Engraver
Giovanni Farrugia was born in Floriana, a line engraver. At the age of thirteen he entered the UM and started his artistic training under Michele Busuttil. In 1816 he won the first prize for a drawing of the Holy Family, and was awarded a gold medal.
The Rector of the University, Mgr Francesco Saverio Caruana, recommended him to the Governor for a scholarship in Italy. He left Malta on 3 December 1817 and proceeded to Rome, where he studied in Rome at the Accademia di San Luca under Tommaso Minardi. He also worked for some time in Florence with Raffaele Morgan in 1823.
In 1826 Farrugia joined Giuseppe Longhi’s class in Milan. In the 1827 edition of Le Glorie dell’Arti Belle, of Milan, amongst other exhibits at the Brerey Gallery there are mentioned ‘molti disegni e studii a matita nera trattati con molto gusto ed intelligenza che vennero esposti dal Sig. Giovanni Farrugia, maltese’.
On 3 November 1838 Farrugia returned to Malta from Leghorn and opened a studio in Strada Reale, Valletta. In 1840 the studio was visited by the author Mgr Salvatore Cumbo* who published the journal Il filologo Maltese. Cumbo remarked that Farrugia had come back to Malta from Italy ‘ricco di sapere e divenuto eccellente ed ammirabile incisore’.
He engraved the certificate of membership of La Società Medica D’Incoraggiamento, designed by Dr Nicola Zammit. Apart from drawings he produced a large number of engravings of religious subjects and a quite a number of portraits.
Farrugia had to abandon Valletta and Floriana, the place of his birth with a heavy heart. The art of engraving for various reasons was becoming defunct and he find found himself in serious financial straits, and he had to take up the only government job made available to him, that of a Master of Lineal Drawing at the Victoria Primary School in Gozo. He took up this appointment on 1 March 1855.
After six years he passed away and was buried in the parish church of St George in Victoria in the presence of a large number of pupils and teachers.
This biography is part of the collection created by Michael Schiavone over a 30-year period. Read more about Schiavone and his initiative here.