Venue (provisional)

VAST2009 will take place at the Aula Magna, Old University Building, Valletta, Malta.

The building itself traces its origins to the founding of the Collegium Melitense which was set up through direct Papal intervention in 1592. The college was run by the Jesuit Order on the lines of other colleges in Europe catering for non-Jesuit students. It was known as the Collegia Externium. By a papal bull of Pope Pius IV in August 1561, subsequently confirmed by a papal bull of Pope Gregory XIII in May 1578, the Jesuits were empowered to confirm degrees of Magister Philosophiae and Doctor Divinitatis. The foundation deed of the University in Malta however specified that in addition to Philosophy and Theology, the institution could teach subjects such as grammar and the humanities.

The Old University had a chequered history as the Jesuits fell in and out of favour with the regime of the Knights of St John, and the Pope. The building itself was subject to the ravages of time – earthquakes and continuous changes of use from the time of Napaleon and to the British era. Parts were leased to the merchant community and to the Anglo-Maltese Bank. Finally, in 1833, the British Governor, worried by the ‘discreditable’ standard of education in Malta, requisitioned the ground floor of the building from the University in order to host what was to become Malta’s leading secondary school – the Lyceum. The upper floors continued to be used as a university throughout. But in the 1960s, the building became inadequate for the needs of the University of Malta which is now sited in a modern campus at Msida.

http://www.heritagemalta.org/