Valletta: Mediterranean warmth and Anglo-Saxon understatement

Malta is a strategic outpost against the spread of Muslim doctrine in the West, and precisely for this reason it becomes the theatre of bloody clashes. The most famous battle is that of 1565, which definitively consecrates the Knights of Malta in the pantheon of heroes. Fort St Angelo, the fortified heart of Malta, is besieged for months. The clash is unequal: 40 thousand armed janissaries against 600 knights under the orders of Grand Master Jean de La Vallette. They are months of horror: on one side the captured knights are crucified and thrown into the sea, on the other the Muslim prisoners are beheaded and their heads used as ammunition for the cannons. Yet the courage and warrior skill of the knights manage to get the better of the countless enemy army. And not only: in the 5 years that follow a rich and shining city is erected, which will become the capital of the Island.

Its name, still today, is Valletta, in honour of the majestic leader.