http://www.heritagemalta.org/hypogeum.html

The painting depicts the moment in Biblical history where St John is beheaded by King Herod to satisfy the blood lust of the seductive dancer, Salome. The scene is the courtyard of a prison and the grisly murder is observed by two other prisoners looking through a grille, while a young woman and an old crone stand ready to take the severed head and put it on the waiting platter. The blood flowing from St John’s neck drips towards the bottom of the frame and in its red stream, Caravaggio has signed his name.

On the oratory’s right wall hangs a smaller Caravaggio painting, St Jerome, which was stolen in 1984 and rescued in a dramatic operation a few months later. In it, an elderly man sits with a pen in his hand.

Caravaggio went to Malta to avoid the death penalty that had been inflicted on him after committing a murder in Rome and, with the bloodless body of Saint John, he seems to be portraying his victim’s and, at the same time, his own end. Many describe the painting as his masterwork.

This part of the house is considered to date back to the fourteenth century and originally was a one-storey building. Another floor was added in the fifteenth century. As was customary in this period, the ground floor was used as a store, or stables and kitchen whilst the upper floor was used as living quarters. The existing courtyard and staircase date back to the sixteenth century.

The earlier part of the house follows the basic plan of the typical Maltese house or palace of that period. In plan the house at ground floor was divided into three rooms, the central one being a hall, which led to a courtyard at the back. An external staircase leads from the courtyard to the rooms at the first floor level.

The original one storey building had a very plain façade typical of the fourteenth century palace façades. These bleak barrack like façades were in fashion at that time and conscious attempts were made to obtain this effect. However the original plain façade was later changed.

The style of the architecture applied on the façade, namely the pointed arch, is fifteenth century Gothic. Another typical feature used is the triangular corbels. Here they are laid out in a double row below the string cornice and a single row below the cornice.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, restoration works were carried out on the main front elevation of the Norman House. These interventions followed the principles of stylistic restoration in accordance to the school of thought of Viollet-Le-Duc. On the main façade a sham late medieval doorway with drip mouldings replaced a plain square-headed doorway and a narrow lancet window was widened in a segmental headed window. The central courtyard of the Norman House was also reconstructed to resemble examples of the late medieval buildings in Sicily.