The old town is tal-Pjetà (stress on last syllable), a coastal stretch between Furjana and Msida..
.... The new face is Gwardamangia, a steep hill occupying a promontory formed by the two creeks. Such prime real estate could have easily become the domain of some rich nobleman or ruler. Not quite so. It is said that in the days of the knights the land belonged to a servant (...). In more recent times Villa Guardamangia hosted English worthies such as Princess Elizabeth and her husband Philip. On her latest visit in 1992, the now Queen Elizabeth II requested to visit the villa where, it is believed, she conceived her son Charles, current heir to the British throne.Today the views of the hill are enjoyed by 3,000 ordinary citizens, and the best area is reserved for St. Luke's General Hospital. (...)
[GO BACK TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS] Hamrun was born as Ta' Braksja around 1500 and christened with its present name in 1881. In between, it lived the life of a fragmented village within the parishes of Birkirkara, Furjana and Qormi, and was known by the Italian name of its main road - Via San Giuseppe (Triq il-Kbira San Guzepp).
The transformation of Hamrun from a disjointed village into the large, busy town it is today started in the middle of the 19th century (...). It matured between 1881 and 1931, when the population zoomed from 4,960 to 22,086 to validate the town's motto Propera Augesco (I Grow Rapidly). (...)
When parish status became imminent in the 1860s and 70s, the expected patron was Saint Joseph, whose devotion the residents had cherished since the early 1600s. But Bishop Cajetan Pace Forno opted for his namesake. (...) Il- Hamrun, a family nickname, was adopted in 1848. The first official record of the new name was made in 1878 and the church adopted it in 1881 with the establishment of the new parish. (...)
[GO BACK TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS] During colonial days, the Maltese resented the way the British requisitioned the best parts of their country. A case in point is an area still referred to as il-Marsa ta' l-Inglizi (English Marsa). In 1869, the British set up a country club with facilities for horseback riding, rugby and polo. The rugby field has now been converted to a full stadium and Maltese-style horse races compete with the national soccer league for Sunday crowds. Names of streets in the area attest to the importance of horse racing - Tigrija (Race), Gerrejja (Jockeys), Serkin (Sulky), Haddied (Blacksmith), Stalel (Stables) (...)
Marsa was a national museum before it was a town. In the first half of the 17th century Gian Francesco Abela, "Father of Maltese historiography", turned his five-room country house at Marsa into Malta's first historical museum. Called Museo di San Giacomo, it was considered a collection of hidden monuments of ancient Malta. Abela's house is gone now, a power station occupying the site. But, despite damage and looting, the treasure that he left forms the basis of the National Archaeological Museum now located in Valletta...
...When the Turkish forces invaded the islands in 1565 they camped at Marsa to take advantage of the water. Anticipating this, Grand Master De la Valette had directed the Order's doctor to poison Marsa's wells. This action turned the enemy quarters into an ill-equipped hospital, as dysentery threatened more Turkish lives than Christian guns did. Ironically, part of the area where so many Turks died was later purchased by the Turkish government to build an Islamic Cemetery (1874). (...)
[GO BACK TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS] The hundred years between the building of Valletta and the plague of 1676 were prosperous for the Maltese Islands. But prosperity fed a problem: the harbour cities became overcrowded. During that period the population of Kottonera (Birgu, Bormla and Isla) doubled and that of Valletta skyrocketed. In the meantime an attractive area between the two remained largely uninhabited. Today this area is popularly known as Rahal Gdid (New Village), but it's not really a village and it's not exactly new either.
(...) Paula (also written Paola and Pawla) is now home to 9,522 people - more than Valletta or any of the other fortified cities. There is some light industry, but many of its residents make their living at the historic dry dock facilities located at Kottonera, where many pawlisti trace their roots to...
...The most important site of this archaeologically rich town was uncovered in 1902 by workers digging the foundation of new houses at al Saflieni, which lies in the vicinity of Ta' l-Gherien (Cave Lands). Maybe this name is coincidental, but what was discovered was an underground, three-storey, prehistoric structure built partly into existing caves and used for several religious functions, including burial. Every type of neolithic tool, from flint scraper to mallet, is represented. Parthenon of the Maltese stone age, it is known as Hypogeum, Greek for "beneath the ground", its lowest chambers lying 34 feet below the surface.
[GO BACK TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS] (...) The Ottoman threat, though, did not end in 1565. Recurring rumours of attacks forced the knights to spend much of their remaining two centuries in Malta fortifying and refortifying every vulnerable spot. As Furjana was built to shield Valletta, so was Bormla designed as a second line of defence for the rest of Kottonera, i.e. Birgu and Isla. This term - Kottonera - derives from Grand Master Nicholas Cotoner (1663-80), the driving force behind the fortifications. Cotoner's coat of arms, a cotton tree, is portrayed on Bormla's emblem above the motto Ingens Amplectitur Agger (Embraced by Bastions).
This motto is a perfect description of Bormla's history. As the population grew, Bormla was wrapped with a wall, then another. To acknowledge its leading role, Grand Master Zondadari renamed the city Città Cospicua (1721), a name that is still in use. (...)
Another strength of this city-fort is its faith. Again, Bormla's rise to fame started rock-bottom - inside a rock, actually. An early centre of devotion was just a cave dedicated to Our Lady of Succour but known also as St. Helen (Santa Liena). The devotion to this saint, responsible for the name of the nearby city gate, is due to a corruption of Chantereine, which sounds like Santa Liena. This was the city by which Pietro De la Fontaine, the knight who founded the church in 1557, was known.
There are other churches of old. Saint Theresa Church and Priory (1626) are noted for a presepju (Christmas scene) which has been featured on postal stamps. Mattia Preti and native son Rokku Buhagiar are among the major painters here, while Francesco Zahra's works adorn St. Margaret Church and Convent (1739) and St. Paul's Church (1590, rebuilt 1741). (...)
