CAFÁ (CAFFA, COFA), MELCHITORRE. – Sculptor, born in Rome or Malta in 1631 or 1635. He provided sketches and, at times, models for the altars of several churches in Rome (S. Caterina da Siena at Magnanapoli, S. Maria in Campitelli, S. Agnese in Agone) and in Malta. But more than in these sculptures, which were executed with the intervention either of Ercole Ferrata, C.’s master, or of his followers, it is in the bozzetti (some of which are in the Vatican Library) that one must seek the measure of his sensitive and delicate art, with its premonitions of eighteenth-century grace.
BIBL.: O. Pollak, s. V. in Thieme-Becker, V, p. 347 (con bibl.); A. E. Brinckmann, Barocksculptur, II, Berlino 1917, p. 268; L. Ossola, Il Battesimo di Cristo di M. C. a Malta, in Dedalo, 7 (1926-27), pp. 131-35; R. Wittkower, Eine Bronzegruppe des M. C. in Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, 62 (1928-29), p. 227 SGR.; G. Delogu, La scultura italiana del Seicento, I, Firenze 1932, p. 57.