Cristoforo De Kastelli

                Cristoforo De Kastelli

Cristoforo De Kasteli was born in Genoa in 1597 by a wealthy family of nobility. Still young, he moved to Palermo, where he devoted himself to the study of philosophy and theology, expressing a strong interest in religious life and in particular for missionary activity. In 1631, therefore, knowing that the theatine Peter Avitabile was organizing a mission in Georgia, assumed the priesthood and entered the same Order, taking the name of Christopher. On October 9, that same year he departed from Naples with some confreres, and on July 10, 1632, he arrived in Gori, in the realm of Kartli (East Georgia), where Teimuraz I, who was also king of Kakheti, reigned.

The Catholic missions in Georgia, which were spiritually directed by a Greek-Schismatic self-sacred Church, were the answer of the Holy See to the repeated attempts to restore contacts with the West made by the various Georgian sovereigns at the beginning of the century. Teimuraz I, in particular, sent in 1626 the Basilian monk Niceforo Erbachi to perform the submission to the pope and to seek the ally to Spain, since Turks and Persians undertook the country with frequent and ruinous invasions. Georgia's economic and social conditions were rather difficult. Decadence was also the religious life: the Orthodox clergy was mostly ignorant and corrupt, and wicked by the people.

During his mission,  visited almost the entire Georgian region. In 1634, together with another theatine, Antonio Giardina, and with a lay brother, he founded a new mission to Ozurgety, in Guria, to Prince Patrick Malachi II of Western Georgia. He protected them and helped them with every means, and they could set up, inter alia, a college; To his death, however, in 1639, a prince hostile to Catholics, and the mission had to be abandoned. C. then joined the other confreres who were already operating in Mingrelia, in the town of Cippurias, and spent here the remaining years of his mission, except for a period (1644-46), spent alone in Imeretia at the invitation of King Alexander III. The honors and the success he obtained on this occasion - the King also baptized the hereditary prince - were such that the patriarch of Alexandria Niceforo, having consulted with his colleague in Constantinople, went to Alexander III to ask him 'Away, but without results. This episode shows how much concern the authorities of the Orthodox Church saw Catholic penetration in Georgia. C. was then recalled in Mingrelia by King Levan II Dadian, and since no one could even replace the mission of Imeretia fine.

Teatine missionaries almost always met the popularity of the population. In addition to preaching, they were concerned about renaming sub-conditionality, because often Orthodox priests administered baptism with an invalid formula. The latter usually had a hostile attitude toward them, and sometimes made them a sign of acts of violence. Only a mere time of cooperation was established, and then missionaries taught them the correct liturgical practices. They also sought to fight the frequent infanticides and the use of selling servants and relatives as slaves to the Turks, succeeding in persuading Levan II Dadian to forbid him with a law. C. was one of the most active in the group, and also distinguished himself as a painter of sacred images and in the exercise of medicine he had learned before leaving: in Kutais, the capital of Imeretia, he also founded a hospital. In 1654, or in 1657, now sickly sick, he returned to Palermo where he died on Oct. 3. 1659.

According to a biographer, Cottone, C. would have published anonymously, when he was still secular, meditations, and liturgy over the mysteries of Christ's Passion. During the missionary period he then composed two Georgian works, which were handwritten: the tenderness of Divine Love, dedicated to Georgian princess Elena Artabachi, and the Meditation on the Passion of Christ dedicated to Patriarch Malachi II. We do not have any other news. He left seven volumes of travel notes and pen-and-ink sketches and other illustrations, mainly of the people and landscapes of Georgia.
The seven albums, which include thousands of illuminated papers and handwritten reports, had been forgotten until the priest Gioacchino di Marzo found them in 1878 in the Libreria Comunale of Palermo, referred to formerly as the House of Theatins, and saved them.
The Georgian public learnt about the albums only at the beginning of the 20th century when Georgian catholic Mikhail Tamarati found the albums in Palermo, photographed half of them and sent them to Georgia in 1910, where they were placed in keeping at the National Center of Manuscripts.
The albums revealed not only the faces of Georgian kings which were previously unknown, but also the costumes of the time as well as much information in various fields like art, history, geography, ethnography and local life.
When Georgia became part of the Soviet Union, the authorities prevented scientists of the time from going to Western Europe to study the albums. Consequently, they based their research on the photos but not the original albums and the studies at the time did not hold accurate information about the albums.
Several Georgian and Italian scholars studied the albums from 1970 to 1990 and published a section of the albums, however, the studies were not without inaccuracies.
These precious art works of the Italian missionary Teramo Cristoforo de Castelli are currently on display in Tbilisi at the Georgian State Museum of Theatre, Cinema, Music and Choreography.