ARX Occasional Papers (2013) No 3 - In Defence of the Coast

ARX - OCCASIONAL PAPERS ISSUE 3 / 2013 - THE BASTIONED TOWERS

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ARX - OCCASIONAL PAPERS - ISSUE 3/ 2013 - THE BASTIONED TOWERS

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ARX Occasional Papers - ISSUE 3 / 2013 In defence of the coast (i): The Bastioned Towers

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ARX - OCCASIONAL PAPERS ISSUE 3 / 2013 - THE BASTIONED TOWERS

In defence of the coast (i)

The Bastioned Towers A study of the large coastal towers erected by the Hospitaller Knights in the Maltese islands during the first decades of the seventeenth century

By Dr. Stephen C. Spiteri Ph.D.

The memorial to Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt, composed shortly after his death on 14 September 1622, pays tribute to the departed French grand master with the title of ‘scudo della fede’, (i.e., the shield, or protector, of the Faith), a title he earned for his assiduous efforts in safeguarding both the Religion and the Order, as well as his Maltese subjects, from the predatory menace of the Ottoman threat and that of its allies, the North African corsairs. The inscription reminds the reader that Wignacourt’s twenty-two year rule had been tirelessly devoted to this one purpose and foremost among his many benevolent feats were his labours to consolidate the islands’ defences and ensure their provisioning with adequate supplies of food, water, and munitions in times of war. Above all, it was Wignacourt’s determination to fortify the islands’ shores with coastal towers, works of fortification which he financed out of his very own pocket, that was to become the hallmark of his reign. His insistence to invest in coastal defences helped shape the subsequent defensive strategy of the tiny Hospitaller realm well into the 1700s.

That the building of a few coastal towers should have been a feat worthy of glorification, en par with Grand Master Jean de Valette’s founding of the magnificent fortress of Valletta, may seem, at first glance, a somewhat exaggerated claim. However, these were no ordinary and simple towers. For Wignacourt’s fortifications, although commonly called ‘towers’, were in effect veritable coastal forts – or fortini as they were sometimes called – sturdy strongholds capable of mounting heavy cannon and holding out against raiding parties. Above all, Wignacourt’s towers had addressed, for the very first time, the serious problem that had long been plaguing the Order, i.e., the vulnerability and exposure of the island’s shores to continual corsair incursions and depredations. For while the building

of Valletta had sufficiently tackled the defence of the convent and its harbours – in the eyes of the Order, the overriding strategic priority for a naval organization like that of the Knights of St. John whose primary instrument of war was its fleet of galleys – the lack of investment in coastal defences had left the rest of the island, together with the larger part of its rural settlements and agricultural concerns, wide open to attack.

For the first seventy years of the Order’s rule, the Knights of St. John had been unable, and perhaps to a certain degree, even unwilling, to construct any but the most essential defensive works, and these efforts, up to the end of the cinquecento, were mostly confined to the Grand Harbour area, dictated by the Hospitaller Knights’ need to establish a secure and heavily fortified convent and naval base. This did not mean, however, that the Order was unaware of the dangers inherent in such a course of action, which left the larger part of their tiny realm and its rural

Dr. Stephen C. Spiteri Dipl. (Int. Des.) RI, B.A. (Hons), Ph.D, was born in Malta, 15 September 1963. Dr. Spiteri works in Heritage Conservation and specializes in the military architecture of the Hospitaller Knights of St. John and the fortifications of the Maltese islands. He is the author of a number of books and studies on the military history and fortifications of Malta, the Knights of St. John, and British Colonial defences. He is a founding member of the Sacra Militia Foundation for the Study of Hospitaller Military and Naval History, and is also a part-time lecturer at the International Institute of Baroque Studies at the University of Malta, where he lectures on the history and development of military architecture, and on the art and science of fortification.

Dr. Spiteri is currently preparing new second editions of his books Fortresses of the Cross (1994) and The Great Siege of 1565 (2005).

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Above, Two views of the tower at Palatia, situated on the southwestern coast of the island of Rhodes. This is one of the best preserved coastal towers built by the Knights of St. John in fifteenth-century Rhodes. A wide network of coastal towers and watch-post was established by the Hospitaller Knights in the course of the mid-fifteenth century. (Image Source: Courtesy of the 4th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities, Rhodes). Opposite page, top right, Portrait of Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt, reigned 1601-1622. (Image Source: Courtesy of the National Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta).

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population vulnerable to the predatory activities of the Turkish and Barbary corsairs. Indeed, as early as 1533, for instance, the Knights had to suffer the indignity of witnessing the small unfortified island of Comino (situated between Malta and Gozo) being used by corsairs to shelter their galleys as they lay in ambush for unsuspecting vessels sailing to and from Sicily. On the contrary, the Knights had, earlier during their occupation of Rhodes, already learnt the importance of employing valuable lookout posts with which to keep a watchful eye on the movement of enemy shipping.(1) Nor could they have failed to appreciate the urgency for coastal defences when all around them along the shores of the Mediterranean, their Spanish and other Christian allies were busy stiffening the borders of their domains with hundreds of small coastal forts and watch-towers.

As a matter of fact, the mid-sixteenth century was to witness the largest implementation of coastal fortification schemes ever to take place around the shores of the Mediterranean – Sicily, Southern Italy, Sardinia, Majorca, Minorca, and the Spanish coastline – were fitted with coastal towers. After 1538, the year of Preveza, defences started to multiply in earnest around the coasts of Naples and Sicily. In 1567, for instance, 313 towers were erected around the shores of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Earlier, between 1535 and 1543, Ferrante Gonzaga had built some 137 towers along the southern and eastern shores of Sicily.

A rebuilding of many of the Sicilian watch towers was again under taken between 1583 and 1594. In 1583, the provveditore of the Venetian fleet could remark that the entire coast of the Apulia, which up until only a few years earlier had possessed very few watch-posts, was then so well protected that Turkish fuste were seeking easier prey in the Papal and Venetian territories further up the coast beyond the Spanish domains.(2) The Spanish Mediterranean coastline too, was receiving its share of coastal defences. Valencia, for example, had 52 watchtowers built by 1585.

That such a similar course of action failed to materialize in sixteenth-century Hospitaller Malta, therefore, is somewhat difficult to comprehend, especially given that the Order of St. John was often quick to pick up and implement the defensive trends and practices of mainland Europe. The Order’s contemporary documents and records fail to reveal any real debate on the issue, except for one which involved the need for a tower on Comino, an unresolved matter that went back to the Middle Ages. Coastal defences simply failed to feature in the Hospitaller Knights’ military strategy for the sixteenth century.

Undeniably, the one principal factor conditioning this state of affairs was the acute lack of financial resources which plagued the Order’s government in the years before and after the siege of 1565. No money could be spared for fortification schemes that diverted resources away from the most urgent priorities and these, at least up until the beginning of the seventeenth century, all focused around the task

ARX - OCCASIONAL PAPERS ISSUE 3 / 2013 - THE BASTIONED TOWERS

of securing the Grand Harbour enclave with its naval facilities. The defeat of the Turkish fleet at the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571, furthermore, would also have robbed the exponents of coastal defences, if there were any, of most of their argument, but this setback did not deter the Turks for long and the menace of Ottoman razzie was once again a reality by the end of the third quarter of the sixteenth century. Large Turkish fleets were soon sailing too close to the Malta for comfort. In 1574, for instance, some 300 Turkish vessels sheltered in the Comino channel for four days with total impunity before moving on. Again in 1582, a mighty Turkish fleet was slighted sailing just off the island and in the following year, four galliots from Bizerta raided Gozo, sacked its settlement of Rabat, and carried off seventy of its inhabitants into slavery. Again, in 1598, the corsair Cicala attacked Gozo with 2,000 men landed from his fleet of forty galleys but was repulsed by a sortie from the garrison of the Castello.

True, the Knight’s galleys generally managed to keep most marauding Turkish vessels away from the islands’ shores, but the Order’s small fleet of warships could not always be counted upon to patrol the seas, particularly during the open season when the galleys were often away on their caravana missions. The shores of the Maltese islands, with their many bays and landing places, were simply too porous not to invite corsair incursions and the absence of coastal defences only served to aggravate the situation.

The fact remained, however, that there was simply no money for coastal towers and defensible watch-posts for the protection of the rural settlements and outlying areas. So much so that when coastal towers did finally materialize in the early decades of the seventeenth century, it was only due to the personal contribution of Grand Master Wignacourt (as well as that of a couple of other Grand Masters after him who followed his example), who went out of his way to finance the works out of his very own pockets.

Wignacourt’s towers, therefore, represent a new phase in the Order’s defensive strategy, one that would lead, eventually, to the fortification of the whole island, indeed, of the whole archipelago, and the transformation of Malta into a veritable island-fortress by the end of the eighteenth century with miles upon miles of entrenchments defended by countless batteries, redoubts and towers. The claim in Grand Master’s funerary memorial that Wignacourt ‘con la Sua Magnificenza cinto Malta

di Turri (formidandum illius magnificentia cincta Turribus Melita)’ was surely not a hollow one. His handful of towers had laid the foundation for a network of coastal defences.

