Carlo Gimach
| Carlo Gimach | |
|---|---|
| Born | 2 March 1651 Malta |
| Died | 31 December 1730 (aged 80) Rome, Papal States |
| Resting place |
Basilica of St Anastasia 41°53′17.1″N 12°29′3.1″E / 41.888083°N 12.484194°E |
| Nationality | Maltese (of Palestinian and French descent) |
| Education | Roman College |
| Occupation | Architect and engineer |
| Parents |
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Carlo Gimach (2 March 1651 – 31 December 1730) was a Maltese architect, engineer and poet who was active in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Throughout his career, he worked in Malta, Portugal and Rome, and he is mostly known for designing Palazzo Carniero (now Auberge de Bavière) in Valletta, renovating the Monastery of Arouca in Portugal, and restoring the Basilica of St. Anastasia in Rome. He is known to have written a number of poems and other literary works, but these are all lost with the exception of one cantata which he wrote in 1714.
Carlo Gimach was born in 1651 to Gio Paolo Gimach, a merchant who was the son of a Palestinian refugee and who had been raised by Giovanni Paolo Lascaris, and his wife Paolina Sartre, the daughter of a French migrant and a Maltese noblewoman. He was the third of six children.
Gimach studied in the Roman College in the 1670s before returning to his hometown Valletta, where he was renowned for his knowledge in architecture and literature. He designed two large palaces in the city - Palazzo Correa in 1689 and Palazzo Carniero in 1696. Palazzo Correa was destroyed in 1942, but Palazzo Carniero still stands, now known as Auberge de Bavière. Gimach also designed a small shipyard in an area of Valletta known as il-Fossa.
Gimach went to Portugal in 1696, where he designed a fortified palace in Beira Province for his friend, the knight Fra Antonio Correia de Sousa Montenegro. The palace was never completed due to Correia de Sousa's death, and it was in ruins by the end of the 18th century. Gimach subsequently worked for the House of Arronches and later the Counts of St. John, both in Lisbon and near the border with Spain. In around 1706, he was involved in the reconstruction of various abandoned forts near the border.
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