The proliferation of siege maps depicting the epic siege of 1565 published in the major cities of Europe throughout the duration of the siege is enough indication of its magnitude and its significance to the Christian states of Europe. Historians of the Great Siege have a vast array of contemporary documents, texts and diaries as well as the maps attesting to the major episodes of the siege.

Once again Malta’s strategic position in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea left its indelible mark on the maritime history of the world at a time when triumphant Islam was basking in the glory of its dazzling victories. It was also threatening to subdue and ultimately wipe out Christendom from the surface of the earth.

But at this momentous time, a rampant religion proved to be as determined, as savage and as ruthless as Islam itself. In 1565, the Order of St John and the Maltese, completely outnumbered, faced the might of Islam in a bitter struggle whose fluctuating fortunes were witnessed by the whole of Europe with awe, hope, trepidation and appreciation.

It all started with the donation deed of March 23, 1530, when Emperor Charles V of Spain granted the Maltese islands to the Knights of St John. This brought to an end the knights’ homeless wanderings in the Mediterranean in the wake of their honourable expulsion from Rhodes by the Ottoman Turks in 1522.

During their long sojourn in Rhodes the knights’ marauding raids on Muslim galleys and ports were extremely limited because of the proximity to the Turkish mainland. From their new crusading base in the old maritime city of Birgu (Vittoriosa), steeped in corsairing and the slave trade, lying in the shadow of the impregnable Castrum Maris (Fort St Angelo), they proved a great irritant to the Turkish sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, whose fleet in the central Mediterranean was incessantly at the mercy of the knights’ fast marauding galleys, built at the renowned Birgu arsenal.

Forty-two years after he had expelled the Order of St John from Rhodes, Suleiman decided the time had come to drive the knights out of Malta. Their successful raids in the central and eastern Mediterranean against the Turkish galleys had become so damaging to the flourishing trade of his vast empire that his advisers urged him to send his mighty fleet and army to annihilate Malta.

It is reported that Dragut, the renowned Barbary pirate, remarked to the sultan: “Until you have smoked out this nest of vipers you can do no good anywhere.”

Suleiman’s resolve to capture Malta was further strengthened as soon as news leaked out that the Order of St John was planning to build a new city and that they entrusted the acclaimed Italian military engineer Bartolomeo Genga to prepare plans for a majestic citadel on Mount Sceberras.

After a series of more humiliations and debacles on the high seas where the fleet of the Order was supreme, Suleiman, who had made Turkey the greatest military power in the world stretching from Austria to the Persian Gulf, dispatched a formidable armada in May 1565 totalling 31,000 soldiers on a fleet of 181 galleys to eradicate Malta, the last outpost of the Crusades, the only stiff hurdle in the rapid and aggressive expansion of the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan placed his troops under the veteran Mustapha Pasha, a hardened general renowned for his cruelty and violence. The galleys were entrusted to the young relative, Piali.

The outcome of the siege was the concern of all the monarchs of Europe, so much so that Elizabeth I of England remarked: “If the Turks should prevail against the isle of Malta, it is uncertain what further peril might follow to the rest of Christendom.”

The siege was characterised by strategic blunders from the Turkish high command. It was also marked by feats of exceptional bravery and savage cruelty on both sides, but so great was the heroism and stiff determination of the greatly outnumbered knights and Maltese under the leadership of Grand Master Jean Parisot de Valette, that after four harrowing months, on September 8, 1565, Pasha, uncharacteristically of him, ordered a hasty retreat.

This victory column will forever proclaim the great event and ensure its commemoration on the exact site where we buried our heroes- Grand Master Manuel Pinto de Fonseca (1741-1773)

Undoubtedly, in the siege of 1565 the Knights of St John, henceforth known as the Knights of Malta, saw their finest hour, with great celebrations in their conventual church of St Lawrence, described in detail by Francisco Balbi di Correggio in his diary The Siege of Malta 1565.

His entry for Saturday, September 8, reads: “Never, I believe, did music sound so sweet to human ears as did the peals of bells on this day, the Nativity of Our Lady. For the Grand Master ordered them to be rung at the hour when we normally stood in arms... But now they rang for pontifical High Mass, which was solemnly celebrated as we gave thanks to Our Lord God and His Holy Mother for their mercy vouchsafed to us.”