[GO BACK TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS] On January 10, 1941, the British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious staggered into the Grand Harbour. Damaged but not sunk after repeated bombings, it anchored near Isla. But the enemy was on the trail. Six days later low-flying German Stukas left 21 residents dead, widespread devastation, and the church clock stuck at 2:15 pm, as if to record the onslaught. A monument commemorates the victims of a war that severely tested the city's survival instincts.
War and survival weren't new to Isla, which was undergoing its second great siege. On their first school-day, the children of Isla enter the walls of war. Fort St. Michael, whose gallantry saved Malta from Suleyman's might in 1565, was torn down in 1922 to make room for the city's elementary school. Isla's Main Gate cuts through a bastion that once encased the fort.(...)
Another impressive bastion stands at the other end of town, at il-Ponta ta' l-Isla (Isola Point). This is best known for a frequently photographed vedette known as il-Gardjola ta' l-Isla. Sculpted on one side of this gardjola is an eye, an ear on another, a warning that the enemy can be seen and heard. An old Maltese saying - l-ajru ghandu ghajnu u l-hajt ghandu widintu (the air can see and the walls can hear) - is at times linked to this landmark. During World War II this vedette was disassembled, stone by numbered stone, and thus spared. (...)
Other outstanding citizens earned fame around the world. Seaman Juan Bautista Azopardo (1772-1848) achieved the highest naval honours in Argentina, where he is nothing short of a folk-hero. Ship-builder Louis Schickluna (1808-80) took his native skills to Ontario and became one of Canada's best.
Andrea De Bono (1821-1871), who traded ivory and explored part of the White Nile, was falsely accused of being an inhumane slave trader, but he defended himself valiantly and, in 1862, all charges against him were dropped.
Isla also defended itself valiantly against plagues and invaders. Thanks to its faith and determination, this gallant city survives.
[GO BACK TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS] It was never officially a capital, yet Birgu (Vittoriosa) is the epitome of a medieval capital city. Like Mdina, Valletta and Rabat, the cities that served as capitals for Malta and Gozo, il-Birgu consists of a heavily fortified citadel and a suburb across the moat. Similar to the Italian Borgo and the Greek Pirgos, the popular name was unique in the 15th century, when most localities in the archipelago had Arabic ones. In 1530, when the Knights of St. John arrived in Malta, Grand Master L'Isle Adam was given the keys to Mdina amid great pomp, but it was from Birgu that the Knights governed, leaving Mdina in the hands of the Maltese nobility. (...)
In 1565, the invading Turks opted to do away with St. Elmo, the fortress across the harbour in Valletta, before tackling the brawnier St. Angelo. St. Elmo took over a month to fall and cost the Turks 8,000 men. In a macabre tit-for-tat, the contemptuous Turks floated the headless bodies of Christian prisoners across the harbour and Grand Master Jean Parisot De la Valette fired the heads of moslem prisoners from his cannons in Birgu toward the fallen St. Elmo...
...De la Valette exhorted the defenders towards an astounding victory that earned their city the name Vittoriosa (Victorious) and the motto Victrix Palmam Fero (Victorious, the Palm I Bear). (...)
St. Angelo's victory was not only Malta's victory but also Europe's. Even protestant Queen Elizabeth I had expressed fear for her Britain when the Ottoman empire attacked Malta. London celebrated with bells and fireworks and prayers of thanksgiving were read for six weeks.The fort's cemetery holds the remains of the fallen, their graves covered by the Land Caltrops (Tribulus Terrestris). Legend claims that this flower feeds on the blood of the Great Siege heroes. Nature seems to support this tender fable. The flower resembles the eight-pointed Maltese Cross.
[GO BACK TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS] Kalkara is like the fourth member of a trio. Though excluded from the Kottonera group of cities (Birgu, Bormla and Isla), Kalkara is economically and historically an integral part of the area.
The war between the cross and the crescent four centuries ago was fought mainly at Forts St. Elmo and St. Angelo. The former fell, the latter carried the day. Both St. Elmo, rebuilt and standing proudly in Valletta, and St. Angelo, Birgu's symbol of magnificence, still bask in that triumph.
Today Kalkara has its fortress too, thus completing a formidable triangle of strongholds at the entrance of the Grand Harbour. But during the Great Siege of 1565 Kalkara was barren and in enemy hands. Still, it performed its daring part, dispatching replacements and supplies under cover of darkness. Kalkara was thus the lifeline that kept the defenders going. It is the unsung hero of the Great Siege.
Kalkara's relief at the end of the siege is portrayed in a moving piece of folklore. In a gesture of thanksgiving, a knight planted his sword in the ground in the image of a cross and knelt before it. Moved by his example, the people erected a large cross on the site of a church which the battle had destroyed but which was rebuilt soon after on orders by Grand Master De la Valette.
..If anything looks out of the ordinary, it could be a 20-metre iceberg or some other special effect built at the Mediterranean Film Studios. Here the traditional shipbuilding skills of the Maltese have been solicited to generate replicas and scale models of venerated vessels such as the Titanic and the Santa Maria.
END OF BOOK 1 [GO BACK TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS] [GO TO BOOK 2 - THE SOUTH]
We would like to thank Mr. Charles Fiott for granting us permission to publish the above excerpts.
Copyright © 1994 Charles Fiott - All Rights Reserved -
Towns and Villages in Malta and Gozo
Part 1: The Twin Harbour Area
Published by the Conventual Franciscans of Rabat (Religjon u Hajja), Malta - 1994
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Copyright © 1998 Michael Riccioli All Rights Reserved
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