Valletta Malta

Valletta
The Fortress City, Citta' Umilissima, "a city built by gentlemen for gentlemen". Valletta has many titles, all recalling its rich historical past. It is the "modern" city built by the Knights of St John; a masterpiece of the baroque; a European Art City; and a World Heritage City. But these are just some of its faces and fortunes.

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Valletta is also Malta's capital city: a living, working city, the administrative and commercial heart of the Islands. Nowhere in Malta is the life of the Islands reflected more than here. The city is busy by day, yet retains a timeless atmosphere. The grid of narrow streets house some of Europe's finest art works, churches and palaces.

Valletta hosts a vast cultural programme. Street events are staged against the city's magnificent baroque architecture and floodlit bastions. There is theatre and music and all manner of things to see and join in, from avant garde art to traditional church festas. The city is a delight to shop in: narrow side streets are full of tiny shops selling antiques, maps, books, prints and jewellery. For top quality fashion, music and much more try Valletta's main streets - Republic Street and Merchants Street.

Walking around Valletta, you'll come across an intriguing historical site around every corner: votive statues, niches, fountains and coats of arms high up on parapets. And when you need to stop and take it all in, the city yields up squares, courtyards, gardens and any number of cafés, right on cue.

Co-Cathedral of St John
St John’s Cathedral is the highlight of the Maltese Islands. However short your stay on the Islands, this cathedral of the Knights of St John is a must to visit. Described as the first complete example of the high baroque anywhere, it epitomises the role – spiritual and military - of its patrons.

The austere façade is reminiscent of the fortifications of Valletta, the fortress city in which it stands; while the exuberant and lavish baroque interior shows the Knights’ deep appreciation and patronage of culture and the arts.

The Cathedral is testimony to the talent of Maltese military architect, Gerolamo Cassar, and to Mattia Preti, the Calabrian artist and Knight. Preti designed the intricate carved stone walls and painted the vaulted ceiling and side altars with scenes from the life of St John. The Cathedral houses also one of Europe’s most impressive and famous art works, Caravaggio’s Beheading of St John the Baptist.

St John’s Cathedral is the highlight of the Maltese Islands. However short your stay on the Islands, this cathedral of the Knights of St John is a must to visit. Described as the first complete example of the high baroque anywhere, it epitomises the role – spiritual and military - of its patrons.

The austere façade is reminiscent of the fortifications of Valletta, the fortress city in which it stands; while the exuberant and lavish baroque interior shows the Knights’ deep appreciation and patronage of culture and the arts.

The Cathedral is testimony to the talent of Maltese military architect, Gerolamo Cassar, and to Mattia Preti, the Calabrian artist and Knight. Preti designed the intricate carved stone walls and painted the vaulted ceiling and side altars with scenes from the life of St John. The Cathedral houses also one of Europe’s most impressive and famous art works, Caravaggio’s Beheading of St John the Baptist.

Upper Barracca Gardens
The Upper Barracca Gardens are situated near Castille Place. From these gardens you can enjoy unrivalled views across one of the world's largest and deepest natural harbours, Grand Harbour, and over to the Three Cities. Upper Barracca was originally the private gardens of the Italian Knights whose inns of residence (auberge) lies close by. The paths are lined with trees including a pistachio. Below the gardens is a saluting battery which has been turned into a small formal terrace. The busts, statues and plaques in the gardens chart various personalities and events in Maltese history. Of special interest are the bronze group, known as Les Gavroches, by an early 20th century Maltese sculptor, Antonio Sciortino; the statue of Lord Strickland, a former prime minister of Malta; the sepulchral monument of Governor Sir Thomas Maitland, known locally as Lord Tom, who died in 1816. For over two centuries, Upper Barracca has been a popular meeting place.

History of a Baroque City
Valletta is named after its founder, the respected Grand Master of the Order of St John, Jean Parisot de la Valette. But the city really owes its birth to his arch enemy, Grand Turk Suleiman the Magnificent.

When the Knights arrived in Malta in 1530, they had settled in the small village of Birgu (Vittoriosa), which was protected by Fort St Angelo. They managed to enlarge the old St Elmo watchtower on the Sceberras Peninsula opposite, but their defences were still weak. The strategic importance of Mount Sceberras was to become all too evident during the Great Siege.

Valletta had been planned before the siege. But the plans could only be executed once a grateful Christendom had lavished riches on the Knights for their defeat of Suleiman. Pope Pius V and King Philip of Spain gave financial aid and loaned the services of an outstanding military engineer, the Italian, Francesco Laparelli.

The magnificent fortress city grew on the arid rock of Mount Sceberras peninsula, which rises steeply from two deep harbours, Marsamxett and Grand Harbour. Started in 1566, Valletta was completed, with its impressive bastions, forts and cathedral, in the astonishingly short time of 15 years.

A modern city
Laparelli had a unique opportunity to create the perfect city. Valletta may not strike you as a modern city, but it is one of the first examples of town planning based on a grid pattern of streets.

The city catered well for all strata of society, from the Knights to their servants and trades people. Laparelli's design provided for fresh water to be piped in, and for sanitation; both advanced concepts for the time. The grid of streets allowed for fresh air from the two harbours to circulate easily in the narrow streets – a kind of city-scale air-conditioning.

Valletta is a fine example of a planned, 16th century city: unusual for the times, since urban centres mostly evolved from earlier settlements. The rocky Mount Sceberras on which it was built was not an easy location: it took considerable levelling before construction could begin. La Valette died in 1568, before the city was completed. By 1571, enough of the city was built to allow the Knights to transfer from Birgu.

Laparelli left Malta in 1570, but work was continued by the Maltese Architect Gerolamo Cassar. Cassar was responsible for most of the major early buildings from the Cathedral of St John to the Sacra Infermeria, the Auberges or Innes of Residence of the Knights and the Magisterial Palace.

In more recent years
By the turn of the 16th century, Valletta was a sizeable city. People from across the Islands came to live within the safety of its bastions.

Valletta was soon pre-eminent in the life of the Order and the Islands. However, the Three Cities, across the harbour, the first home to the Knights, retained economic importance because of their docks. Mdina, the old medieval capital, all but lost its role and became a backwater. It remained home to the Maltese nobility, descendents of the Sicilian and Spanish overlords.

World War II brought havoc to Malta. Valletta was badly destroyed by bombardment, but the city managed to withstand the war with many of its treasures, such as the Knights' masterpiece, St John's Cathedral, intact.

Today Valletta has a smaller population than before the war, but it is a bustling place as the Islands' main business centre and the seat of government