Gate of Provence, the third gate leading to the walled city, featuring the biblical quotation on marble stating: Obumbrasti super caput meum in die belli. (You have protected me in time of war).

In no time, the international fame showered on the knights as a military order reached its zenith. The successful outcome of the siege also marked an important turning point in the history of Malta and the Order as the island emerged as a quasi-sovereign state. It was also the time when the first nascent faltering steps towards independence were taken. Malta was no longer considered as an extension of Sicily or as part of the Barbary coast.

To visually commemorate this iconic victory for posterity, the Council of the Order decided to record the salient events of the siege by means of frescoes in the Sala di Maggior Consiglio at the Grand Master’s Palace in Valletta. In 1576, Spanish-Italian painter Matteo Perez d’Aleccio was selected for this magnificent oeuvre. Incidentally, d’Aleccio was the first fugitive painter from Italy who fled to Malta, to be followed a few years later by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and Filippo Paladini.

As the official painter of the Order, d’Aleccio was commissioned to paint a cycle of 12 frescoes which he masterly executed between 1576 and 1581. The frescoes, which were recently tastefully restored, represent episodes from the siege: including the fall of St Elmo on June 23, 1565; the Piccolo Soccorso arriving in Birgu on July 5; the bombardment on the Post of Castille in Birgu on July 9; the attack on Fort St Michael on July 15; the second attack on the Post of Castille in Birgu on July 29; and the arrival of the Gran Soccorso on September 7.

With these impressive and vivid frescoes d’Aleccio’s fame spread all over Christendom. It is interesting to note that some of the bozzetti previously in the possession of Charles I of England are now exhibited at Queen’s House in the Greenwich Maritime Museum. I urge Heritage Malta to request the loan of these bozzetti for the 450th anniversary of the Great Siege next year.

The church of the Great Siege – St Lawrence collegiate parish church, erstwhile conventual church of the Order.

Vittoriosa still retains many sites closely associated with the Great Siege, including: St Lawrence collegiate parish church, the former conventual church of the Order where the victory Te Deum was intoned and where the Franciscan Padre Roberto d’Eboli made his impassioned sermon to the exhausted and maimed knights and the Birgu populace; the Sacra Infermeria, built in 1533, now the residence of the cloistered nuns of Santa Scolastica; the Greek chapel of Our Lady of the Damascene, where de Valette left his battle-sword; Fort St Angelo, the citadel of the Knights, from where de Valette witnessed the massacred bodies of knights and Maltese nailed to crosses floating in the middle of Grand Harbour; the formidable Post of Castille, also known as L’Altare della Patria, where de Valette was wounded as the Turks breached the fortifications (still known to the Vittoriosa citizens as Il-Prexxa, from the Italian breccia); the nearby massive Armoury of the Knights; the authentic palaces of Auberge d’Angleterre and Auberge de France; the Jews Sally Port known as it-Toqba; the historical tunnel from where the Piccolo Soccorso entered Birgu after the fall of St Elmo; and the historic piazza previously dominated by a massive medieval tower from where de Valette directed proceedings.

The Victory monument in the Vittoriosa piazza in front of the partly destroyed medieval tower in July 1942. Erected by Grand Master Ramon Perellos, it shows a female figure representing victorious Malta.

The memory of the Great Siege of 1565 lingered on well into the 17th and 18th centuries to the extent that the great French thinker Voltaire could say with some justification: “Rien n’est plus connu que le siege de Malte” (Nothing is better known than the Siege of Malta).

The epic bloody siege captured the imagination of famous European authors, novelists, dramatists and poets. It was the savage cruelty of the siege that inspired the great Elizabethan dramatist Christopher Marlowe to write the highly-charged drama The Jew of Malta.

The great German dramatist and philosopher Frederich Schiller (1759-1805) was obsessed with the heroics of the Great Siege and its principal protagonist de Valette, who gave Schiller a great opportunity to display his rich imagination and rhetorical gifts, making the drama of the siege a vehicle for his own moral idealism. Scottish poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), author of the Waverly Novels, and best remembered for his famous line about Valletta: “a city built by gentlemen for gentlemen”, was similarly enamoured with the exploits of de Valette.

