Cassar is the first Maltese architect whose buildings can be attributed by name, and almost the whole public face of Valletta is his. He worked as assistant to Francesco Laparelli, the military engineer Pope Pius V sent to lay out the new city after the Great Siege of 1565, and took over the works when Laparelli left in 1569. The Conventual Church of St John, the Grand Master’s Palace, seven of the auberges of the Order of St John and much of the city’s fortification belong to him. His idiom is severe and un-decorative: flat wall planes of local globigerina limestone, shallow pilasters, string courses set by military rather than ecclesiastical convention. Later Baroque decoration inside his churches was applied by other hands, over a century after he had finished.
