António Manoel de Vilhena was a Portuguese nobleman who was the 66th Prince and Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem from 19 June 1722 to his death in 1736. Unlike a number of the other Grand Masters, he was benevolent and popular with the Maltese people. Vilhena is mostly remembered for the founding of Floriana, the construction of Fort Manoel and the Manoel Theatre, and the renovation of the city of Mdina.
Fra Alof de Wignacourt was a French nobleman who was the 54th Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem from 10 February 1601 to his death in 1622. Unlike a number of the other Grand Masters, he was popular with the Maltese people. Wignacourt is mostly remembered for the construction of the Wignacourt Aqueduct as well as a series of coastal towers which also bear his name.
St John's Co-Cathedral is a Catholic co-cathedral in Valletta, Malta, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. It was built by the Order of St. John between 1573 and 1578, having been commissioned by Grand Master Jean de la Cassière as the Conventual Church of Saint John.
Santa Venera is a town in the Southern Region of Malta, with a population of 8,834 (2021). It is located between the towns of Birkirkara and Ħamrun, and also borders Qormi and Msida.
Fort Saint Elmo is a star fort in Valletta, Malta. It stands on the seaward shore of the Sciberras Peninsula that divides Marsamxett Harbour from Grand Harbour, and commands the entrances to both harbours along with Fort Tigné and Fort Ricasoli. It is best known for its role in the Great Siege of Malta in 1565.
Wignacourt Tower, also known as Saint Paul's Bay Tower, is a bastioned watchtower in St. Paul's Bay, Malta. It was the first of six Wignacourt towers to be built, and the first stone was laid on 10 February 1610. It replaced the role of Ta' Tabibu farmhouse which was previously known as Dejma Tower. An artillery battery was added a century later in 1715. Today the tower is a museum of fortifications around the Maltese Islands.
Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt with his Page is a painting by the Italian master Caravaggio, in the Louvre of Paris.
The Grandmaster's Palace, officially known as The Palace, is a palace in Valletta, Malta. It was built between the 16th and 18th centuries as the palace of the Grand Master of the Order of St. John, who ruled Malta from 1530 to 1798, and was also known as the Magisterial Palace. When the knights were expelled by Napoleonic France, it became the National Palace. During the period of British rule beginning in 1800, it was the Governor's Palace.
The Wignacourt towers are a series of large coastal watchtowers built in Malta by the Order of Saint John between 1610 and 1620. A total of six towers of this type were constructed, four of which survive.
The Château de Lacassagne is a château in the commune of Saint-Avit-Frandat in the Gers département of France.
Hospitaller Malta, known in Maltese history as the Knights' Period, was a de facto state which existed between 1530 and 1798 when the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Gozo were ruled by the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. It was formally a vassal state of the Kingdom of Sicily, and it came into being when Emperor Charles V granted the islands as well as the city of Tripoli in modern Libya to the Order, following the latter's loss of Rhodes in 1522. Hospitaller Tripoli was lost to the Ottoman Empire in 1551, but an Ottoman attempt to take Malta in 1565 failed.
Fleur-de-Lys is a suburb that forms part of Birkirkara, and is also considered a suburb of Santa Venera and Qormi. It lies approximately 5 kilometers from Malta's capital, Valletta. The population of Fleur-de-Lys is about 2,200 people and the area is very small.
The Wignacourt Aqueduct is a 17th-century aqueduct in Malta, which was built by the Order of Saint John to carry water from springs in Dingli and Rabat to the newly built capital city Valletta. The aqueduct carried water through underground pipes and over arched viaducts across depressions in the ground.
The fortifications of Malta consist of a number of walled cities, citadels, forts, towers, batteries, redoubts, entrenchments and pillboxes. The fortifications were built over hundreds of years, from around 1450 BC to the mid-20th century, and they are a result of the Maltese islands' strategic position and natural harbours, which have made them very desirable for various powers.
Palazzo Ferreria, officially Palazzo Buttiġieġ-Francia, is a palace found near the entrance of Valletta, the capital city of Malta. It was built in the late 19th century. Designed by Architect Giuseppe Bonavia, it makes use of an interesting concept of adding local timber balconies to a design inspired from that of buildings in Italy. It is protected as a Grade 2 national monument.
The Fortress Builders – Fortifications Interpretation Centre (FIC) is an interpretation centre about the fortifications of Malta. It is housed in a late 16th-century warehouse located near the St. Andrew's Bastion in Valletta, Malta. The centre was opened in 2013, and it aims at communicating Malta's military architecture in an interactive way.
Stephen C. Spiteri is a Maltese military historian, author, lecturer and preservationist. His work mainly deals with the military history of Malta, particularly military architecture, and he is regarded as the "leading expert on Malta's fortifications."
The Monte della Redenzione degli Schiavi, often simply known as the Monte di Redenzione, was a Maltese institution set up to finance the redemption of Maltese people enslaved by Ottomans or Barbary pirates. It was founded in 1607 by Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt and existed as an independent institution until 1787, when it was merged with the Monte di Pietà, forming the Monte di Pietà e Redenzione. The new institution continued the role of redeeming slaves until the early 19th century, when it became redundant following the suppression of slavery.
Admiralty House, formerly known as Casa Miari, Palazzo Don Raimondo and by several other names, is a palace in Valletta, Malta. It was originally built in 1569–70 as two private houses by Fra Jean de Soubiran dit Arafat, a knight of the Order of St. John. The houses were later leased to various owners, including Fra Raimondo de Sousa y Silva, who rebuilt them a single residence between 1761 and 1763.
The Forni della Signoria was a bakehouse in Valletta, Malta. It was constructed in the late 16th century by the Order of St John, and it consisted of a number of bakeries which produced bread for the inhabitants of Valletta and the surrounding area, as well as for the Order's garrison and navy.