Indeed, the type of fortifications which Wignacourt and his military experts opted to construct, and the manner in which they positioned these elements around the shores of the three islands, were carefully chosen to fulfill clear defensive roles that combined the need for continual vigilance with the capacity to offer resistance to incursions. Wignacourt’s towers were designed to act as both sentinels and physical barriers to invasion, capable of holding their own against attack and commanding the surrounding areas and seaward approaches with their heavy firepower.

The cost of their construction and equipment, as a result, proved expensive. In all, seven large coastal towers were built during Wignacourt’s reign although the first was actually commissioned by Grand Master Garzes and paid for by the money left in his will during Wignacourt’s reign. Of the six towers attributed to Wignacourt, only five are documented as having been financed by the Grand Master. An official document in the Order’s archives listing all

Garzes Tower

Grand Master Gazes

1605 (still under construction in 1607)

12,000 scudi (allocated)

St. Paul Bay Tower

Grand Master Wignacourt

Proposed 1609

6,748 scudi 7 tari 10 grani

St. Lucian Tower

Grand Master Wignacourt

Begun mid-1610

11,745 scudi 2 tari 6 grani

St. Thomas Tower

Grand Master Wignacourt

Begun mid-1614

13,450 scudi 6 tari 4 grani

Marsalforn Tower

Order of St. John

Begun circa 1614/15

no record

Comino Tower

Grand Master Wignacourt

Completed 1618

18,628 scudi 5 tari 10 grani

Delle Grazie Tower

Grand Master Wignacourt

Begun 1620

4,948 scudi 3 tari 17 grani

First stone laid inn Feb. 1610

Completed 1616

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the numerous public works built by Wignacourt, albeit compiled much later in 1680 for Baili Adrien de Wignacourt (later himself also elected to the Magistracy in 1690-7) only lists five of the towers and omits the sixth in Gozo. Wignacourt’s will, drawn up prior to his death in 1622, also lists, very clearly, five towers and omits altogether the tower at Marsalforn in Gozo: ‘Di più doniamo alla n[ost]ra Sacra Religione le cinque fortezze, nominate cioè l’una al Comino, S.ta Maria, l’altra alla Cala di San Paolo, S. Paolo, l’altra alle marine di Casal Zabar, della Madonna della Grazia, l’altra à Marzascala S. Tomaso, l’altra à Marzascirocco S. Luciano; li quali sono stati fabricate à n[ost]re grandissime spese con tutti le armi, Artiglierie, Artificij di fuoco, monitioni et altri provissioni, et recapiti, che sono in esse abondantissim[amen]te. Incaricando sotto strettissima obligatione alli Gran M[aest]ri n[ost]ri successori il mantenimento, et l’intiera conservation di esse poiche essendo state fabricate con travaglio grandissimo et con spesa eccessiva per assicurare quest Isola dall’incursioni dei Nemici, e delli Danni, che potranno fare l’Armate Turchesche, e giustam[en]te cosa che siano riparati con ogni maggior studio.’

The Marsalforn Tower appears to have been paid for by the Order although no record has been found in the minutes of the Order’s Council ordering its construction. For many years, this tower (the fourth in the series of the towers constructed during Wignacourt’s reign) was considered something of a mystery until a specific mention of its construction, fixing its date securely within Wignacourt’s reign in 1616, was discovered by the late Brig. A SamutTagliaferro and published in his book, The Coastal defences of Gozo and Comino, in 1993. Together, the five towers cost Wignacourt some 55,519 scudi.

This amounted to around one-eight of his total benefactions to the Order. The Grand Master’s will, however, states that the towers cost him only around 40,000 scudi, with a further provision of another 400 scudi ‘per mantenimento dell cinque torri’.

Coastal Defences The new impetus for coastal defences only starts to manifest itself around the turn of the seventeenth century when Malta began, once again, to attract the attention of the Turks. The allarme generale of 1598, caused by the sighting of over 40 enemy vessels off Left, top, View of Capo Passero (Passaro) Tower, Sicily. Left, Drawing and plan of the Capo Passero Tower as documented

by Francesco Negro and Carlo Maria Ventimiglia in their Atlante di Città e Fortezze del Regno dio Sicilia in 1640 ( Image source: Courtesy of Nicola Aricò, Messina 1992). Right, top. Eighteenthcentury manuscript map of Mgarr Harbour in Gozo, showing in detail, a representation of Garzes Tower. Bottom right, Plan of Garzes Tower after Palmeus - note the roof-top turret. (Image source: Courtesy of the National Library of Malta).

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Above, Portrait of Grand Master Martin Garzes (reigned 15951601).

Capo Passero, Sicily, (soon to be followed by other emergencies) appears to have been the incident that kick-started the whole process. Indeed, the first mention of a coastal tower appears very soon after, in 1599, during the reign of Grand Master Martin Garzes (1595–1601), and is found in the papers of the Italian military engineer Giovanni Rinaldini da Ancona, who had been quickly invited to Malta to help the Knights reorganize Gozo’s defences.

The idea was conceived as part of Rinaldini’s original concept for the defence of Malta’s sister island of Gozo (3) which, apart from the need for the construction of a new bastioned fortress, also called for the erection of a coastal tower at Mġarr harbour for the purpose of guarding the channel between Gozo and Comino. Grand Master Garzes did not live long enough to see the implementation of the scheme but left enough money in his will, to the tune of 12,000 scudi, to guarantee the tower’s construction: Eadem die: C Ill.mus et R.mus fris felicus recorationis Magnus Magister ___ frater Martinus Garzes sepe dum viveret de excitanda Turri cogitaret in Insula Gaulo ad litus freti, qd illam a Melita dividit inxta fontem illic scaturientem ad arcenda pyratar navigia, que illuc frequenter aquatam Navigant, ad quod opus morte preventas duodecum millia aureor legavit …. ut Turris quadrata eo in loco sub auspicijs prelibali’.

Works on this, the first of the coastal towers, were initiated in 1605, and the structure was still under construction in 1607. Unfortunately none of the designs which accompanied Rinaldini’s projects have come to light to enable a proper understanding of the original shape of his proposed tower.

Consequently, it is difficult to judge if the structure which was eventually built (named Torre Garzes in 7

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Detail from an early nineteenth-century painting by Salvatore Busuttil showing Garzes Tower from the north-east. Note the echaugettes. (Image source: Courtesy of the National Museum of Fine Arts).

honour of the Grand Master) actually followed his prescription.

An entry in the Order’s records describes Grazes Tower as ‘fatta in modo d’un piccolo castello con la sua chiesa titulare di S. Martino, nella quale si celebrano le messe in tutti li giorni di festa di precetto, et in altri secondo la decitione de popoli, ivi sono tutte le commodità per il Castellano residente, soldati e loro famiglie, sala d’armi, polverista, et ogn’ altro che si ricerca per vivere con commodità p. gli habitanti in essa; munita d.ta torre con artiglieria, mascoli, moschettoni di posta, moschetti, bandoliere, alabardi, polvere, palle di cannoni, piombo et altra munitione di Guerra per sua difesa … tiene pure la taverna per commodità de soldati et alcun habitante nella contrada’. Evidently, a large tower! (4) Above, top, Detail from an 18th-century map of the coastal defences of Gozo showing the location of Garzes Tower.

(Image Source: Courtesy of the National Library of Malta).

Right, Drawing of about 1827 showing the large windowlike embrasures opening in the south face of Garzes Tower overlooking Mġarr harbour and the small turret mounted on the roof.

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Unfortunately, Garzes Tower was demolished by the British authorities in 1848 and its stonework was used to construct the central section of the arched bridge which was erected to convey a new road across Mġarr valley. Were it not for the survival of a few maps and a couple of sketches and paintings, we would be in the dark as to what the tower really looked like since the records do not give away many clues vis-a-vis its composition and structure, apart from its overall dimension and square base plan, as well as some information on the use of the internal spaces and type and quantity of its armament. Palmeus’ map of Mġarr, together with an anonymous late seventeenth-century sketch, both show a squattish, squarish structure with sloping walls crowned by a small turret, mounted in the middle of its roof in the form of a vedette. This

Guerite

Kitchen (Cucina) Guerite

This page, Author’s graphic reconstructions of Grazes Tower based on a manuscript plan drawn up in the mid-eighteenth century by Francesco Marandon, the Order’s resident military engineer. In both De Palmeus’ plan and the 1837 drawing, Garzes Tower is shown as having a small superstructure in the form of a roof-mounted turret, or vedette, similar to that later built on the 1720 Marsalforn Tower. Busuttil’s painting fails to show the roof-mounted turret and the steps leading up to the entrance. The number of embrasures on the tower’s parapet differs in the various representations of the tower. Palmeus’ plan shows four embrasures on each face.

of a lack of funds and were only completed towards the end of 1607, under the direction of the ingegnere regio Giuliano Lasso (5) – in other words, nearly three years after the commencement of works on the construction of the Garzes Tower in Gozo. Agius de Soldanis’ statement, nonetheless, is correct in pointing out the similarity between the two. In fact, this tower was well known to the Maltese since it was frequently visited by the Order’s galleys on their outbound corsos, when Order’s ships used to stop near the tower to ask for news on the movement of Barbary corsair vessel plying in the vicinity. The Capo

Masonry plinth

Entrance into tower

A report by Francesco Marandon (1743) describes the tower’s drawbridge as a ‘ponte à fleccie’

curious feature seems to have been added in the late 1700s (similar to the one built by Mondion on top of the Marsalforn tower in 1720) as it is not mentioned in the earlier descriptions of the tower and disappears by the early 1800s. Nor is it shown in Salvatore Busuttil’s painting, the best visual record of the tower to survive. Another feature of this tower, not repeated in any of the later patterns, were its two guerite or echaugettes.