This upsurge of popularity of the siege after the auspicious event may also stem from the fact that early in the 18th century, the Order of St John was deeply involved, together with the Venetians, in a bitter Mediterranean war against the Turks.

The recently restored monument. Photo: Lawrence Parascandolo

At that time, the trauma of the Great Siege on the Vittoriosa populace, as it passed from generation to generation, was not completely healed. As the clouds of another war against the infidel loomed on the horizon, the Vittoriosa Università, in conjunction with the knights under the governorship of Fra Carlo Caraffa, raised enough funds to erect the elegant Victory monument in the centre of the Vittoriosa piazza, where many valiant victims of the siege are still buried, as a reminder to the city’s residents to prepare themselves for the possibility of another Turkish attack.

The Victory monument, erected during the reign of Grand Master Ramon Perellos (1697-1720), was probably designed by the great Roman architect Romano Carapecchia, a personal friend of the Grand Master. It was later embellished in 1760 by Grand Master Manuel Pinto de Fonseca (1741-1773) who ordered its restoration so that “this victory column will forever proclaim the great event and ensure its commemoration on the exact site where we buried our heroes”.

At that time, the governor of the city was the Bali Francesco Ximenes di Texada, whose name is inscribed on the marble plaque on the elegant column supporting a classical female figure representing victorious Malta. That same year, this moving tribute was further enhanced by a commemorative tablet affixed to the ancient medieval watch tower describing this auspicious event in our history.

A marble plaque in the secluded bastion of Castille, the site breached by the Turks in 1565, where de Valette was seriously wounded. It is still known as ‘Il- Prexxja’ from the Italian breccia. Photo: Lawrence Parascandolo

When Sciortino’s monument was erected in Valletta in the mid-1920s, historical roots were thrown overboard to accommodate an elite clique. In the process, Vittoriosa was sidelined, snubbed and ignored

The author Vincenzo Busuttil in his book Holiday Customs in Malta 1894, graphically described the 1894 celebrations: “The square is most tastefully decorated with splendid trophies of arms and red and white flags. From each of the trophies, broad red and white sashes are seen hanging, on which the names of those who distinguished themselves by some brave and noble deed in the memorable siege are written in gold letters.

“The decorations of the column of victory in the middle of the square are simply magnificent. This column is surrounded by four figures of four grand masters in full armour; one of these is the immortal La Valette. During the day the bands paraded in the principal streets of the town preceded by large crowds with palm leaves and Maltese flags in their hands.”

The Victory monument in Vittoriosa during Great Siege national commemoration on September 8, 1922. Photos: The archives of the late Marquis Anthony Cassar de Sain, courtesy of the family.

When in 1922, September 8 was officially declared a national feast, the festivities continued to be held in the Vittoriosa piazza with extensive press coverage. Sadly, when Antonio Sciortino’s monument was erected in Valletta in the mid-1920s, historical roots were thrown overboard to accommodate an elite clique intent on distorting acknowledged historical facts. In the process, Vittoriosa was completely sidelined, snubbed and ignored.

As the siege-inspired novels sweep the literary world, true historians are clamouring for the reinstatement of Città Vittoriosa as the hub of all festivities to mark the 450th anniversary next year. And as this anniversary of the epic siege looms nearer, it is incumbent on the National Festivities Committee to remember the authentic sites of Vittoriosa still extant to tell the tale.

This is what Vittoriosa expects from Malta’s national leaders. Failing that, I visualise in my mind’s eye weird sepulchral voices, as in a Greek tragedy, rising from the bloody ramparts of the Post of Castille and Fort St Angelo, wafting across the harbour reciting Charles Wolfe’s famous lines (with apologies) pleading with the present grand master:

“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note
As their corpses to the ramparts we hurried,
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
Oe’r the graves where our heroes we buried.
No useless coffins enclosed their breasts
Nor in sheet or in shroud we wound them
But they lay like warriors taking their rest
With their martial clothes around them.
Slowly and sadly we laid them down,
From the field of their fame and glory,
We carved not a line and we raised not a stone
But we left them alone with their glory.”