Malta's strategic location tempted many throughout history, so a succession of powers (including the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Moorish, Normans, Aragonese, Habsburg Spain, Knights of St. John, French and the British) ruled the island, but I dare to say that its name remained in our minds linked to the Knights of St. John, also known as the Knights Hospitaller, who completed here in 1523 the pilgrimage made under the pressure of Islam, which pushed them from the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Kingdom of Cyprus (1291), then in the island of Rhodes (1309). Valletta was born when the Order decided to found a new city on the Xiberras peninsula to fortify its position in the island, and the Grandmaster, Jean Parisot de Valette, laid the foundation stone of Our Lady of Victories Church. The official name was Humilissima Civitas Valletta (The Most Humble City of Valletta), but not long after, the ruling houses of Europe gave the city the nickname Superbissima (Most Proud).
The Italian engineer Francesco Laparelli designed the city on a rectangular grid, the planning being carried out by Girolamo Cassar. The fortification and the uniform urban plan of Valletta were inspired by architectural principles of the Italian Renaissance in combination with techniques of contemporary city-planning and aesthetic considerations of urban theorists. The streets were designed to be wide and straight, beginning centrally from the City Gate and ending at Fort Saint Elmo overlooking the Mediterranean. The improvements attributed to the military engineers and architects of the 18th century haven't disturbed this harmony. Even if under the British rule has been built massive, and Nazi air raids throughout WWII caused much destruction, Valletta’s 320 monuments, all within an area of 55 ha, make it one of the most concentrated historic areas in the world, for which reason it was designated by UNESCO an World Heritage Site in 1980.
St John's Co-Cathedral (in the third postcard) was built between 1573 and 1578, having been commissioned by Grand Master Jean de la Cassière as the conventual church of the Order. Designed by the Maltese military architect Glormu Cassar (Girolamo Cassar), it is considered one of the finest examples of high Baroque architecture in Europe and one of the world's great cathedrals. The interior, in sharp contrast with the severe facade, is extremely ornate, being largely decorated by Mattia Preti. He designed the intricate carved stone walls and painted the vaulted ceiling and side altars with scenes from the life of St John. The whole marble floor is an entire series of tombs, housing about 375 Knights and officers of the order, and into a crypt are the tombs of several Grandmasters.
In the cathedral's Oratory is the only signed work and largest painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (1608). Restored in the late 1990s in Florence, this painting is one of Caravaggio's most impressive uses of the chiaroscuro style for which he is most famous with a circle of light illuminating the scene of St John's beheading at the request of Salome.
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