Pietru Caxaro

Pietru Caxaro

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Hello Everyone, I thought I would a little about my mother, Theresa Caruana Calleja’s seventeenth-times-great-great-uncle, Pietru Caxaro.

Pietru Caxaro was born in the year 1400 in the ancient capital of Mdina, Malta, to Andreotto Caxaro and Agnese Vagnolo. A man of remarkable intellect and cultural significance, Pietru distinguished himself as a Notary, Philosopher, and Poet during the late medieval period. His life spanned a transformative era in Maltese history, bridging the late Middle Ages and the dawn of the Renaissance. He is best remembered for his literary contributions, including the only known surviving poem in Medieval Maltese, a rare and invaluable insight into the language and thought of 15th-century Malta.

In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Pietru Caxaro’s household reflected the social complexities of his time. Historical records show that he owned four slaves—children of a woman named Mira—whom he named Nicolo, Matteo, Francesco, and Perna Caxaro. Interestingly, the first three of these individuals appear to have passed on the Caxaro surname to their descendants, suggesting an enduring familial and possibly manumitted lineage. Pietru Caxaro died in 1485 at the age of approximately 85, leaving behind a legacy not only as a key figure in Maltese intellectual history but also as a patriarch whose name would persist in both documented ancestry and the broader cultural memory of the island.

 

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