The church of St Ursula in Valletta where the problems of Fra Francesco Cutelli and the young Maria Muxi started.The church of St Ursula in Valletta where the problems of Fra Francesco Cutelli and the young Maria Muxi started.

Early in 1702, the young – and hot-bloodied – Fabritio Muxi could no longer suppress his suspicion that his sister was carrying on an ‘improper friendship’ with a knight of Malta – with the support and encouragement of their mother, no less. He stalked the suspects, and brought himself to believe he had caught them in flagrante. What followed verges on the insane: scandalous scenes inside a church, threats of assassination, hints of duels, house arrests and abductions, with the Inquisitor and the Grand Master both taking sides and turning into lead players. What started as a hormonal fracas ended as a bizarre clash of jurisdictions.

The Muxi family lived in large house in Valletta. They must have been of comfortable means, as they could afford servants and household slaves and had all the cosy connections which counted, both with the Order of Malta and with the Inquisition.

But let us first have a look at the dramatis personae, starting with the suspect knight. The documents only refer to him as il Signor Cavaliere Cutelli. Hardly a knight who had distinguished himself in anything, edifying or awful; to chart his trail proved to be quite laborious. Only one knight by the surname of Cutelli ever joined the Order – Fra Francesco from Catania, who professed on January 19, 1669, during the Grand Mastership of Nicolas Cotoner. Assuming that he entered the Order at the average age of 18, he must have been about 50 years old when the scandal with the young Maria Muxi erupted.

Francesco Cutelli may not have been renowned for anything, but he sure descended from a notable and wealthy family that was. His grand uncle had been one of the most high-profile and controversial bishops of Catania, loved and hated, revered and scorned, whose fortunes had alternated between being the darling of royalty, to spending time incarcerated. By pure coincidence, he consecrated Malta’s great but forgotten Leonardo Abela as bishop of Sidon.

Closer to our Fra Francesco was his uncle Count Don Mario Cutelli, a wealthy landowner, philosopher, eminent jurist and renowned Latin scholar. Just before his death in 1654, Don Mario disinherited his eldest son Giuseppe, listing in detail the eight sordid reasons through which filial love irretrievably fractured.

No one as much as Fra Francesco had the Grand Master’s ear and had an interest to protect the two women. But someone else, on the other side, roped in the Inquisitor. Trading in influence worked well in both directions

Among others, Don Mario remembered how he had been physically threatened by his son, and how he had ravished “svergognato” every woman in his household “tutti li miei zitelli”, getting some pregnant, how his son had stolen everything he could lay his hands on from his house in the country when he had gone on a visit to Catania, how he had paid messengers to spread around the fake news that his father had died, how he had ostentated his friendship with Don Giacomo Sanmaniati, his father’s acerrimo nemico (to improve matters, Giuseppe also married Anna Sanmaniati, who died aged 29 due to a fatal pregnancy), and how he had misappropriated the usufruct left to his father by Don Leonardo Grandi “and I, to avoid being ridiculed by the whole world, did not sue him in court”.

Monument to Mario Cutelli, uncle of Fra Francesco Cutelli.Monument to Mario Cutelli, uncle of Fra Francesco Cutelli.

For these reasons, Don Mario decreed that his eldest son would get nothing from his inheritance, not even quanto un finocchio – not even what a stem of fennel was worth.

The beneficiaries of this resentment, accumulated over the years, were Don Mario’s second son Ferrante – and his nephew “mio niputi”, our Francesco Cutelli, not yet a knight of Malta.

On the Muxi side stood a mixed lot, to which I will try to give some order. The household consisted in Giacobino Muxi and his wife Theresa, daughter of Giovanni Paolo Attard, their son Fabritio and his young unmarried daughter Maria. They also had a third son, the Capuchin friar Padre Arcangelo di Malta, and a fourth one, Domenico Ignatio. With them lived Theresa’s sister, Euphemia Attard, a spinster. Giacobino Muxi also had two other daughters, cloistered nuns of the convent of St Ursula. Their names are not given, but we know they were Suor Anna Maria Pelagia, who took the veil in 1671, when she was 13 years old, and Suor Eufemia, who entered the convent 10 years later.

On the fateful day, Thursday, January 5, 1702, Theresa Muxi and her daughter Maria walked to the convent of St Ursula, ostensibly to visit the two Muxi nuns on the eve of the Epiphany. But they failed to factor in that Fabritio was stalking them to spy on their every movement. They entered the convent and, while conversing in the visiting room with the nuns, a woman came to tell them that the Signor Cavaliere Francesco Cutelli was waiting for them in the adjacent church (men could not enter the cloistered convent).

