'' illustrating the city's construction The peninsula was previously called
Xagħret Mewwija (Mu' awiya – Meuia; named during the Arab period) or Ħal Newwija. Mewwija refers to a sheltered place. Some authors state that the extreme end of the peninsula was known as Xebb ir-Ras (Sheb point), of which name origins from the lighthouse on site. A family which surely owned land became known as
Sceberras, now a Maltese surname as Sciberras. At one point the entire peninsula became known as Sceberras. Recent scholarly studies have however shown that the Xeberras phrase is of Punic origin and means 'the headland' and 'the middle peninsula' as it actually is.
Order of Saint John . |left |left The building of a city on the Sciberras Peninsula had been proposed by the
Order of Saint John as early as 1524. Back then, the only building on the peninsula was a small watchtower dedicated to
Erasmus of Formia (Saint Elmo), which had been built in 1488. In 1552, the
Aragonese watchtower was demolished and the larger
Fort Saint Elmo was built in its place. In the
Great Siege of 1565, Fort Saint Elmo fell to the
Ottomans, but the Order eventually won the siege with the help of Sicilian reinforcements. The victorious Grand Master,
Jean de Valette, immediately set out to build a new fortified city on the Sciberras Peninsula to fortify the Order's position in Malta and bind the Knights to the island. The city took his name and was called
La Valletta. The Grand Master asked the European kings and princes for help, receiving a lot of assistance because of the increased fame of the Order after its victory in the Great Siege.
Pope Pius V sent his military architect,
Francesco Laparelli, to design the new city, while
Philip II of Spain sent substantial monetary aid. The
foundation stone of the city was laid by Grand Master de Valette on 28 March 1566. He placed the first stone in what later became
Our Lady of Victories Church. In his book ''Dell'Istoria della Sacra Religione et Illustrissima Militia di San Giovanni Gierosolimitano
(), written between 1594 and 1602, Giacomo Bosio writes that, when the cornerstone of Valletta was placed, a group of Maltese elders said: "Iegi zimen en fel wardia col sceber raba iesue uquie
" (Which in modern Maltese reads, "Jiġi żmien li fil-Wardija [l-Għolja Sciberras] kull xiber raba' jiswa uqija''", and in English, "There will come a time when every piece of land on Sciberras Hill will be worth its weight in gold"). De Valette died from a stroke on 21 August 1568 at age 74 and never saw the completion of his city. Originally interred in the church of Our Lady of the Victories, his remains now rest in
St. John's Co-Cathedral among the tombs of other Grand Masters of the
Knights of Malta. The city of Valletta was mostly completed by the early 1570s, and it became the capital on 18 March 1571 when Grand Master
Pierre de Monte moved from his seat at
Fort St Angelo in
Birgu to the
Grandmaster's Palace in Valletta. 's depiction of the
Grand Harbour,
National Museum of Fine Arts Seven Auberges were built for the
Order's Langues, and these were complete by the 1580s. An eighth Auberge,
Auberge de Bavière, was later added in the 18th century. In
Antoine de Paule's reign, it was decided to build more fortifications to protect Valletta, and these were named the
Floriana Lines after the architect who designed them,
Pietro Paolo Floriani of
Macerata. During
António Manoel de Vilhena's reign, a town began to form between the walls of Valletta and the Floriana Lines, and this evolved from a suburb of Valletta to
Floriana, a town in its own right. In 1634, a
gunpowder factory explosion killed 22 people in Valletta. In 1749, Muslim slaves
plotted to kill Grandmaster
Pinto and take over Valletta, but the revolt was suppressed before it even started because their plans leaked out to the Order. Later in his reign, Pinto embellished the city with
Baroque architecture, and many important buildings such as
Auberge de Castille were remodeled or completely rebuilt in the new architectural style. In 1775, during the reign of
Ximenes, an unsuccessful revolt known as the
Rising of the Priests occurred in which Fort Saint Elmo and
Saint James Cavalier were captured by rebels, but the revolt was eventually suppressed.
French occupation and British rule In 1798, the
French invaded the island and expelled the Order. After the Maltese rebelled, French troops continued to occupy Valletta and the surrounding harbour area, until they capitulated to the British in September 1800. In the early 19th century, the British Civil Commissioner,
Henry Pigot, agreed to demolish the majority of the city's fortifications. The demolition was again proposed in the 1870s and 1880s, but it was never carried out and the fortifications have survived largely intact. It was closed down in 1931 after
buses became a popular means of transport. In 1939, Valletta was abandoned as the headquarters of the
Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet due to its proximity to Italy, and the city became a flash point during the subsequent two-year long
Siege of Malta.
German and
Italian air raids throughout the
Second World War caused much destruction in Valletta and the rest of the harbor area. The
Royal Opera House, constructed at the city entrance in the 19th century, was one of the buildings lost to the raids. The entire city of Valletta has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980, along with
Megalithic Temples of Malta and the
Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni. After that, on 27 November 2015, the city also hosted part of the
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2015. Valletta was the
European Capital of Culture in 2018. File:City Gate, Valletta 002.jpg|
Renzo Piano's
Valletta City Gate (2014) File:Parliament Building.jpg|Detail of the
Parliament House (2015) File:Sacra Infermeria in 2016.jpg|
Mediterranean Conference Centre, former
Sacra Infermeria (2016) File:Triton Fountain.jpg|Renovated
Tritons' Fountain (2018) File:Drapeaux UE et Malte - La Valette.jpg|
Auberge d'Italie, renovated in 2016 to host the new
MUŻA (
Mużew Nazzjonali tal-Arti) File:The interior after its restoration in 2018.jpg|Renovated covered market
Is-Suq tal-Belt, 2018 ==Government==