Maria de Dominici (b. Vittoriosa, Hospitaller Malta, 1645 – d. 1703, Rome, Papal States) is Malta’s first established female artist. She was a Carmelite tertiary nun, residing within the community. In Malta, she studied under Mattia Preti’s tutorship and assisted him in his interior works of the St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta. After leaving Malta in 1682, De Dominici opened her own artistic studio in Rome, executing a number of important commissions of sculpture and painting. Some of her famous works in Malta include: The Visitation, in the Żebbuġ parish church; Beato Franco in the Valletta Carmelite church, and the Annunciation in the Valletta Cathedral Museum. In 2010, a crater on Mercury was named after her.
