishop Matheus De Oliveiro Xavier who was a Portuguese missionary in Macau, China.
“He was a missionary and he is also the one who invited the Canossian sisters from Hong Kong to start education for women in Fort Cochin. It was because of his Macau connection that the Santa Cruz church has Chinese tiles on the altar and in the façade. Along with these changes Bishop wrote a letter to the Father General of the Jesuit Order in Rome requesting Fra Moscheni to be sent to paint the Santa Cruz church,” says Fr. Francis. At the time, Moscheni was completing works in a church in Mumbai and came soon after that. In 1903 he began work here. An assistant by the name De Gama came from Mangalore to help Fra Moscheni. The works were completed in 1905 and the church consecrated on November 19, 1905. A log book, now missing, at the Santa Cruz School, which Fr. Francis as Manager had read, mentions a visit of five archbishops – of Goa, Diu and Daman, Pondicherry and two other dioceses – to the school on November 21, 1905. He infers that they must have been here for the consecration of the Santa Cruz Cathedral, which was a grand event. Fr. Francis rues the fact that his delving into the life of Fra Moscheni in Fort Cochin has not thrown up too many facts.
“Nobody has any information about where Fra Moscheni lived in Fort Cochin, of how he worked. We do not have a sense of history and nothing is documented,” says Fr. Francis.
On his visit to Stezzano, Bergamo, Fr. Francis was introduced to Antonio Lamera, who heads a research team documenting the life and times of Antonio Moscheni. “Now I am helping him put things together about the artist’s life in Cochin. He died, of dysentery, on November 15, 1905, four days before the consecration of the church and is supposedly buried in a church graveyard in the Carmelite Monastery at Manjummel,” says Fr. Francis. Before he moves to New Zealand Fr. Francis wishes to locate the tomb of Antonio Moscheni whose paintings continue to move onlookers.
