page_title: Giovanni Paolo Lascaris
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Giovanni Paolo Lascaris / Early life
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Palais Palazzo Lascaris de Vintimille à Castellar
context_page_description: Giovanni Paolo Lascaris di Ventimiglia e Castellar was an Italian nobleman and Grand Master of the Knights of Malta.
context_section_description: Lascaris was born on 28 June 1560, the second son of Giannetto Lascaris and his wife Franceschetta di Agostino Lascaris of the ancient family of the Counts of Ventimiglia, related to the Lascaris who were emperors of the Byzantine Nicaean Empire.
  In 1584, he entered the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. As a member of the order he lived for over thirty years in a priory and was responsible for a range of monastic functions. He was put in charge of the order's grain supplies and later, in 1615, the order's furnaces across the island. He comported himself well and was promoted to master of the "St Anthony" prison.
  In 1632 he was sent as ambassador to the Kingdom of Spain.
  On the death of Grand Master Antoine de Paule, there were three candidates for election as Grand Master; Lascaris, Signorino Gattinara (about whom little is known) and Martin de Redin. Inquisitor Fabio Chigi (later Pope Alexander VII) attended as representative of Pope Urban VIII. Failing to secure enough votes for his own election, de Redin encouraged his supporters to instead side with Lascaris. On 16 June 1636, Lascaris was elected Grand Master of the Order of Malta, a position he held until his death.
caption: Palais Palazzo Lascaris de Vintimille à Castellar
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Palais Lascaris de Castellar", "Image Artist": "Stefano Franco-Bora", "Image ExifOffset": "2208", "Image XPTitle": "[80, 0, 97, 0, 108, 0, 97, 0, 105, 0, 115, 0, 32, 0, 76, 0, 97, 0, 115, 0, ... ]", "Image XPAuthor": "Stefano Franco-Bora", "Image XPSubject": "[80, 0, 104, 0, 111, 0, 116, 0, 111, 0, 103, 0, 114, 0, 97, 0, 112, 0, 104, 0, ... ]", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}