Intellectual and Patriot
Mikiel Anton the son of Grabiel Vassallo and Ketrin was born in Ħaż-Żebbuġ.
Vassalli (proper surname Vassallo) is considered as one of the most remarkable figures in Maltese history. He lost his father in 1766, when he was two years old. His mother, Katerina, remarried in 1770, to Gejtan Mifsud who in 1779 was imprisoned because of his debts. In 1785 Vassalli started attending the Propaganda Fide school of Arabic in Valletta, under the tuition of Dun Ġużepp Calleja. He then moved to Rome to study to become a priest. There he sought to teach the Oriental Liturgy and the Syriac language at La Sapienza.
In 1790, being professor of the Syriac language, he published the Alfabet Mâlti Mfysser byl Mâlti u byt-Taljàn, Alfabeto Maltese spiegato in lingua maltese e italiana and a year later he published, Mylsen Phoenico-Punicum sive Grammatica Melitensis. Both were published in Rome by Antonio Fulgoni.
Vassalli lived in Rome for ten years and there he lived for some time in the house of the Maltese Republican lawyer Giuseppe Elia Pace. Scholars believe that during this period he paid several visits to his homeland. It is on the way to one of these visits that he visited the Kufic Arabic Tablets in Palermo so that in 1793 he published the translation of these sepulchral epitaphs into Latin in a booklet entitled “Tria Monumenta Lapidea Sepuralia Kufico - Arabico - Sicula Characteribus Kufico ....”
On 11 April 1795 Vassalli requested a permit from Grand Master De Rohan to open a school of Maltese and in 1796 Vassalli published in Rome Ktyb yl Klym Mâlti mfysser byl-Latin u byt-Taljan sive Liber Dictionum Melitensium - Lexicon Melitense-Latino-Italum. This Lexicon includes the Discorso Preliminare which manifests Vassalli’s social, linguistic and political ideas, mostly the Illuminist ideals he believed in. He joined the Jacobins in Malta even though at this stage he did not believe that Malta should be handed over to the Republic. During this time he presented a memorial to the Order’s government whereby he asked it (a) to petition the Holy See to allow the order a dispensation from the fourth vow (that it should no longer fight the Mohammedans), that (b) the port of Malta should be opened to Eastern trade, and that (c) a new ‘Langue’ should be raised so that the Maltese might enter it. This plan was never accepted and thus he chose to deliver the island over into the hands of his compatriots.
On 12 June 1797, Vassalli was sentenced to life imprisonment after, on 11 May of the same year, a coup d’etat to topple the Order’s government was uncovered and Vassalli was found to be one of the leaders of this conspiracy. He was jailed in the Ricasoli prison from where, probably his friends made him flee to Italy. Vassalli returned to his homeland once this was taken over by Napoleon who on 10 June 1798 who called Vassalli the wisest man among the Maltese. On 17 July 1798 Vassalli asked the French Revoltionary Goverment to award him the lectureship of Arabic at the University vacated by the death of Dun Ġużepp Calleja on the 29 May of that same year. He was never awarded such a post.
On 28 September 1799, while exiting Valletta to escape its blockade, Vassalli was arrested and later jailed in the Mdina prison on Commnader Alexander Ball’s orders. A year later, on 16 September, he was sentenced to exile so that on 15 January1801 he left Malta on the brigantine San Nicola to Tunes on his way to France.
While in France Vassalli entered the cotton industry, probably – as there is no evidence yet – he ‘married’ Katerina Formosa de Fremaux and had three children Grabiel (born in Marseille), Mikiel Anton. (born in France), and Saver (born in Spain).
In January 2020, Mark A Sammut discovered that from at least four contemporary sources indicating that Vassalli was not married. At the birth registration of the Public Registry of La Ciotat, Sammut find the records of Vassalli’s sons Gabriele and Michel Antonio, and in each, the parents are described as ‘not married’.
Caterina Formosa de Fremaux was the mother of Vassalli's three children Gabriele, Michel Antonio, and Saverio. She died in 1851, aged 66, and was buried by the Protestants. It would seem that she was the daughter of Agostino Formosa de Fremaux and Paolica née Mamo. Agostino, known as the Count of Saint Sofia, was the Comptroller of the Order's Customs, Consul of a number of foreign countries, representative in Malta of the Jews of Leghorn, and Treasurer of a Masonic lodge of which many Knights and important Maltese were members. The Mamo family was very well connected.
Vassalli returned to Malta on 19 June 1820 and Katerina returned on 2 October of the same year. Besides the three sons mentioned earlier, Katerina brought with her another son, Lorenzo, who was of a major age – we know nothing about this son. Back in Malta he worked as a translator for the Church Missionary Society and on 21 February 1825 he was appointed professor of the Maltese language at the UM thanks to Sir John Hookham Frere who also paid his salary. In 1827 he published the Grammatica della lingua Maltese, a revised edition of the Mylsen Phoenico-Punicum sive Grammatica Melitensis, published in 1791. In 1828 he published Motti, aforismi e proverbi maltesi, dedicating it to his friend Sir John Hookham Frere.
Vassalli died in poverty at his residence in Pietà on 12 January 1829, leaving his family destitute. He was deprived of a Catholic burial even though he had never became Protestant. His translation from the Latin vulgate into Maltese of the Four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, Quator Evangelia et Actus Apostolorum juxta Vulgatam Romæ, was published in London in 1829 and his adaptation from French of Charles Rollin’s Life of Cyrus, Storja tas-Sultan Ċiru, was published two years later.
This biography is part of the collection created by Michael Schiavone over a 30-year period. Read more about Schiavone and his initiative here.