The ‘Cassarino question’ has fascinated Italian and Maltese researchers for over a century, drawing the attention of those who wanted to reassemble the pieces of the artistic and bio - graphical experience of one of the first followers of Caravaggio in Malta.

John Cauchi, the author of an early research about the artist, gave him the epithet of ‘enigmatic’. To put together the many fragments brought back to life over the decades by various researchers, it is necessary to reconstruct this question that lies between the experience of Caravaggio in Malta and the intense cultural relations existing between Malta and Sicily in the early 17th century.

In 1955, during restoration of several Maltese paintings, John Cauchi and Vincenzo Bonello discovered the signature ‘Cassarino’ on the painting St Maurus Healing a Child at Liesse church, Valletta. Five years later, during an exhibition to commemorate the 19th centenary of St Paul’s arrival in Malta, the same autograph emerged behind a thick layer of dust on the St Sebastian Tended by Irene at St John’s Co-Cathedral, Valletta.

From that time onwards, Cauchi, then curator of the Fine Arts Museum of Malta, sought to discover the painter’s identity. In 1977, the researcher outlined a profile of his career, attributing a group of Maltese works to the painter, on the basis of the comparison with the two signed paintings that he himself had discovered.

Cauchi identified two phases in the artist’s production. The juvenile Mannerist phase between 1610 and 1614, during which he was inspired by Matteo Perez d’Aleccio and Filippo Paladini, who introduced the style into the island. After 1614, when he painted some parts of the Martyrdom of St Catherine at Żejtun parish church, the painter embarked on the difficult path of phenomenic naturalism by Caravaggio, which he cultivated from the initial modest results of three paintings of St Paul’s Bay (St Paul Shaking off the Viper, St Paul Greeted by the Maltese and Healing of Publius’s Father).

Two signed works discovered by Cauchi and the Penitent Magdalen at Wignacourt Museum, Rabat, considered the height of the artist’s personal interpretation of the naturalism by Caravaggio in terms of phenomenic light and pathos, were classified as belonging to the artist’s mature phase.

Cauchi also attributed to the painter some portraits of Wignacourt, which derived from two prototypes of Caravaggio cited by Baglione and Bellori. Before Cauchi’s discoveries, all these works had been attributed by Jacob Hess to Lionello Spada, nicknamed ‘ape of Caravaggio’ for his uncommon naturalistic talent, who was in Malta from 1609 to 1614, following in Caravaggio’s footsteps; but, as the Cauchi pointed out, the Bolognese painter was an artist of much higher calibre than the author of the St Maurus and St Sebastian.

Although Cauchi had traced the career of the painter, he wasn’t able to give biographical information about Cassarino, due to lack of documents. But he did not try to give a name to the artist’s surname, who he identified simply and prudently as ‘enigmatic Maltese Cassarino’.

In 1982, Dominic Cutajar discovered the initial ‘Giu’ next to the signature ‘Cassarino’ on the St Maurus at Liesse church. He had the great merit of being the first who attempted to suggest a name next to the artist’s surname, and thereby try to reconstruct his identity. He proposed to identify the ‘Maltese Cassarino’ as a certain Julius Felici, nicknamed Cassarino, thought to be the Italianate corruption of ‘Il-Qasir’ (short of stature). Cutajar took into consideration Cauchi’s statements, who had recognised the selfportrait of the painter in the extreme left-hand side of St Paul Shaking Off the Viper, behind the figure of Wignacourt. In this way, Cutajar was also able to decipher an enigmatic acro - nym that appears on some Maltese paintings, part of which are ascribed by Cauchi to Cassarino, which reads ‘G NF DC’; he solved it as ‘Julius born Felici called Cassarino’.

Giovanni Giulio Cassarino lives among the treasures of the Knights’ co-cathedral… Francesco Cassarino can be admired under the quarries of Scicli, Sicily, in St Bartholomew’s church

In 1989, Claudia Guastella brought to researchers’ attention the artist Francesco Cassarino from Scicli, who was active in the first half of the 17th century in eastern Sicily. His painting representing the Immaculate and Saints at St Bartolomew’s church, Scicli, is signed on the blade of St Bartholomew’s knife.

As can be seen from a will dated 1631, Don Giuseppe Micciché, a local feudal overlord, commissioned the painting to the artist, along with pictorial decorations of two tombs (made by the sculptors Francesco Pozzo and Francesco Lucchese), intended to contain his remains and those of his son Vincenzo, who died prematurely, in the family chapel in the church.

Guastella also attributed to the painter’s mature phase a copy of The Burial of St Lucy by Caravaggio (private collection, Scicli) and stuccoes of Enna Cathedral, made with Francesco Pozzo. She considered Francesco Cassarino as the same person as Cauchi’s ‘Maltese Cassarino’, especially due to the fact that the Immaculate in Scicli has significant points of contact with Paladini’s Maltese works.

In 2007, Simon Mercieca discovered a key document, which paved the way for the final reconstruction of the artist who until recently remained a figure shrouded in mystery. The document is a Status Libero Act, dated February 22, 1614, in which ‘Julio Cassarino’ says his name is Giovanni Giulio and that he was born in Avola on January 3, 1588, to Magister Mariano Cassarino and Antonina Bambana.

The painter, widowed of his first Avolese wife Paula de Marino, needed this document to enter into a second marriage with Silva Bezzina, also daughter of magister. The parish registers of births in Avola, consulted by Francesca Gringeri Pantano on the suggestion of John Azzopardi, to confirm what was found in Malta, list the names of three other brothers of the painter: Francesco (1583), Mario (1591) and Antonio (1599).