Agius de Soldanis, writing in the early eighteenth century, states that the design of Garzes was based on that of the large tower of Capo Passero, in nearby Sicily. This is not really correct, for although first designed by the Spanish engineer Diego Sanchez in 1599, works on the Capo Passero Tower were abandoned soon after because Vaulted embrasures

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Living quarters

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Above, Detail from De Palmeus’ map of Mġarr Harbour showing Garzes Tower and an unrealized mid-eighteenth-century proposal for the construction of a bastioned enceinte around the said tower. (Image source of plan: Courtesy of the National Library of Malta). Below, Author’s graphic interpretation of the bastioned entrenchment proposed in De Palmeus’ map above.

De Palmeus’ map also depicts two other defensive works, namely a sea-level coastal battery (marked ‘27’ on the left side of the bay) and an inland redoubt labelled as ‘Redoubt de Buzotil’ - the latter was not built.

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Passero tower is still standing and is a massive work. A comparison of the two towers shows that Garzes Tower had various features which were in common with its more famous Sicilian counterpart, mostly its large and squattish square plan and its turretless casemated form.

Certainly, it is the presence of the corner turrets in the towers that were soon to follow the Garzes’ structure, built during the reign of Grand Master Garzes’ successor, the Frenchman Alof de Wignacourt, which was to characterize the first generation of dedicated Hospitaller coastal works of fortification. It was these elements in the design of these first Hospitaller coastal towers – i.e., their bastion-like corner turrets – which sets them distinctly apart from other tower typologies (with the exception of the Marsalforn example, built in 1616, which had no turrets) to be found around the shores of the Mediterranean and elsewhere. There are simply no other towers like them still to be seen, except for a handful of examples in Cuba, and in Sicily which, as will be shown in due course, only materialized at a later date.

It was the late Prof. Quentin Hughes, in his pioneering studies on Maltese fortifications, who was the first scholar to recognize the uniqueness of the Wignacourt towers’ design and the fact that their corner turrets were actually veritable embryonic bastions, calculated to allow a limited degree of flanking fire along the faces of the intervening faces, making these towers, in essence, bastioned forts.

This quality is most evident and pronounced in St. Thomas Tower at Marsascala (1614) where the turrets actually project outwards from the base to form true corner bastions, unlike in the other towers where they rise from the face of the scarped walls to form turrets, as will be shown further down.

Hughes, however, did not delve into the issue of the authorship or the evolution of the design, largely because at the time it was traditionally assumed that the towers were the product of the genius of the Maltese resident military engineer Vittorio Cassar, son of the renowned Girolamo Cassar and assistant to the Papal military engineer, Francesco Laparelli, during the building of the fortified city of Valletta.

This attribution was put forward in the seventeenth century by the historian Gio. Francesco Abela (1647), and was never challenged. (6) Actually, Abela was only referring to the Comino Tower which was the fifth of the Wignacourt towers (1618) to be built, yet this has often been taken to also imply his authorship of the design of the previous four structures. The bastioned tower design was adopted again after a gap of 27 years, and for the last time, during the reign of Grand Master Lascaris, in the building of Fort St. Agatha at Mellieħa. Much more is known about this last of the bastioned towers than all the rest of the Wignacourt towers put together, including the name of its designer, but by this stage the Order was simply re-applying the formula that had been devised in Wignacourt’s time.

Nowadays, Abela’s claim and the implications derived therefrom are problematic on the basis of the fact that Vittorio Cassar is now known to have died before the building of all the towers, with the exception of the Grazes Tower. Abela’s assertion, however, has long been responsible for misguiding

historians of Hospitaller military architecture into assuming that the Wignacourt turreted/bastionedtower design, owing to the absence of any known similar structures elsewhere, may have been developed locally and independently of outside influence. The latest research by the present author, however, shows that this is not the case. Indeed, as will be shown in the course of this study, the basic concept of the turreted / bastioned tower design seems to have been strongly influenced by the work of the Antonelli family of military engineers who worked for Philip II in both the Iberian peninsula as well as in Spanish possessions in the New World.

The first turreted-tower design, in fact, was built as early as 1576 and the physical remains of this prototype are still to be found at Alfaquez, along the Mediterranean shores of Spain.

Most of the arguments tackled in this paper were first proposed by the present author in a detailed monograph on St. Thomas Tower (7).

Although that paper sought to point out the similarity between the Wignacourt towers and those built by the Antonellis in Cuba, a similitude hitherto gone unnoticed by scholars, it was then still unclear which of the two came first. The Alfaquez structure at the mouth of the Ebro, however, now provides the missing link. This new ‘discovery’, nonetheless, only solves the issue of the possible origins of the turreted-tower design solution and concept.

It does not answer the question of who the actual designer of the six Wignacourt towers was. In other words, were these towers designed by a foreign military engineer brought over by the Order specifically for the task, or was he a local architect / capomastro instructed to base his designs on blue-prints sent from abroad? Furthermore, one can neither dismiss the possibility that the towers were designed by more than one individual given the fact that they were built over the course of some eleven years and also because, despite their shared design concept, each had its very own distinctive features and layout. Indeed, the bastioned towers were anything but a standardized design. Further research, therefore, is evidently still required and will continue to form the basis of the author’s studies. But even if the design concept of the bastioned towers was heavily borrowed, this does not make the Maltese structures any less fascinating. For these towers provide a rare set of fortification typologies – solidly and finely built structures, unique in their combination of features, textures and methods of construction. St. Mary Tower on the island of Comino, for instance, adopted a combination of various close-in defence features including a musketry gallery and a countermined glacis.

These bastioned towers serve to document the evolution of seventeenth-century military architecture and the attempts of military engineers to address the obsolescence of the traditional tower forms in a new age of gunpowder warfare where it was felt necessary to endow even the smallest of defensive structures with the benefits of the flanking capabilities provided by the bastioned trace.

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Wignacourt’s Bastioned Towers

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5

Cittadella

6 COMINO 1

2

GOZO

7 4

Valletta Mdina 3 Map of the Maltese islands showing the location of the early seventeenth-century coastal towers

MALTA

1. Garzes Tower, Gozo - 1605 2. St. Paul Tower - 1609 3. St. Lucian Tower - 1610 4. St. Thomas Tower - 1614 5. Marsalforn Tower, Gozo - 1616 (completed) 6. St. Mary Tower, Comino - 1618 7. Delle Grazie Tower - 1620 8. Mellie침a Tower - 1647/9

visual lines of communication

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The first of the structures to adopt these corner turrets was the tower erected by Grand Master Wignacourt at St. Paul’s Bay, in the north of Malta.

We know from the Order’s records that a design and a model of the new tower were first presented to the Order’s council by Grand Master Wignacourt on the 7 November 1609: (8) ‘Monsign. Illmo Gran Maestro fatto vedere alli Vend. Signori del Consiglio il disegno, et modello di una Torre, che per molti buoni effetti converebbe, che si fabricasse alla Cala di San Paolo specialmente per guardare il porto della Mistra cossi da inimici, como par sicurezza delle Galere, et altri vascelli amici quando gli convenesse per nottare in detta Cala, e porto: Fu di unanimo, e concordo voto, e parere di tutti li signori de Consiglio laudato et approbato il bon pensiero, e disegno di fabricare la detta Torre, et cosi hanno ordinate, che si debba fabricare: il che udito da sua Sig. Ill. ma spontaneamente si offrese di farla fabricare, a spese sue proprie, e non del comun Tesoro, del che fu molto laudato, e ringratiato da tutti li su[detti] signori di esso Ven. Consiglio’ The project seems to have been on the cards for some time, for earlier, the Grand Master had appointed a special commission to inspect the Cala di San Paulo and its neighbouring areas with the intention of identifying a suitable site for the tower. In its report, entitled ‘Relatione del Sito dela Gran Cala

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St. Paul (Bay) Tower

Above, A post-war view of the east side of St. Paul Tower showing very clearly the buttressing which was added to the lower half of the structure around 1761. Below, One of the earliest photographic images of St. Paul Tower, taken around the late 1860s, and showing it still equipped with drawbridge, wooden palisade, and sentry box. Note that the string courses had already disappeared from the western face of the tower while various small rooms had been grafted onto the foot of the structure. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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di S.to Paulo de Malta dove si disegna far fabricare una buona e grossa Torre,’ the commissioners recommended a spot on a little headland set between two small anchorages in the vicinity of the old church of St. Paul, opposite the mouth of Mistra Bay just across the harbour: (9) ‘Havendosi V.S. Ill.ma alli giorni passati comandato che andassimo a rivedere, e riconoscere tutto il sito della gran Cala di S. Paolo [ ___]gere in quella un luogo atto e conveniente per fabbricarci una Torre, lo quale in ogni evento, che li n[ost]ri.

