(house built by the last English knight) - originally part of the Old University campus which housed the office of the top officials
Background and construction The precursor to the
University of Malta was the
Collegium Melitense Societatis Jesu, a
Jesuit college which was set up on 12 November 1592. This was originally located in an old house in Valletta, The building was designed by
Giuseppe Valeriano Construction of the present building began on 4 September 1595 when the foundation stone was laid down by Grand Master
Martin Garzez. Construction proceeded quickly, and the college moved into the building in 1597,
Use and events in a photo by
Giorgio Sommer ca. 1880 On 12 September 1634, both the college and the adjacent church were severely damaged when a gunpowder factory
exploded. The buildings were repaired, and the church had its façade completely rebuilt. Further damage occurred during the
1693 Sicily earthquake. In 1695, a sundial with a Latin inscription was installed on the rear of the building. The Jesuits were expelled from Malta in 1768, and the building became property of the Treasury of the
Order of St. John. However, studies continued and the professors retained their posts. The University of Malta officially came to existence on 22 November 1769, when Grand Master
Manuel Pinto da Fonseca signed a decree constituting a
Pubblica Università di Studi Generali. The university was briefly suspended during the magistracy of
Francisco Ximénez de Tejada in the 1770s, but it was reconstituted by his successor
Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc in 1779. The commercial rooms were reconstructed in 1810. In May 1824, a secondary entrance decorated with the British coat of arms was opened in the rear of the building. During
World War II, the building housed an Air Raid Precautions Centre. At times, it also housed the Anglo-Maltese Library and the Lyceum. Over time, the campus became too small to house the entire university. Evans Laboratories (now known as Evans Building), a building near the
Sacra Infermeria in Valletta, was inaugurated in 1959 in order to house the Faculty of Science. In 1968, the Medical School moved to a building near
St. Luke's Hospital in
Gwardamanġa. The university opened a much larger campus at Tal-Qroqq in
Msida in the late 1960s, and most Faculties moved there. The Old University Building is now one of the three campuses of the University of Malta, the others being the Msida campus and the Gozo Campus in
Xewkija. the Research Innovation & Development Trust and the Conferences and Events Unit. It is also used for international conferences and seminars, along with a number of short courses and summer schools.
Heritage and restoration The Old University Building is listed on the
National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands. The façades of the Old University Building and the adjacent church were restored between 2016 and 2019. ==Architecture==