It is now clear that the painter of Avola is a person distinct from Francesco Cassarino of Scicli, though the two may have been related, as there is a document dated 1610, the first year in which Cassarino appears in Malta, where the artist is mentioned as best man in a wedding along with a certain Francesco from Scicli, which could also be the author of the Immaculate and Saints.

The date of Cassarino’s death is an unsolved mystery. Cutajar discovered two documents on this subject. The first is in the books of Sacred Infirmary in Valletta. It reads: “Mai 1637 li 14 diex. Il mort une home Julio Felici forzat tard a nuit. Age de 50 ans.” The second is in a register of deaths of St Paul’s church in Valletta. It instead reads: “Adì 15 di Maggio 1637. Morte Mro Giulio Cassarino all’Infermeria.”

So Cutajar came to the conclusion that the two documents were referring to the same person, considering the death of Julio Felici, which took place “tard a nuit” of day 14, as coinciding with that of Giulio Cassarino; in his opinion the death was recorded in the parish the next day due to the fact that it had occurred late at night.

However, the possibility of the two documents referring to the same person is not entirely convincing. It seems strange that such an important public figure as a painter, whose merits had been recognised by the Knights of Malta in an important document dated 1617, was recorded in an official act simply as “une home” (in the document of May 14) and not as magister, the title that instead appears in the document drawn up the next day, as well as in all other Maltese documents related to Giulio Cassarino, who was among the other son of magister, married to a daughter of magister (Silva Bezzina) and whose three witnesses to the wedding were all magistri.

It is also not plausable that an important painter, a follower of Caravaggio, was registered in the death act with his nickname, not his surname.

Finally, in their registers of baptism, his three children (Giovanna, Alfonso and Blasio Emanuele) have the surname Cassarino (which at this point may not be the nickname), rather than Felici. In any case, the question leaves some doubt, at least due to the fact that the difference of a single day appears to be a strange coincidence.

At the Fine Arts Museum, Valletta, there is an unsigned Blessed Gerard, who seems to have all the characteristics typical of Giovanni Giulio Cassarino’s hand such as the particular way the head is turned and the drapery. The painting could be classified in an intermediate period of the painter’s naturalistic phase (1617-1620), among the first and modest achievements of the paintings of St Paul’s Bay and the works of his mature stage.

Supporting this hypothesis is the fact that the figure in the painting seems to strike the pose of Standing Wignacourt Wearing Armor Damask at the Wignacourt Museum, which Cauchi attributed to his ‘enigmatic Cassarino’. Moreover the “discreto Julio Cassarino”, in 1617, had obtained the recognition of famulus from the Order of the Knights of Jerusalem. Blessed Gerard is the founder of the Order, so the painting was probably the painter’s gratitude for the important recognition.

In Liesse church, Valletta, in front of the signedSan Maurus, the painter’s only dated work (1623), there’s a St Louis of France, which according to Mario Buhagiar has points of contact with Giovanni Giulio Cassarino’s art, although the picture seems to be of inferior quality compared to the artist’s paintings. Liesse church was built in 1620 and at that date, the artist, at the start of his mature phase, had created works of a higher quality than the modest St Louis. So it is likely to be the work of one of his pupils, as Julio Cassarino often appears in Maltese documents as magister.

In 1982, Cutajar attributed to Cassarino a painting in the Carmelite church in Valletta, on which, in 1993, he would discovere the signature ‘Cassarino’. He called the workHoly Family with St Teresa of Avila, probably referring to the episode in which the Holy Family took refuge on Mount Carmel during the flight to Egypt.

But in this work, neither St Joseph nor the infant Jesus appear, but rather, behind the Virgin Mary, the prophet Elijah holding the scroll of prophecy. The latter is set among clouds as the protector of storms, since he caused rain to fall after a long drought.

The painting rather represents the Virgin Delivering the Scapular to St Teresa of Avila, alluding to her sanctification in 1622. Keith Sciberras believes it to be a late work of art of the painter, who on this occasion, at the behest of the patronage, set aside the naturalism by Caravaggio to create a clear picture of the sacred subject. So the work was probably completed around 1622.

An expanse of water of about 50 nautical miles separates the fields of action of the two Cassarinos of Sicily. Giovanni Giulio staged his work in the prestigious theatre of the Knights of St John in the heart of the Mediterranean and the strategic outpost against the Turkish threat at the gateway to the West. Francesco was a diligent painter and decorator of Scicli, able to acquire prestigious commissions from important personalities of local feudalism.

The common denominator bet - ween the two artists who shared a surname and historical moment, the transition from the weary mannerist schemes to naturalistic revolution brought in those frontier lands by the genius himself, the ambassador of nature, who sought refuge on these shores from the axe that was pursued him after the Tomassoni affair.

Giovanni Giulio Cassarino lives among the treasures of the Knights’ St John’s Co-Cathedral and in ancient buildings in teeming, cosmopolitan Valletta or in the sleepy streets of Żejtun and Rabat. At St Paul’s Bay, we have the privilege to appreciate the face of a gentle artist of the 17th century, behind Grand Master Wignacourt who stimulated his artistic fortunes. His self-portrait is immortalised in the chapel of the St Paul’s Shipwreck in St Paul’s Bay.

Francesco Cassarino can be admired under the quarries of Scicli, Sicily. The theatre of those craggy rocks is St Bartholomew’s church, which houses the Immaculate and Saints and tombs that the artist meticulously decorated.

The artistic experiences of the two painters, in the transition from Mannerism to the naturalism by Caravaggio, are a testimony of the cultural affinity during the 17th century, between the two shores of the Mediterranean.

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to Barbara Mancuso, Claudia Guastella and Alexander Debono for their precious information and to Alessia Vacante for her collaboration.