Vasselli, come quelli d’amici da qualsi voglia accidente di sopra presa Inimica, potessero assicurare come ancora se in ditto Porto volessero entrare Vasselli senza haver espresso lic[enz]a da V.S. Ill.ma o’ vero se dentro vi si ritrovassero per la med.ma [ _____] ne potessero uscire, vietandoli ancora di poter far acqua.’

Above, Detail from a map of the coastal defences of Malta, c. 1761, showing the location of St. Paul Tower and its 1715 battery together with other proposed coastal entrenchments that were never built. (Image Source: Courtesy of the National Library of Malta).

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The inspection was accompanied by a detailed and measured survey of the whole bay and its various inlets, no mean a task by any standards, especially with the limited instruments available at the time, and the information was used to draw up a measured plan of the bay, and this, in turn, was then employed to create a scale model of the area: ‘Percio visto e riconosciuto il tutto particolarmente ci parse che la Punta vicina alla Chiesa di S. Paulo fusse la più alta, e proportionate per fabricarvi d[ett]a Torre, onde si levò la pianta con tutte le distanze, e misure di tutta la d[ett]a gran Cala facendone il disegno, sopra il quale se ne fatto il modello, sicche per la veduta e frontier che ha la d[ett]a Punta con il Porto, ò sia Cala detta la Mista [Mistra] che e dentro detta gran Cala di San Paulo che non vi è dal una all’altro più distanza; che di circa 250 canne; e i pezzi d’Artiglieria che

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This page, and bottom left, Author’s graphic reconstructions of St. Paul Tower based on Milcent’s 1715 plans and sectional elevations reproduced above (Image source of Milcent’s drawings: Courtesy of Dr. Albert Ganado).

Note that the tower originally only had two turret super structures.

Eventually, the north-west turret was fitted with a small rectangular sentry post (a vedette) which was built to protect the sentries on guard duty during winter.

The tower was built of two superimposed barrels vaults, the lower one of which could only be accessed from inside the first floor, via a flight of steps cut into the floor of the first storey. This flight of steps was eventually removed and is now replaced by a spiral stairs.

Another flight of steps, built into the thickness of the south wall, provided access from the first floor to the

roof, or terrazzo, of the tower. This served as the tower’s main gun battery and was strong enough to mount two cannon.

St. Paul Tower does not appear to have been enveloped by a ditch although one may have been added along its flanks following the addition of the battery on the north seafacing side of the tower in 1715. (Graphic reconstructions by the Author).

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si metteranno sopra detta Torre la potranno molto bene guardare, come anco le due acque che surgano alle marine di d[ett]a Cala; affermando che sopra detta Punta starà tanto meglio posta la d[ett]a Torre, quanto che l’è la più vicina alla strada Maestra, et al Casal Nassaro’. (10) It would appear, then, that it was the nature and extent of this chosen location, a small headland with a low frontal cliff-face that made the position unassailable from the sea, which actually dictated the dimensions and size of the tower. Indeed, it was the commissioners themselves, charged with identifying the site, who went on to propose the actual features and dimensions of the tower that could be erected on the site:

The heavily consumed northern face of St. Paul Tower, showing its original three string courses (or cordons) which punctuated its elevation. The tower has a cordon at its base, resting on a footing.

This is a very rare feature, the only one of its kind to be found in Maltese Hospitaller fortifications and possibly a signature mark of the unknown architect who designed the tower. Generally, cordons were inserted either at the base of the parapet or where the sloping scarp gave way to vertical walls.

It surely serves to dispel the mistaken popular notion that cordons were meant to prevent rain water from streaming down the face of a rampart. Cordons were a purely aesthetic feature.

(Image source: Author’s private collection).

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‘ ... la quale Torre si potra fare à guiditio n[ost] ro quadra di sette canne [roughly 15m] per facciata, et alta quaranata filate [40 courses high] che sono circa cinque canne e mezzo [11m], sic che la piazza di sopra dove ha da stare l’Artiglieria sara più di 4 canne per ogni verso, che il restante si consuma la scarpa, et il parapetto, onde ogni buon pezzo havera la sua conveniente ritirata.’ (11) Interestingly, these dimensions are very close to those of the structure that was eventually built.

The present tower measures around 14 metres at the base and is around 45 courses high (including the parapet). What this means, effectively, is that there was no set design or a specific plan drawn up for the tower up until that point in time and that the subsequent design was based on the commissioners’ recommendations. Evidently, the tower features and its dimensions were dictated Below, Author’s graphic cut-away reconstruction drawing of St. Paul Tower, showing its interior layout. Right, Eighteenthcentury drawing of St. Paul Tower. (Image source: Illustrated London News - Author’s private collection)

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View of northern and north-western faces of St. Paul Tower. Both the turret’s superstructure and the small corbelled machicolation are modern reconstructions.

The tower suffered considerable damage throughout the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries before it was taken over by Din L-Art Ħelwa, Malta’s leading voluntary heritage organization, which continues to run and manage the structure.

(Image source: Author’s private collection).

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by the site. It is not clear, however, what the words ‘conveniente ritirata’ actually signify. Are these alluding to retired flanks – formed by projecting corner turrets? If this is so, then here lies the first mention of the tower’s characteristic features.

The technical specifications mentioned in the report strongly suggest that this small commission of military experts must have included (as was often the established practice) at the least one qualified person with an architectural competence, possibly the military engineer responsible for the final design or a resident engineer (sometimes both).

Unfortunately, the Order’s records give no clues as to his identity. If the report was drawn up only a short while before its submission to the Council in November 1609, then this architect could not have been Vittorio Cassar, who was already dead by that time. Howevermore, the report is undated, so the issue remains unsolved.

Grand Master Wignacourt sent a copy of the commissioners’ report to the Order’s ricevitore in Naples, the Knight Fra Vincenzo la Marra, on 30 November 1609, instructing him to forward it to the Viceroy of Sicily, in order to keep the latter informed of the latest developments in Malta. (12) It is not clear if the Grand Master was simply informing the Viceroy out of courtesy, or else seeking some sort of approval for the project. His need to ‘sentire’ that the Viceroy ‘approvi, e lodi questo nro. Pensiero’ tends to suggest that the Order was anxious to justify the move.

Construction works on St. Paul Bay Tower began early in the following year. The foundation stone laying ceremony was held on 10 February 1610 in the presence of the Grand Master and the clergy of the Mdina Cathedral following a procession and solemn mass at the nearby church of St. Paul: ‘... ad 10 Feb. 1610 si portò personal[men]te per esser p[rese]nte al metter della prima Pietra della Torre e intervene quivi ancora il Clero della Catedrale processional[en]te fu cantata la Messa del spirito Santo nella Capella di S. Paolo posta alla riva di d. Cala dove Segui il Miracolo della Vipera quand d[ett]o S[an]to andando a Roma fece in d[ett] a Cala naufragio secondo che racconta S. Luca nelli Atti dell’Apostoli.’ (13) A study of the tower shows it to have been very finely built with considerable attention to architectural detail. Constructed of smoothly finished stonework, its elevations were punctuated by three horizontal mouldings. Most of the cordons have disappeared, removed or replaced in the course of later repair works. The scarps along the south and south east faces, for example, were enclosed by a large buttress in the course of the mid-seventeenth century when fissures were noted in the tower and it was even proposed to have it pulled down. The seaward facing elevation is the best preserved and gives a clear idea of the balanced architectural proportions. The addition of a string-course to the footing at the base of the tower reveals a level of refinement that is not usually found in similar works of fortification. From Wignacourt’s will, we also 20

Above, top, View of the vaulted interior of the first floor of St. Paul Tower, showing the main entrance (centre), the recess for the gabinetto (left), and the entrance to the intra-mural flight of steps leading up to the roof of the tower (right). Above, Detail of the original stout wooden door closing off the main entrance to the tower. This is the only door of its kind to survive from Hospitaller times. A drawbridge lifting mechanism, referred to in the documents as ‘à Viraveux’ was located immediately inside the vaulted passageway. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

know that the tower proudly displayed the Grand Master’s coat of arms on a marble escutcheon. This has unfortunately disappeared. It would have been similar to those still fixed to the walls of St. Lucian, St. Paul and the Comino towers.

