The genesis of Valletta as the new ‘City of the Order’. Proposals by Bartolomeo Genga, Baldassare Lanci, and Francesco Laparelli

Abstract

Historical Context: Malta is strategically situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean. When in 1530, Emperor Charles V offered Malta and the fort at Tripoli to the military and religious Order of St John, he was motivated by the geo-political dynamics of the Mediterranean and with the intention of establishing a Christian bulwark against the threat of the west-ward expansion of the Muslim Ottoman forces. Soon after the Order established their naval base around the old Castrum Maris, (later, referred to as Fort St Angelo) and Birgu within the Grand Harbour, it became apparent that there was an urgent need to build a new fortified city on the barren Sciberras peninsula. Various visiting Italian military engineers had travelled to Malta to advise the Order on improving the state of defences of Birgu but these interventions had their severe limitations and the Order’s home base would always remain vulnerable to the real possibility of an Ottoman attack emanating from the higher grounds of Sciberras peninsula. The Order acting upon the recommendations of its military engineers steadfastly pursued the idea of building a new fortified city well before the Great Siege of 1565. Giulio Argan (1909–1992) in his seminal text, The Renaissance City argued that “what contributed to making the city wall a true and proper instrument of war, rather than merely a protective circle, was the fact that the city was now part of a much wider political system.” (Argan, 1969). The new fortified city of the Order was for all intents and purposes conceptualized and designed as an impregnable war-machine that would be able to withstand sustained attacks by the invading forces. Other considerations of an urban and civic nature were secondary to the design and efficacy of the fortifications.