1630–1704
Lorenzo Gafà
Lorenzo Gafà began as a stone carver in his father’s workshop and became the leading builder of churches in seventeenth-century Malta. He designed St Paul’s Cathedral in Mdina, consecrated in 1702, and the Cathedral of the Assumption in Victoria on Gozo. His elder brother was the sculptor Melchiorre Cafà. The dates of his life are disputed: he was born between 1630 and 1639 and died in 1703 or 1704.
Biography
In 1679 Lorenzo Gafà designed the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral in Mdina and oversaw its construction. Fourteen years later the choir would survive where almost everything else fell.
He was born in Birgu, the son of the stone carver Marco Gafà and his wife Veronica. The year of his birth is uncertain: by some accounts it was 1639, by others between 1630 and 1638. He started out as a stone carver, working alongside his father and his elder brother Melchiorre, who became a well-known sculptor. He may have learned architecture from the Italian Francesco Buonamici, who was then living in Malta. On training in Rome the evidence conflicts: by some accounts he went there in 1699–1700 to improve his skills, by others there is no document showing that he ever left Malta. That is hard to verify.
By the early 1660s he was increasingly absorbed by architectural design. In 1661 he is known to have taken part in the work on the choir of the Church of St Philip in Żebbuġ. Shortly before 1666 he made the reredoses of the main altars in the Church of St Scholastica and in the Dominican Church of the Annunciation, both in his native Birgu, and designed the altar of the Church of St Nicholas in Valletta.
After that the list grows long. The Church of St Paul in Rabat was built in 1664–83, the Church of St Paul’s Shipwreck in Valletta in 1666–80, the Carmelite Church in Mdina in 1668–72. Then come the Church of St Nicholas in Siġġiewi (1676–93), the Monastery of St Scholastica in Birgu (1679), the Church of St Lawrence in the same town (1681–97), the Church of St Peter the Martyr in Marsaxlokk (1682), the dome of the Church of St George in Qormi (1684), the Church of St Mary in Qrendi (1685–1712) and the Church of St Catherine in Żejtun (1692–1744). In 1699 he enlarged the Church of Our Lady of Victories in Valletta. Some buildings, such as the Church of St Julian in Senglea and several churches in Mdina, are only attributed to him, and I would not confidently call them his work.
His secular buildings are fewer: Villa Bichi (1675), the palace of the General of the Galleys in Birgu (before 1695) and, possibly, the Ta’ Saura hospital in Rabat (1655). For Mdina he later also built the Bishop’s Palace.
The earthquake of 1693, which devastated many towns in Sicily, badly damaged the cathedral in Mdina. Gafà’s choir remained intact. The old cathedral was taken down, and in 1696–1705 a new one was built on its site to Gafà’s Baroque designs. It was consecrated on 8 October 1702. It is his best-known building, and is usually regarded as his finest work. At almost the same time, in 1697, construction began on the Cathedral of the Assumption in Victoria on Gozo; work continued until 1711, that is, without him.
Gafà died in his native Birgu in 1703 or 1704. By one of the dates, it happened on 16 February 1703, when he was 64.
Profile notes