Photographs and text by Ian Morland
Massive citadel walls are a shared characteristic of Valetta and Mdina on Malta, and of Victoria on Gozo. They are all the more imposing when built upon a hilltop. Yet where no natural precipice existed, the builders quarried a great moat, such as the approach to Mdina from Rabat and the landward side of Valetta.
These walls meant business: more than just a show of prestige, they were designed to withstand siege warfare and there’s an echo of the crusader castles of the Levant. The views from the walls are impressive, looking out and down on a relatively flat and arid plain.
There is something about the approach to ancient Mdina that will always catch one’s breath and stir the imagination. The Silent City, in its hilltop position, is a walled town that appears unreal, like a fairy tale image. Mdina owes its history to Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs and Normans before the Knights of St John occupied Malta.
Above: Mdina, St Paul’s Cathedral
Above, Mdina, St Paul’s Cathedral
So who were the Knights of St. John, also known as the Knights of Malta?
The origin of a hospital at Jerusalem dedicated to St John can be traced to the years before the First Crusade, founded by merchants from Amalfi and Benedictine monks. Originally intended to care for Christian pilgrims, this Order of St John took on a military role from the 1120s and 1130s, and the warrior monks became known as Hospitaller Knights. They were granted their own Papal Charter to defend the Holy Land, until the fall of Acre in 1291. After a brief stay in Cyprus the Knights occupied Rhodes (1310-1522) as a sovereign state.
The continued expansion of the Islamic world led to the fall of Rhodes. The Order was homeless until granted the island of Malta by the King of Spain in 1530. In recognition of their role as a vassal state, they made the token gift of a Maltese falcon each year to the King of Spain. And so begins the inspiration for Dashiell Hammett’s best known novel.
After defending Malta against the Ottomans’ numerically far superior forces in the Great Siege of 1565, the Knights built Valetta, which became a major maritime power in the Mediterranean.
The St John Co-Cathedral* in Valetta, commissioned in 1572 by Grand Master Jean de la Cassière, is the star attraction for lovers of the Gothic. Scenes of the life of St John the Baptist look down from the ceiling. The Cathedral’s side chapels – one for each language or national group within the Order – contain ornate memorial tombs for former Grand Masters. Each new Grand Master must have pondered a while: “How shall I be commemorated?” However, the first twelve Grand Masters enjoy a simpler and quieter repose in the crypt.
Above: the tombstone of Fra Don Joseph (Guiseppe) de Majo, Knight of the Langue of Italy, who died 27 May 1747
The Cathedral floor of marble tombstones is astonishing, complimenting the rich ornamentation of the walls.
There are 405 tombstones commemorating former Knights and officers of the Order of St John, dating from the very early 17th to the late 18th centuries. The first Knights to be interred here were those who had fallen fighting the Ottoman Turks during the Great Siege of 1565.
Tombstones feature the crest and coat of arms of each person and their presumed virtues. The Knights drew their membership from the most illustrious aristocratic families of Catholic Europe, they were often referred to as ‘Most Illustrious Lord Brother Illustrissimus Dominus Frater’, and so crowns and coronets indicate the noblest.
The tombstones include representations of skeletons and skull & crossbones images to remind us of Death, along with sickles or hourglasses. Another common feature is an angel of Fame, blowing his trumpet for the deceased Knight. Modesty was probably not one of their virtues …
Caravaggio & the St John Co-Cathedral
Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi, 1571-1610) was accepted into the Order of St John briefly, before his violent temper was his undoing. During that time he painted for the Order the ‘Beheading of John the Baptist’, which remains a star attraction in the Cathedral Oratory. The artist signed his name in the blood seeping from St John’s neck, a visceral touch.
Completed in 1608, the painting had been commissioned as an altarpiece. When Caravaggio was defrocked in absentia as a “foul and rotten member” about six months after his induction into the Order, the ceremony took place in the Oratory before this violent and disturbing masterpiece.
* The Co-Cathedral is so called because Mdina was the Maltese capital and had its own earlier cathedral, St Paul’s. When the Knights built St John’s in Valetta, it was recognised as a co cathedral to the existing St Paul’s.
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