Coat of arms of Inquisitor Giacinto Messerano, who took the side of Fabritio Muxi. Photo courtesy of Daniel Cilia and Heritage MaltaCoat of arms of Inquisitor Giacinto Messerano, who took the side of Fabritio Muxi. Photo courtesy of Daniel Cilia and Heritage Malta

They went to meet Cutelli in church. And suddenly Fabritio, who had been stealthily following their every movement, sprang on them and raised the mother of all commotions. His suspicions were confirmed! They were meeting Fra Francesco! Fabritio lost his cool completely, screamed at his mother and sister, and used the most offensive words of reproach to the knight. On his part Fra Francesco called Fabritio furfante – rascal, scoundrel – implied that he was asking for a duel, and threatened to cut his life short there and then – serrargli la vita.

Theresa and Maria Muxi had a good excuse for meeting Fra Francesco, or, at least, so they thought. Theresa owned a slave who she wanted to sell in Sicily, and her son the Capuchin Padre Arcangelo had taken him there and sold him. The friar had met Fra Francesco in Catania and had asked him to forward the price of the slave to his mother in Malta. When the knight came to know they were in St Ursula, he asked to meet them to hand over the money.

The coincidences and great emphasis and greater details with which the two women repeated their excuse, start making it sound all rather contrived and suspect. Maybe they did protest too much. If they convinced some they had a valid excuse to meet Cutelli, these certainly did not include Fabritio.

Fabritio may not have been one of the many city dwellers who thought that having a woman of the family as the official mistress of a knight was something very desirable and advantageous. According to Carasi, Maltese families vied to place their sisters or daughters as the mistresses of some commendatore or bali.

In marched four or five very determined heavies with the personal sedan chair of the Inquisitor, Giacinto Messerano, to take Maria Muxi away by force

Everyone knew that the tumult in the church was not the end of the story, though no one guessed to what heights it would escalate. Someone informed Grand Master Ramon Perellos y Roccaful of the danger Theresa and Maria Muxi were in from the fury of the irate Fabritio, and asked for his intervention. No document says who that could have been, but it is safe to guess that no one as much as Fra Francesco had the Grand Master’s ear and had an interest to protect the two women. But someone else, on the other side, also roped in the Inquisitor. Trading in influence worked well in both directions.

After the unseemly bagarre in St Ursula’s Church, the two women thought it wiser not to return home, where Fabritio might have been waiting to conclude unfinished business. They opted to go and take refuge in the home of an old friend of the family, Anna, daughter of the late Stefano Ordan, who lived in Strada Reale, next door to the church and convent of St Catherine.

In the afternoon, il Signor Filippo, an officer of the Grand Master, knocked on the door of Anna Ordan, and formally ordered Maria Muxi in the name of the Grand Master not to leave the house for any reason whatsoever, and Anna Ordan to keep the front door securely locked, under penalties of 200 scudi to be paid in default. The Grand Master obviously did not intend house arrest as punishment, but to protect the two ladies from the fury of Fabritio. This Signor Filippo is mentioned repeatedly in the evidence, but not one witness could remember his surname.

Portrait of Grand Master Perellos who took the sides of Maria Muxi and Fra Francesco Cutelli in the confrontation.Portrait of Grand Master Perellos who took the sides of Maria Muxi and Fra Francesco Cutelli in the confrontation.

A surprise knock on Anna Ordan’s door the next Sunday turned the tables over. The ladies of the house opened as they thought it was a sailor asking for something. The person came in, instantly removed the stanghe from behind the door and flung it wide open. In marched four or five very determined heavies with the personal sedan chair of the Inquisitor, Giacinto Messerano, to take Maria Muxi away by force. They overcame the feeble and lachrymose resistance of the women, and forcibly loaded the hysterical Maria in the sedan chair carried by two men in livery. They hurried her to the Marina where a boat was waiting to row her to the Inquisitor’s palace in Vittoriosa.

The violent kidnap had obviously been prompted by Fabritio, who had good friends at the Inquisitor’s and whose father was its patentee. In fact, Maria was taken to live with Pietro Gristi, vice-chancellor of the Inquisition – “a relative of ours”, auntie Euphemia Attard adds reassuringly.

All this sounds entirely surreal to me. Much ado about the everythings of nothing.

In this saga, Giacobino Muxi figures not at all. If not absent, he is ignored. He has left only the faintest of trails in the annals of Malta: in 1659 he had stood as witness to the celebrated architect Francesco Buonamici in a contract of works for the decoration of the chapel of Our Lady of Philermos in St John’s Conventual Church. Not much else besides.

The documents do not say if Maria Muxi and Fra Francesco Cutelli lived happily ever afterwards.

Acknowledgements

All my thanks to Dr Joan Abela and Paul Camilleri who drew my attention to these documents at the Notarial Archives, and Isabelle Camilleri who assisted me there. 1624 - 1729

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