Francesco Saverio Cavallari was born in Palermo in 1809 and was an architect, painter, archaeologist and professor.
From 1826 he worked for the Duke of Serradifalco in archaeological explorations in Sicily.
In 1884 he arrived in Syracuse, where he dedicated all his energy to the reorganisation and enrichment of the collections of the Municipal Archaeological Museum, which he managed until 1891.
His most significant work is the Topografia Archeologica di Siracusa (Archaeological Topography of Syracuse), published with historian Adolf Holm in 1883, in which all the monuments and archaeological remains known until then were located; it is still an essential tool for the topographical reconstruction of the ancient city today.