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Early twentieth-century photograph of the south façade of St. Paul Tower, showing the various modifications that had been made to it by this time, when it was being used as a police station. The most notable alteration was the opening of a second doorway – this led directly to the intramural flight of steps going up to the roof. Note that the wooden drawbridge has disappeared and the gap between the flight of steps and the tower entrance has been bridged by a masonry arch. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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Views of the seaward side of St. Paul Tower in its present-day context, showing clearly how the low cliff-face was exploited in the siting of the structure, since it provided the tower with an added measure of security by rendering it virtually impossible to assault from the direction of the sea. (Image source: Author’s private collection). The tower was not placed at the edge of the cliff, but withdrawn a few metres inwards. This rocky shelf served to protect the tower from heavy seas but was later exploited, in 1715, and reworked into a coastal battery capable of housing two 18-pdr guns which were then considered too heavy to be mounted on top of the tower (see author’s graphic plan below).

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St. Lucian Tower The second tower to be built by Grand Master Wignacourt was St. Lucian Tower. This was erected at the other end of the island, inside Marsaxlokk Bay, the largest anchorage in the southern part of Malta. This wide and spacious bay had been a constant source of worry for the Hospitaller Knights, providing as it did an open back door into the very heart of the island and its fortified harbour core a few miles to the north-west. The Ottoman invasion of Malta in 1565 had shown quite clearly how an unprotected Marsaxlokk Bay could easily accommodate the disembarkation of the vast Turkish armada which then could go on to lay siege to the Order’s strongholds inside the Grand Harbour.

St. Lucian Tower was a significantly much larger structure than St. Paul Tower. Its base plan was practically four times the size of its predecessor and was evidently conceived as a development over the initial design adopted at St. Paul Bay. Again, a proposal for its construction, accompanied by a drawing and a scale model, was presented by the Grand Master to his Council on 1 July 1610: ‘Mon. Ill.mo Gran Maestro per ministero dell’ Signori Commissarij delle opere fece vedere alli Signori del Ven. Consiglio il disegno e modello d’una Torre da fabbricare di novo per guardia della Cala di Marza Scirocco’. (14) Once more, the Grand Master offered to cover the costs out of his own pockets, much to the universal approval and gratitude of the Council members and the knights of the Order, and … ‘per benefitio universal di tutta l’Isola’. The work was embarked upon with great enthusiasm and the tower was practically completed in just around ten to eleven months for on 11 June of the following year the Grand Master, accompanied by many Knights Grand Crosses and other brethren, sailed on board the Galera Capitana to examine the finished edifice and witness its arming with bronze cannon and munitions.

‘A 11 di Giugno 1611 con una cimmittiva di Gran Croce e Cava[glier]I s[opra] le Galere Cap[itan]a e P[ad] rona vi ando doppo esser edifacato e fece mettere l’aArtiglieria di Bronzo e buon n[ume]ro di Armi’. (15) Despite its obviously larger size, which demanded the use of two rather than one barrel vault, St. Lucian Tower represented no significant design development over its smaller predecessor.

The primary advantage derived from its bigger footprint was its ability to mount a larger number of cannon on its terrace platform – seven pieces of heavy ordnance when compared to only two guns mounted on St. Paul’s Bay Tower (see comparative table of armaments on page 96). St. Lucian’s main distinctive design feature, when compared with the rest of the Wignacourt towers, were the bulbous projections of the parapets on the corner turrets.

These may have been designed to extend the reach 24

Above, St. Lucian Tower (Image Source: Author’s private collection). Below, Detail from a map of the coastal defences of Malta, c. 1761, showing the location of St. Lucian Tower and its 1715 battery, together with proposed coastal entrenchments.

(Image Source: Courtesy of the National Library of Malta).

The tower was approached by a masonry flight of steps (demolished in the course of the nineteenth century by the British military) and was entered via a small opening in the northern face, which was served by a wooden drawbridge of the fleccie con catena type. St. Lucian Tower was not enveloped by a ditch.

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This page, Author’s graphic reconstructions of St. Lucian Tower based on Milcent’s 1715 plans (shown on the following page). Note that the tower originally only had smaller lateral guardrooms crowing the main façade whilst the parapets on the four turrets were lower and had no sloping superior slope.

These alterations may have been made to the tower in the 1790s when it was subjected to various works as part of the efforts to convert the tower and 1715 battery into what was renamed as Fort Rohan.

A flight of steps built into the thickness of the wall provided access from the first floor to the roof, or terrazzo, of the tower.

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Plans and sectional elevations of St. Lucian Tower by the French military surveyor and draughtsman Milcent, drawn in 1715. (Image source: Courtesy of Dr. Albert Ganado).

Far right, opposite page, top, Detail from a map of the coastal defences of Malta, c. 1761, showing St. Lucian Tower and the 1715 battery with its internal loopholed redoubt. (Image Source: Courtesy of the National Library of Malta): middle and bottom, Detail of the cordon and moulding and view of the east façade of the tower showing the turret with its bulbous parapet and sloping lower half. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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of the defenders standing on the turrets in order to enable them to drop projectiles onto the base of the tower, given that the turrets projected vertically only from half way up the scarp. In a way, perhaps, these bulbous parapets were meant to function like medieval machicolations. Indeed, evidence for the presence of a box machcoulis has survived on the faces of one of the turrets at St. Paul’s Bay Tower. The parapet at St. Lucian’s originally had no superior slope, as at present, which feature appears to be the result of Tousard’s alterations and conversion of the tower into Fort Rohan in the 1790s, or perhaps even later by the British military.

Interestingly, the parapet’s surface was flat and low, intended to allow the guns to fire en barbette, as can be clearly gleamed from the drawings prepared by the French draughtsman, Milcent, which show three cannon on field carriages deployed ‘à mezza ruota’. Like the Garzes Tower, St. Lucian’s was given a larger and heavier type of drawbridge lifting mechanism employing fleccie e catena, unlike that which was used at St. Paul’s Bay Tower, which was described in eighteenth-century documents as being ‘à virevaux’. (16) The use of the larger fleccie e catena mechanisms, however, required a vertical scarp as it was difficult to place the recesses of the retractable wooden arms in a sloping face. Indeed, in both St. Lucian and St. Thomas, the entrance ways and their drawbridge lifting mechanisms were placed inside protruding vertical turrets. Those towers with sloping face walls were generally given simpler chain and tackle mechanisms (and here one should also include the Mellieħa, Mġarr ixXini, Xlendi, Dwejra and Nadur towers). The only exception was the Comino tower, whose drawbridge mechanism was placed outside the main structural shell and on the wall of the enveloping plinth (which served as a covered faussebraye and musketry gallery – see reconstruction on page 55).

The detached stairway itself was also an interesting feature in its own right and only appears to have been introduced locally for the first time at Garzes Tower. All the Wignacourt towers were equipped with one but these all varied in height and number of steps and not all were fitted with side parapets. A feature of these detached stairways were two or more corbel stones which projected outwards from the highest part of the inner wall facing the tower. These corbels were designed to receive and support the outer extremity of the wooden drawbridge in its lowered position. The stairways were themselves fitted with wooden palisaded gates tipped with metal spikes. The wooden palisades were meant to provide a degree of added protection against a coup de main, serving to delay attackers enough for the drawbridge to be pulled up and the tower’s door closed off. The best documented rastello, as such devices were then called, is that of St. Paul’s Bay Tower, which was fan-shaped, ‘à ventaglio’, with a gate 5 palmi wide (see image on page 69).

(17) Various mid-nineteenth-century photographs show a couple of these towers still equipped with such devices but it is not clear if the palisades 27

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The four corner-turrets at St. Lucian Tower are crowned with bulbous parapets that project outwards. Originally, as can be seen from Milcent’s 1715 drawings, the parapets had no sloping superior slope and were, as a result, much lower to enable guns mounted on the tower to be fired en barbette. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

Opposite page, Author’s graphic reconstruction of the tower after it was enclosed within a low enclosure and rockhewn ditch designed by the Order’s French resident military engineer, Antoine Etienne de Tousard, around 1792. The reconstruction is based on an early nineteenthcentury outline plan (see page 31). The new complex was renamed Fort Rohan in honour of Grand Master de Rohan.

The seawardfacing section consisted of a large semicircular battery which was built in 1715, and its defensible, arrowheadshaped blockhouse occupying the gorge of the battery at the foot of the tower.

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shown in these illustrations and photographs were original Hospitaller rastelli, or else British-period replacements. By 1693, for instance, Marsalforn Tower’s palisade still lacked metal tips. Blondel believed the rastello of this particular tower to be ‘piccolo basso e stretto’ and so recommended that it be reinforced with 22 spikes some 40 cms long as well as ‘due raddopiate ad angolo retto per l’estrimata delle sue ali’. Garzes Tower, we are told by Francesco Marandon, the Order’s resident engineer, had its rastello designed ‘alla Maltese’, implying a locally preferred pattern, but this, it seems, could not ‘impedire nessuno ad entrare’ – in other words, it was ineffective! (18) Redoubt with loopholed walls – accessed internally from tower

As already mentioned, the costs for the construction of St. Lucian Tower were covered personally by the Grand Master. These amounted to a hefty and not insignificant sum of 11,745 scudi, but the Grand Master must have blessed every scudo spent on it for only a few years later, in 1614, its guns helped repulse an attack by a large Turkish raiding force of some sixty vessels under the command of Khalil Pasha. The Turks, however, managed to put ashore some 5,000 men in the then still-unguarded St. Thomas Bay, a few kilometers to the north, ravaging various villages in the south of the island before being compelled to withdraw by a strong militia force sent out to confront it.

