Valletta

The City of Valletta is situated on one of the promontories jutting out into the Grand Harbour.  This tongue of land was known to the early inhabitants of Malta as Xaghriet Mewwija or inhabited promontory.  It came later known as Sheb ir-Ras meaning the light point.

As the capital of Malta, Valletta is the administrative, commercial and cultural heart of the island. The city covers an area of merely 550 square metres, but nowhere else in Malta one can find more churches, palaces and museums than in Valletta. 

 About 8,000 people live in the Maltese capital; however, during the day the small town turns into a cosmopolitan city with more than 80,000 people.

In the early morning, fishermen and farmers come to Valletta to sell their products in the market hall, followed by the bankers, lawyers, public officials and shop owners who flock into the city from the rest of the island. Later in the morning it is the visitors and tourists who fill the streets and squares.

Valletta was founded in 1566 by the Knights of St. John on Mount Sciberras, an ascending peninsula on the north-eastern side of Malta. However, before the Great Siege of 1565, the famous Italian Architect and Military Engineer Barolomeo Genga,  had proposed a model city plan that extends further than the existing area.  The front of Genga model extended to the present site known today as Floriana and it was meant so that the city armoury would be able to cover the Corradino high grounds. 

The city is named after Jean Parisot de la Valette who was the Grandmaster at the time. The Knights of St. John had decided to build a new capital following their victory in the Great Siege in 1565, approximately three times larger than their previous seat Birgu, on the opposite side of the Grand Harbour.  Moreover, the Knights wanted to shift Malta’s capital from the centre of the island to its coast.

 

The fatefull decision was formally taken on fourteen day of March 1566.  The Grand Master and his council and knights proceeded to the new city with great pomp.  The decee of the Council engraved in Latin and which bornes the name Valletta states:

Fr. Jean de la Valette, Grand Master of the Hospitaller and Military Order of Saint John, mindfull of the danger to which, the bear before, his knights and people of Malta were exposed during the siege by the Turks, having consulted the heads of the Order about construction of a new city and fortifying the same by walls ramparts and towers sufficient to resist any attack and to repeal or at least, to withstand the Turkish enemy on Thursday 28 March in the year of the Lord 1566, after the invocation of the Almighty God, implored the intercession of the Holy Virgin Mother, to the Patron Saint John the Baptist and of other Saints, to grant the work commenced should lead to prosperity and the happiness of the whole Christian community, and to the advantage of the Order laid the foundation-stone of the city on a hill called Sher ir-Ras by the natives and having granted for its arms a golden lion on a red shield wished it to be called by his name Valletta.

According to the proposed plans, the rocky and uneven top of Valletta was to be leeled before the erection of any building.  The difficult work had been fairly begun when rumors of a Turkish expedition against the island reached the Order.  The Grand Master directed that, the fortifications should have the priority over the leveling of the site, so much so that as off today, Valletta has steep streets.  There are  however, discrepancies between Laparelli's designs and the works carried out.  Examples of such include many watch towers (cavliers) shown on the plan but only two - that of Saint John and Saint James were ever built; the galley pen, the manderaggio and the ship repair yard, the arsenal were likewise never executed.

To this very day, Valletta is characterized by its grid-like street pattern, the impressive fortifications as well as its grandiose Baroque palaces and numerous churches.

The presence of the Knights of Malta left their fingerprints and were the progonist of the numerous number of churches and chapels found in the city.  It was no of surprise that each langue had its own chapel were knights that belong to that langue would be conveying their prayers.  However, not all chapels of the langue were biult as an extension to their auberge as the case in Birgu.   "Notre Dame de Liesse" [Our Lady of Joy in French] is one of the chapels that has survived the ruins of the second World War, and unlike its counterpart auberge of the French Knights it still dominates the harbour area facing St.Angelo Castle on the other side of the peninsula.  

In 1134 three Knights of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, prisoners of the Muslims in Egypt,  miraculously found or received in their prison a statue of Our Lady, which they named "Notre Dame de Liesse" [Our Lady of Joy in French].

In response to their prayers, a young Muslim princess, named Ismerie,  took an interest in the Knights and through the intercession of Our Lady and the mercy of God the princess was converted.  The princess arranged the escape of the pious crusaders and joined them on their journey to France.  They carried the statue with them, and in the region of Laon, about 35 miles northwest of Reims,  they founded a church as a resting place for the statue.

Through local devotion the church took on the name of the statue,  and gave that name to the whole region, so that "Notre Dame de Liesse" came to mean both "Our Lady of Joy" and "Our Lady of [the place called] Liesse". 

The statue came to be venerated by many,  and "Our Lady of Liesse" became the Patroness of the Diocese of Soissons.

In 1620 the titular Bailiff of Armenia, Fra' Jacques Chenu de Bellay,  built a church to Our Lady of Liesse at Valletta in Malta.  It is today the chaplaincy church of the Port of Valetta.  

Beautiful gardens and shady squares with cafés invite one to stop for a rest. In the narrow and mainly steep streets, one can still sense the spirit of the past. Even the Second World War, which left about 85 per cent of Valletta’s buildings destroyed or damaged, could not harm the charm that the city still radiates today.  With its numerous cultural treasures, Valletta has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1980.  The city of Valletta is considered as a modern city built by the Knights and a jewel of the Baroque style.