page_title: Girolamo Cassar
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Girolamo Cassar / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: Auberge d'Aragon
context_page_description: Girolamo Cassar was a Maltese architect and military engineer. He was the resident engineer of the Order of St. John, and was admitted into the Order in 1569. He was involved in the construction of Valletta, initially as an assistant to Francesco Laparelli, before taking over the project himself. He designed many public, religious and private buildings in the new capital city, including Saint John's Co-Cathedral, the Grandmaster's Palace and the auberges. He was the father of Vittorio Cassar, another architect and engineer.
context_section_description: Cassar's date of birth is not known, but he is believed to have been born in around 1520 in either Birgu or Gudja, to a Sicilian family who had lived in the Maltese islands since around 1440. He had two brothers, named Andreas and Ians, and married his wife Mathia in the early 1560s after which they had five children -two boys, Vittorio and Gabriele; and three girls, Marietta, Battistina and Caterinella. Cassar had another child, Gio Domenico, from an extra-matrimonial relationship which he made sure to inherit none of his will and testament, ironically justifying himself by writing that his son was disobedient. Cassar was initially a capomastro (master builder), and he was a pupil of Evangelista Menga, the resident engineer of the Order of St. John. He worked as a military engineer during the Battle of Djerba in 1560 and the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. During the latter siege, he worked on repairing fortifications damaged by the Ottoman assaults, sometimes at great personal risk.
  In 1566, the Order decided to construct a new capital city Valletta, and Cassar became the assistant of Francesco Laparelli, the Italian military engineer who had been sent to design the city's fortifications and grid plan. On 22 April 1569, Cassar was received within the Order in recognition of his merits as an architect and engineer. At this point, the Grand Master issued him a passport and Cassar spent the rest of the year touring Italian cities, including Naples, Rome and Lucca. He became familiar with the Mannerist style during this tour, and he employed this style in many of his later buildings.
  Upon his return to Malta in around late 1569, work on the Valletta fortifications was almost completed, and he took over the project after Laparelli left the island. He also became the Order's resident architect and engineer. He designed many public, religious and private buildings within the city, including the Grandmaster's Palace, the seven original auberges and the Conventual Church of St. John (now known as Saint John's Co-Cathedral). Cassar also designed a few buildings outside the capital city, most notably the Verdala Palace in Buskett. The original design of the Sacra Infermeria is also attributed to him.
  The date and circumstances of Cassar's death are not recorded. He made his second will on 9 January 1589. He is believed to have died in around 1592 in Valletta. He was buried in the Church of Porto Salvo in the same city.
caption: Auberge d'Aragon, the only auberge which still retains Cassar's original design, with the only addition being a 19th-century portico
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "5312", "Image ImageLength": "2988", "Image Make": "SAMSUNG", "Image Model": "SAMSUNG-SM-G870A", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "G870AUCU1AOA1", "Image DateTime": "2015:04:11 02:51:52", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "246", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "3124", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "512", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "288", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "3272", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "12442", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/313", "EXIF FNumber": "11/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "40", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:04:11 02:51:52", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:04:11 02:51:52", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "829/100", "EXIF ApertureValue": "227/100", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "707/100", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "57/25", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "24/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5312", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2988", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3094", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "31", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "F16QLHF01SB"}