Tousard’s enceinte

Coastal battery with embrasures built in 1715

Ditch 29 Copyright - Dr. Stephen C. Spiteri Ph.D - 2013

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Author’s proposed reconstruction of Fort Rohan, c.1798.

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View from the sea of Fort St. Lucian, showing the tower and the seaward-facing enceinte of the British nineteenth-century coastal fort which was built in 1872 to replace the earlier eighteenthcentury defences of Fort Rohan.

(Image source: Author’s private collection). Right, Two plans showing the layout of Fort Rohan. Although both were drawn around the middle of the nineteenth century, they vary considerably in detail. The least accurate is the sketch drawn by Col. Lewis, right, which contains various errors, such as the projecting corner turrets and an enormous triangular redoubt (Image source: Author’s private collection). The outline plan (far right) is taken from a British military survey drawing and is more accurately depicted, although it may also be showing some pre-1872 British alterations. (Image source: Author’s private collection). Tousard’s description of Fort Rohan states that the enclosure was built in the form of an entrenchment, was enveloped by a ditch, and was fitted with embrasures.

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View of the north façade of St. Lucian Tower, showing the central turret housing the main entrance, drawbridge-lifting mechanism, and guardroom at the top. The central turret is crowned by a fine moulding. Originally, the turret was only flanked by two small rooms but these were later extended to occupy all the face.

(Image source: Author’s private collection).

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St. Thomas Tower Evidently alarmed by the porosity of the coastal areas and the ease with which the Turks had been able to land unopposed and lay waste to the rural settlements and countryside in the south of the island, Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt and his Council moved quickly to order the building of another strong tower ‘similar’ to the ones that had already been erected at St. Paul’s Bay and St. Lucian. On 11 July 1614, that is only a few weeks after the Turkish incursion, the Council approved the construction of the tower, work on which was initiated without much delay: ‘Die undecima Mensis Julij 1614... paregli cosa necessaria di fabricar una nuva Torre posta fra Marzascala e la Cala di San Toma dove messe in terra la prima volta quest’ultima Armata Turchesca, facendo offerta Sua S.ria Imm.ma di farla fabrcare in breve tempo à sue proprie spese dal Vend.

Consiglio laudata approbata et accettata la sudetta proposta et offerta.’ (19) St. Thomas Tower, as the new tower came to be called, was, like the tower at St. Lucian, a large structure. However, it differed significantly from its two predecessor in the treatment of its corner turrets, which were now more pronounced and projected outwards from the faces of the tower to form veritable pentagonal bastions, giving the whole structure a distinctive four-bastioned, starshaped plan. The projection at the base gave the turrets wider flanks and, as a result, allowed for the deployment of armament in the form of spingardi, falconetti on cavaletti and muschettoni da posta through covered embrasures.

Structurally, St. Thomas Tower was built around two adjoining and interlinked barrel vaults, which, in the parlance of the period, rendered the tower à prova di bomba. This also allowed it to mount heavy pieces of artillery on its roof, thus enabling it to serve as a coastal artillery platform: ‘Due interni ambienti, ossia magazzini à troll di bomba, larghi tre canne e lunghi otto tra loro comunicati, da servire all’occorenza per allogiamenti’. The thickness of the walls was around 5 metres in places, while the corner turrets, or bastions, were themselves of solid construction, filled in with a tightly-packed mass of rubble and earth behind thick masonry skins: ‘I muri erano di una grossezza di due canne e mezzo’. The whole structure was purposely over-designed and solidly built to absorb serious punishment from naval bombardment, ‘est solide et … elle est à l’abrij de la bombe’.

Entrance to the tower was through a vaulted doorway set within a turret located centrally in the Right, top, View of one of the two barrel-vaults inside St. Thomas Tower. Right, Extensive restoration works were undertaken at St. Thomas Tower by the Restoration Unit of the Works Division. Note the heavy buttressing at the foot of the corner bastion in the foreground.(Image source: Author’s private collection).

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This page, Author’s graphic reconstructions of the plan and elevations of the tower in its original configuration and below, one of the earliest photographs of St. Thomas Tower, showing the country lane leading to the tower, and its wooden palisaded gate and drawbridge still in situ. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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Author’s graphic reconstruction of St. Thomas Tower and battery, with cut-away showing the internal layout. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

Staircase leading up to roof from inside the tower

Guardroom crowned by a fine moulding and containing a flag-pole holder.

Musketry loophole piercing parapet in flank of bastion

Rock-hewn ditch

Drawbridge lifting mechanism ‘à fleccie con catena’

Main entrance into tower

Wooden palisaded gate 36 Copyright - Dr. Stephen C. Spiteri Ph.D - 2013

Terrace gun platform of tower with low parapet for guns to fire en barbette ( a’ mezza ruota)

Parapet of semi-circular coastal battery erected in 1715

Rock-hewn ditch of the semi-circular coastal battery added to the tower in 1715. The level of the ditch is higher than that of the main ditch surrounding the tower.

Heavy masonry buttress (known as delfin) added to the foot of the corner bastion

Large window opening in side of tower – these were required for ventilation and lighting

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View of the north façade of St. Thomas Tower, showing the central turret housing the main entrance, drawbridge-lifting mechanism, and guardroom at the top. The turret is crowned by a fine moulding and a flag-pole holder. A low parapet was added on top of the capstones of the superior slope of the original parapet to create a musketry loophole screen. The dating of this feature is not clear but it may well be from the early British period. Various alterations were made to the roof of the structure, which was fitted out with rooms on top of some of the turrets.

These appear to date to the time when the tower was used as a prison by the British military during the Napoleonic wars. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

Far right, Sectional elevations, after Q. Hughes.

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Dramatic view of the north and east façades of St. Thomas Tower, showing the rock-hewn ditch enveloping the structure. Note the heavy buttressing at the foot of the left corner bastion.

These were later additions. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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landward face of the structure. This turret was surmounted by a corpo di guardia, or guardroom, which was added at a later stage, itself fitted with an external flag-pole holder and decorated with a small marble escutcheon bearing Wignacourt’s family coat of arms mounted in a boxed frame recess above the doorway. The entrance was served by a wooden drawbridge of the ponte levatoio à fleccie e catena type. The example at St. Thomas Tower is the only example of its kind to survive on the island. This was approached by a masonry flight of steps which was itself protected by wooden palisaded gate, the so-called ‘rastello raddopiato di palizate’. A shallow rock-hewn fosso, or ditch, about 10 m wide in front of the faces and 17 m wide in front of the bastion salients, enveloped the tower. In 1715, the Order’s military engineers added a semi-circular gun platform to the seaward side of the tower, ‘une grande batterie circulaire sus la tour di M’Scala du coste’ de la mer’. This was a simple prepared position designed to take large calibre guns and mortars. The battery, roughly semi-circular in plan, was detached from the tower at its open gorge by the tower’s ditch and was protected from its seaward side by a shallow rockhewn fosso some 2 canes wide. The Misura & Conto Sommario dell’Opere di Fortificationi fatte nel Lido delle Marine, drawn up in 1716, gives the total expenses incurred in the construction of the battery as 382.8.11.1 scudi. (20)

A late-nineteenth century schematic plan of St. Thomas tower and its battery (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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The Razzia of 1614 One of the most important historical events that were to emphatically shape the Order’s coastal defence strategy throughout the seventeenth century was the Turkish razzia of 1614. This incursion by a 60-strong fleet of vessels under the command of Khalil Pasha (21) was to prove to be the last major Ottoman landing on the island. Although repulsed in a very brief period of time, it was the most serious threat to the safety of Malta to materialize in the post-1565 period.

Despite its significance, the 1614 razzia has attracted hardly any academic study and remains little known in its details. The brief contemporary accounts of the raid and the Knights’ successful counter offensive provide few facts and these still demand to be examined for their historical veracity and corroborated by historical documentation.

The 1614 attack was the product of renewed Ottoman naval incursions into the western Mediterranean in the closing decades of the 1500s. From around the turn of the century, the Maltese island began once more to attract the attention of the Turks. The general alarm of 1598 caused by the sighting of over 40 enemy vessels off Capo Passero was soon to be followed by other emergencies involving the call up of the militia in 1603 and 1610. Threat posed by these sightings forced Grand Master Wignacourt and his Council to undertake various military reforms in order to address serious concerns over the state of the islands’ military preparedness. These measures involved the reorganization of the coastal militia, the re-fortification of the Gozo Citadel and its transformation from an obsolete medieval castle into a veritable gunpowder bastioned fortress, the construction of a large aqueduct to replenish Valletta’s water supplies, the reorganization of the central armoury and its relocation inside the Grand Master’s palace, and the introduction of coastal towers.

