<the ecclasiastical buildings of gerolamo cassar>
- article published in The Sunday Times of Malta on January 14 & 21, 2001 -
st. john's co-cathedral, valletta
Gerolamo
Cassar was responsible for the design of several churches in Malta. A document
from
1581 mentions all the buildings Cassar had designed before that year, including
St. John’s Co-Cathedral and some other churches in Valletta. Moreover, there
are churches attributed to him that are not listed in the citation and that
might have been built after 1581.
However,
all these churches underwent many alterations and modifications throughout the
past centuries. This makes it difficult and sometimes even impossible to
reconstruct the original appearance of the buildings. Consequently, it is also a
problem to find out which other churches, besides the ones mentioned in the
document, were designed by Cassar.
Still,
by comparing Cassar’s ecclesiastical buildings with each other and by pointing
out his typical architectural features, one can find out more about their
original appearance and design.
His
two major ecclesiastical buildings are certainly the Augustinian church in Rabat
(which is, however, not mentioned in the document) and St. John’s Co-Cathedral
in Valletta, which shall be the focus of this analysis. The Augustinian Church,
built in 1571, was Cassar’s first ecclesiastical building. It probably served
as a “test model” for St. John’s Co-Cathedral, which Cassar began two
years later.
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The
Rabat church consists of a nave with three chapels on each side. A
coffered tunnel-vault, which is slightly pitched, roofs the nave. Quentin Hughes
suggested that Cassar wanted to secure the vault by giving it its unusual shape,
because he had feared that the roof would not be firm enough. The
chapels are connected with each other by narrow openings and have a transverse
coffered tunnel-vault, except for the last chapels in the east, which carry a
small dome. The paneled pilasters between the chapel openings carry only a
cornice of the adjoining tunnel-vault; the usual entablature is totally missing
here. In the east, the building ends in a raised choir. The
interior of the church was totally redecorated in the baroque style in 1764.
Merely the shape of the interior remains from Cassar’s original design, i.e.
the plan and the basic elevation of the church. |
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|
nave of the augustinian church in rabat |
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The west façade of the Augustinian Church can be divided into two storeys; the lower part shows a central main portal and two smaller side entrances. Originally, these entrances must have looked differently: the Corinthian columns, the entablature with the ornamented frieze and the broken apex triangular pediment were certainly added later. |  |
| facade of the augustinian church |
main portal of the parish church in qormi |
|
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They
might have been designed by one of Cassar’s followers. As the entrances of the
Augustinian church resemble those of the Parish Church in Qormi from 1584 (probably
built by Cassar’s son Vittorio) and of the Parish Church in Attard (1613) that
was built by Tomasso Dingli, the originators of these entrances might be
Vittorio Cassar or Tomasso Dingli.
The
second storey of the façade consists of concave curved segments. Above the main
portal one can see a round window, which is surrounded by smaller rectangular
windows. The crowning top of the church façade is a pediment with finials on
the corners, which were also added during baroque times. |
| side door of the parish church in attard |
|
Cassar
is certainly the originator of the façade’s shape, as it reflects the
prototype of ecclesiastical church facades in Renaissance Italy that Cassar must
have seen on his study tour to the Italian mainland in 1569. |
 |
| west facade of santa maria del popolo in rome |
