Giuseppe Calì (14 August 1846 – 1 March 1930) was a Maltese painter of Italian descent. Biography Born in Valletta, Calì was baptised at the Dominican Parish Church of Porto Salvo, one of the seven offsprings of the artist and musician Raffaele Calì, set designer at the Royal Theatre, and of mezzosoprano Giovanna Padiglione. His parents, who were from Naples, had moved to British Malta in 1840. At age 19, in 1865, thanks to the generosity of the merchant William Stephen Eynaud, Calì moved to Naples to further his artistic formation at the Accademia di Belle Arti, where he studied under neoclassicist Giuseppe Mancinelli (1812-1875). Rather than following Mancinelli's style, the young Calì was attracted by the anti-academic Domenico Morelli (1826-1901), a follower of the Verismo movement. In Naples, Calì also grew closer to Romanticism and to the Italian Risorgimento. He made return to Valletta two years later, in 1867, summoned by his terrified parents who were told that their son planned to join Garibaldi in his latest attempt to overthrow the Papal States. His first major work, The Death of Dragut from 1867, is still deemed a masterpiece; it was purchased by the government and placed on permanent display in the armory of the Grandmaster's Palace, Valletta - then later at the Museum of Fine Arts, today's MUŻA. The influences of both Mancinelli and Morelli are visible in the Death of Dragut and in other works of his early period. Calì's art soon found wide acceptance in Malta, where he got employed in decorating private houses with landscapes and portraits. Only after 1870 Calì started to accept Church commissions. In 1881 he pained St. Jerome at the Sacro Cuor Church in Sliema, also deemed among his major works. Calì married Perennia Pace from Senglea in 1871, with whom had 11 children. In order to sustain the family, he got employed as art teacher at the Lyceum. As an established authority in the artistic scene in the island, Calì started to grow his own school, favouring the style of Verismo over the rampant Neo-Classicism and academicism. Among his students were his son Ramiro Raffaele Calì, Raphael Bonnici Calì, Gianni Vella and Ignatio Cefai. He died in Valletta and was commemorated by the Republic of Malta with a series of four postage stamps in 1996, and a coin in 2004. His son Ramiro Calì was also a painter. Works Giuseppe Calì