That all these fears of attack were not idle was finally demonstrated on 6 July 1614. Just two hours before dawn, a powerful fleet of 60 vessels, of which 52 were galleys, under the command of the Turkish admiral Khalil Pasha attempted to sail into Marsaxlokk harbour but were fired upon by the guns of St. Lucian Tower. The fleet then changed direction and sailed slightly further up the coast and entered unopposed into St Thomas Bay where it put ashore 5,000 men.

Once landed, the Turkish force then split into two columns, the smaller body making for Marsaxlokk and St. Lucian Tower, while the other larger force headed straight inland towards the village of Zejtun, by now fully deserted and abandoned by its inhabitants who had run away to seek refuge

The raid had taken the islanders by surprise and Gabriel, like many of his fellow villagers, had no time to evacuate his possessions and farm animals from his massaria before being called up to serve in the militia.

It took more than an hour for the Knights to muster a force large enough to react to the 5,000-strong Turkish army. A small, hastily summoned cavalry detachment sent out to intercept the enemy headlong nearly came to a disastrous end and had to wait for the arrival of the rest of the main body of the militia before re-engaging the Turks. With a population still hovering around the 30,000 mark, the Knights could, at best, only manage to field a force of some 6,000 to 8,000 men. Various skirmishes developed over the

course of the next couple of days as the Knights and their men sought to contain the enemy force and control further ravages of the countryside. Seeing the mounting and determined opposition, the Turks finally withdraw back to their ships after losing a number of men and some fifty others taken prisoners. On 12 July, the fleet then sailed north along the coast, putting in briefly at Mellieħa Bay, possibly to take on water, before sailing away. From Malta, Khalil took his fleet south and attacked Tripoli on a punitive expedition against a local insurgent, Sefer Dā’yl, who was captured and executed. Khalil then sailed his fleet back home, successfully suppressing a Greek rebellion in the southern Peloponnese along the way, before returning to Istanbul in November. In the following year, his fleet was out again scouring the Mediterranean, capturing a Spanish galleon from Sicily off Calabria.

Hospitaller soldiers of the early seventeenth-century with St. Lucian Tower in the background.(Image source: Author)

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within the main harbour fortifications. As the Turkish soldiers pushed inland they pillaged and burnt the farms, fields and crops that they encountered along the way. Among the victims of the Turkish marauders was Gabriel Attard, the Alfiere (standard bearer) of the Parrochia di Pasqualino.(22) His petition to Grand Master Lascaris in 1642, reproduced below gives a good idea of the scale of the damage inflicted by the Turkish raiders: (23) ‘Gabriel Cassar Alfiero della parrochia di Pasqualino, humilis.mo servitor e fedeliss.mo vassallo de V.E. espone qual.te che serve alla detta Parrochia per alfiero da cinquanta sei anni nel qual tempo consumato sei bandieri … nel tempo che venero li 60 galeri Torcheschi in questa Isola di Malta per ne’ poter dar agiuto [aiuto] alla sua massaria li sono brusati [bruciati] tutti li seminati che haveva nella sua aira e ammazati tutti li suoi animali tal che resto il povero oratore ruinato …’

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Marsalforn Tower, Gozo Curiously, the next three towers which followed in the wake of St. Thomas Tower somehow all abandoned the bastioned plan so forcefully employed at here. Moreover, the first of these, Marsalforn Tower, in Gozo, completed in 1616, lacked any corner turrets whatsoever. Interestingly, none of the Gozo towers (i.e., Garzes and Marsalforn) were given corner turrets.

Unfortunately, the Marsalforn Tower has not survived since, built at the very edge of a fragile cliff face, it eventually developed structural problems that led to its collapse. This tower was already abandoned by the early 1700s, its guns removed to nearby defences and its role taken over by a new tower erected in 1720. An entry in the Order’s records, written around 1704, describes the Marsalforn Tower as ‘situata in un luogo molto eminente, che guarda verso tramontana, ove vi è la Cala, sive porto di Marsalforno. Qual è una bella torre e molto comoda per quei che habitano in essa, et è ben munita con artiglieria, moschettoni di posta, mascoli, moschetti, alabarde, spontoni, balle di ferro’. (24) No records in the Order’s Council minutes have been found establishing the precise date when the decision was first taken for a tower to be constructed on this site. Nor is it clear if this tower was actually paid for by the Grand Master. Although Gio. Francesco Abela, writing in 1647, states that this tower was financed by Wignacourt, there are no records to confirm such a claim. If anything, the Order’s documents tend to imply otherwise. For one thing, it is omitted from the detailed list drawn up in 1680, mentioned earlier. Secondly an entry in the This page, Author’s graphic reconstruction of Marsalforn Tower (1616) with cut-away showing the internal layout based on Milcent’s survey of 1715. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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Order’s records clearly specifies that Marsalforn Tower and Garzes Tower were both built by the Order ... ‘essere state fatte ... dalla Religione’.(25) Furthermore, the Marsalforn Tower’s lack of corner turrets and its different internal layout, also tends to confirm that this structure was built independently of the rest of Wignacourt’s towers, perhaps designed altogether by a separate engineer with different ideas.

Marsalforn Tower first emerges in the Order’s records in a letter by Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt addressed to the Governor of Gozo, the Knight La Rognosa, dated 6 July 1616.(26) In this letter, Wignacourt informed the Governor of the completion of the tower and instructed him to arm it with two sakers with the assistance of a team of Maltese specialists, under the command of Commissario Tasoni, sent over to Gozo for the purpose. Wignacourt also dispatched Giovanni Paolo Azzopardi to serve as the first castellan in charge of the tower; ‘Poi che per gr[ati]a del Iddio la Torre di Marzaforno si trova finite, mandiamo costi il Commisario Tasoni, accio la facci del tutto armare, et con esso viene il Mro. Gio Paolo Zupardo il quale vogliamo che sia Castellano di essa.

Nothing, unfortunately, is left of the structure today, except for a small mound of stones and debris. Luckily, Marsalforn Tower was recorded in plan and elevation around the turn of the eighteenth century by Philippe Nicolas Milcent, a military draughtsman who accompanied Brig. Rene Jacob de Tignè’s French military mission to Malta in 1715 (27). Milcent’s plans and elevations show clearly that the tower had a smaller foot-print than the two previous towers erected in Malta, and was basically similar in size to St. Paul Bay Tower but rose considerably higher in elevation. Coupled with its location at the very tip of the Għajn Damma plateau, this would have allowed its guards to keep an eye over a larger stretch of Gozo’s northern coastline and also enabled them to communicate directly with the Citadel. Marsalforn Tower must have either

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Author’s reconstructions of Marsalforn Tower based on Milcent’s 1715 survey, shown left.

(Image source: Courtesy of Dr. A. Ganado – first published by Brig. A Samut-Tagliaferro, 1993).

collapsed or was dismantled soon after 1715 as it was replaced by another tower in 1720, sited farther inland on the same plateau. Its location at the very edge of the cliff-face – some quattordici palmi nell’angolo suo più estremo away from the brink of the precipice – seems to have been the underlying cause for its abandonment and eventual collapse.

Already in 1681, the Knight Fra Ugo de Vavilliers found it abandoned after the edge of the cliff-face upon which it stood had fallen off, ‘... quale ritrovata abbandonata la Cima dell Ridume sopra del quale si ritrova fabricate detta Torre [Torre Marsalforno] resta tutta aperta, e minaccia grandissima rovina’.

Notwithstanding, the Order was not prepared to abandon the tower and every effort was made to keep it garrisoned but in 1693, following the great 45

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View of the northern tip of the cliff-face of the Għajn Damma plateau, above Marsalforn Bay, showing very clearly the remains of the first Marsalforn Tower (a mound of rubble and debris) perched at the very edge of the plateau (see following page). As in most of the other locations chosen for Wignacourt’s coastal towers, the natural advantage offered by the cliffs was here also fully exploited to render the tower totally secure from any surprise assault from the sea. Nonetheless, various military engineers believed that the Marsalforn Tower was sited too far inland, and too high up the hill, for its guns to effectively intercept any vessels trying to sail into Marsalforn Bay. Its only advantage was that it could communicate directly with the Cittadella (the central fortress in the heart of the island). Indeed, the position (see image, top left) can still be seen very clearly from both the northern walls and St. John’s Cavalier at the Cittadella. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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Right, Sectional elevation of Marsalforn Tower, after Milcent’s 1715 survey.

(Image source: Courtesy of Dr. A. Ganado – first published by Brig. A SamutTagliaferro, 1993).

Bottom right, All that remains today of the Marsalforn Tower is a mound of rubble at the cliffedge of the Għajn Damma plateau overlooking the entrance to Marsalforn Bay. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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Above, Detail from a map of the proposed and existing coastal defences of Gozo in 1761, showing the location of the 1720 Marsalforn Tower. The original 1616 tower was located at the edge of the cliff-face (marked by a white box). (Image Source: Courtesy of the National Library of Malta).

earthquake, the resident Castellan reported that the tower had suffered serious damage as a result of the violent tremors and that a deep fissure in the cliff-face had extended to beneath the base of the Tower. Shortly after, on 20 June 1693, the resident engineer, Mederico Blondel, was sent to inspect the structure: unimpressed Blondel played down the damage: (28) ‘Non havendosi ritorvato quella grotto, di qui si faceva tanto schimazzo, e che si diceva stendersi si al disotto di tutta la torre, ne qualunque atro.’

