Giovanni Battista Cairati
Giovanni Battista Cairati (Cairate, 16th century – Goa, 1596), known in Portuguese as João Baptista Cairato, was an Italian architect and engineer. Cairati was a leading military architect and, after the union of the Portuguese and Spanish empires in 1580, he was sent to the east by Philip II to redesign many of the fortresses. He dominated Portuguese military architecture in the Orient from the African coast to Malacca from 1583 to 1596.
Giovanni Battista Cairati
- Born
- Giovanni Battista Cairati was born in 1550. · Milan.
- Died
- Giovanni Battista Cairati died on 1 January 1596. · Goa.
- Nationality
- Lombardy
- Occupation
- architect · military engineer
- Known for
- Fort Jesus Museum
- Languages
- Italian
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Giovanni Battista Cairati (Cairate, 16th century – Goa, 1596), known in Portuguese as João Baptista Cairato, was an Italian architect and engineer. Cairati was a leading military architect and, after the union of the Portuguese and Spanish empires in 1580, he was sent to the east by Philip II to redesign many of the fortresses. He dominated Portuguese military architecture in the Orient from the African coast to Malacca from 1583 to 1596.
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wikidata · Q10289884 · wikipedia · Giovanni Battista Cairati
In this article
Biography
Biography
Born in the small town of Cairate, Lombardy, he began working, around 1560, in the service of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller and built fortifications in Malta and Sardinia. Back in Milan, he directed and supervised the fortification works in the city in the years 1560–1570. • Illustration — View of Fort Jesus in Mombasa In 1577 he entered the service of Philip II of Spain and in 1583 he was appointed chief engineer of the Estado da Índia and charged with the urgent task of surveying and rebuilding the most strategic of the Portuguese fortresses. Cairati spent a decade (1585–95) modernizing the fortresses of the Estado da Índia through the introduction of the trace italienne. He worked on the construction of fortifications in various places in East Africa and India such as Vasai, Malacca, Mannar, Hormuz, Muscat, Daman and Mombasa. Around 1593, he designed Fort Jesus in East Africa (now Kenya). The fort, built between 1593 and 1596 and inspired by the architectural models of the Italian Renaissance, is his last known work. Cairati selected the site and laid out the plan of the fortress, but probably never saw the completed building. He died in Goa in 1596 and was succeeded by Julio Simão.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1550
Giovanni Battista Cairati was born in 1550.
1596
Giovanni Battista Cairati died on 1 January 1596.
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Named by the record
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Giovanni Battista Cairati was born in Milan.
Birthplace
Giovanni Battista Cairati died in Goa.
Deathplace
Milan.
Birth place
Goa.
Death place
Primary material
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authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q10289884: Giovanni Battista Cairati
General reference · Wikidata
reference work
- “Giovanni Battista Cairati”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
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Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Da Silva, O. M. Fidalgos in the Kingdom of Kotte, Sri Lanka, 1505-1656. The Portuguese in Sri Lanka. Harwoods Publishers. 441. 1990.
- 2."CARRATO, João Baptista". Dicionário dos Italianos estantes em Portugal. Cátedra de Estudos Sefarditas "Alberto Benveniste". Universidade de Lisboa.
- 3.Rui Manuel Loureiro, "Para os olhos do Rei: iconografia de fortalezas portuguesas na região do golfo Pérsico por volta de 1600," Revista Oriente 18 (2007): 66-80 at 69-72
- 4.Parker, Geoffrey. The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800. Cambridge University Press. 18 April 1996. 9780521479585.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 3
- Boxer, Charles. A Fortaleza de Jesus e os Portugueses em Mombaça. Centro de Estudos de História Ultramarina. 79–105. 1960.
- Kirkman, James S. Fort Jesus: A Portuguese Fortress on the East African Coast. Clarendon Press. 1974. 9780199200351.
- Bethencourt, Francisco. The Oxford World History of Empire. 2: The History of Empires. 832–861. 2021. 978-0-19-753276-8.
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