Blondel did note, nevertheless, that some slender fissures had appeared along the tower’s eastern face but thought these were of little consequence and so he confidently remarked that the tower would remain standing for another century! Another inspection, three years down the line, by a commission of two knights, the Bailiffs Claudio de Moreton Chabrillan and Gio Battista Spinola did not note any movement in the structure, but by 1701 new cracks and fissures had developed in the towers walls. On 18 May 1701, the Commissioners sent to inspect the tower were greatly alarmed at the rate with which the cliff-face had eroded, leaving the tower vulnerably close to 48

the edge of the Rdum and in danger of toppling over. They advised, therefore, that the tower be evacuated and a similar or other type of tower be erected somewhere between Marsalforn and Santa Maria Bay from where it could more effectively resist an enemy landing. In their opinion, the new structure was to be designed by a foreign engineer of established reputation. The report was duly approved by the Order’s Council and, soon after, instructions were issued requesting plans for a new tower to be drawn up: (29) ‘Che si facci il modello della nuova Torre o d’altro fortezza da construirsi p[er] sicurezza della Cala di Marsalforno Marsalforno ad effetto che approvata dall’ Em[inen]za Sua e Ven. Cons[iglio] si ponga subito mano all’opera.’

Even so, the old Marsalforn Tower, despite its predicament, was still in operation in 1715 when it is known to have been visited by Philippe de Vendôme, on an official visit to Gozo: he was accorded a five gun salute by the Castellan of the tower, Domenico Azzupardi.(30) After this, however, it disappears from the military records and is replaced by a new structure said to have been designed by Charles François de Mondion. Work on this new tower is believed to have begun sometime in 1720. It was built in the form of a tour-reduit (a tower-redoubt) and was situated further inland on the same plateau. The first mention of the new Marsalforn tower is dated 10 May 1722, and this shows it as then still lacking its wooden door and

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drawbridge, and possibly still without any form of armament: (31) ‘Nella Torre di Marsalforno nuovamente fabricate vi sono dodeci cannoniere con plataforma larga palmi dodeci si potranno fare cannoni di lib.19 con ceppi [____ ?]; vi è di bisogno in ditto torre il ponte e d’una porta alla sud[ett]a torre’.

Interestingly, the report goes on to mention that the five guns which had originally been deployed on top of the Torre vecchia were not used to arm the new Marsalforn tower but had been removed and deployed ‘nella punta di Marsalforno sopra la Chiesa di S. Paolo’ even though this location was given neither a ‘parapetto ne piattaforma’.(32) Right, The only known photograph of the second Marsalforn Tower built in 1720 during the reign of Grand Master Perellos. Although called a tower, it was actually a tour-reduit, that is, a tower-redoubt. The structure was demolished by the British military. Below, Author’s graphic reconstruction of the 1720 Marsalforn Tour-reduit based on a manuscript plan drawn up by the Order’s resident engineer, Francesco Marandon during the course of one of his many yearly tours of inspection around the shores of Gozo. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

Central vedette accessed internally by a flight of steps.

Parapet with embrasures (3 on each face).

Musketry loopholes with splayed cheeks and sill Steps leading up to terrace platform

Entrance with drawbridge

Rock-hewn drop-ditch 49 Copyright - Dr. Stephen C. Spiteri Ph.D - 2013

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St. Mary Tower, in Comino. The tower is in a very good state of preservation but completely lacks the musketry gallery which enveloped the structure on top of the plinth, as shown in the reconstruction drawings on the following pages. St. Mary Tower has been restored, and is managed by, Din l-Art Ħelwa, Malta’s leading and long-standing national voluntary heritage organization. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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St. Mary Tower, Comino Wignacourt’s next project, after the Marsalforn Tower, sought to address the unresolved issue of the fortification of the small island of Comino, situated in the channel between Malta and Gozo.

The channel crossing separating the two islands was dominated by the small island of Comino. Left unfortified, this proved to be a treacherous haven for pirates and corsairs, a ‘nidu et latibulu di li ... sarrayni’, (33) who used its many cliff-side caves as hideouts from where they preyed upon the hapless and unarmed boats plying between the islands.

This was a problem which had plagued the local inhabitants well before the coming of the Knights.

The first known attempt to deal with the situation goes back to 1418, when the Università of Malta petitioned the King of Sicily to be able to erect a tower on the island. (34) The fears posed by renewed Turkish naval activities in the opening decades of the seventeenth century meant that Wignacourt could no longer ignore the problem and on 11 October 1618, he presented the council with his plans for a new tower on Comino, which, once again he offered to pay for out of his own money: (35) ‘A di 11 Ottbre 1618 Propose in Cinsiglio di volere à spese proprie far fabricare nell’ Isola detta Comino posta fra Malta e Gozo un Forte assai ben inteso per ricovere delli suoi Agricoltori e sicurezza di navigator de d[ett]e Isole, e mag[ior]e difesa delli Torri San Martino fabricate nel Gozo nel scaro [ ?] di Mugiarro chi sopra sta al freo la quale evisa e impedisce che l’innimico non fece acquata … ‘ The tower which Wignacourt erected here, known as St. Mary Tower, was begun in 1618 and its design once again adopted the turreted concept as employed earlier at St. Paul’s Bay and St. Lucian, with the base of the turrets disappearing within the sloping lower half of the structure. The Comino Tower, however, had many other unique and interesting features that set it distinctly apart from its sister structures.

To begin with, it was given a wide masonry plinth which allowed it to acquire a greater height, while its base (on top of the plinth) was enveloped by an all-round musketry gallery for close-indefence. This defensive feature is referred to in one of the contemporary documents as a ‘strada coperta’ but in effect it was more of a sort of covered fausse braye. This feature, of which only a few traces survive, gave the tower a totally different profile from that of the other towers, as can be shown in a seventeenth-century ink drawing of the tower found in one of the Order’s documents at the National Library in Valletta (see above). In many ways, this musketry gallery gave the tower the appearance of a French tour-reduit.

The musketry gallery also contained the outer gate and drawbridge mechanism which was approached by a detached flight of steps and served 52

Above, Manuscript drawing of St. Mary Tower in Comino, showing very clearly the musketry gallery saddling the plinth at the foot of the tower, as well as the enveloping ditch with its counterscarp and entrances to the countermines. (Image source: Courtesy of the NLM).

by a wooden bridge. The main entrance doorway into the tower itself, unlike in the other towers, was not set in the middle of the facade and in line with the detached flight of steps but was instead offset to one side of the wall. Externally, the tower was enveloped within a countermined glacis, which was constructed out of loose rubble stone (Maltese gagazza) rather than the usual earth, and was countermined with a number of short, vaulted galleries. The remains of one of these shafts with its circular vaulted ‘forno’ was located by the author (see photograph on page 57), but the rest all seem to have caved in. An entry in the Order’s records describes it as having ... un fosso e strada coperta’.

The tower’s sturdy internal vaulting was also designed to allow the structure to mount heavy pieces or artillery on its roof, thereby allowing it to serve as a coastal battery protecting the approaches to Mġarr harbour. It was this requirement, in fact, which dictated the choice of the tower’s siting on the western edge of the island: (36) ‘una buona e condecente torre ... far edificare nella detta Isola in luogo opportune per correspondersi le Artiglierie di questa, con quelle della Garza situate nel Gozzo al Mugiarro a’ fine d’impedire affatto à nemici il poter passer per il freo’ From Fra Renato de Gras’ inspection of the tower in 1722, we know that it was armed with five guns (three bronze and two iron pieces) all of which were ‘in buonissimo stato’. De Gras, who was the Commander of Artillery, recommended that each gun was to have enough ammunition to fire at least thirty rounds while the total amount of gunpowder in its holdings was to be increased to 10 quintali.

De Gras also recommended that the number of

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Machicolation All-round musketry gallery

Countermine entrance

Wooden palisaded gate

Drawbridge lifting mechanism ‘à fleccie con catena’

Ditch Blocked-up sally-port

Glacis made of rubble stone and debris

Main entrance into tower

Above, Author’s graphic reconstruction of St. Mary Tower, with cut-away showing internal layout.

This image, Side elevation of St. Mary Tower with the remains of the glacis. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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View of the south face of St. Mary Tower, showing the projecting turrets and the musketry loopholes piercing the parapets. The line of log-holes just below the lower string course marks the level of the roof of the musketry gallery which ran all around the tower at the level of the plinth. The recesses held the timber beams which supported ceiling limestone slabs (xorok). (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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The Comino tower proved to be the most expensive of all the Wignacourt towers to be built, even though it was by far not the largest of the structures. At 18,628 scudi it was 38 % more expensive than St. Thomas Bay Tower (13,450 scudi), 58 % more costlier than St. Lucian Tower (11,745 scudi), and 176 % more than St. Paul Bay Tower (6,748 scudi). A large part of the extra costs, undoubtedly, resulted from the remoteness of the site and the difficulty of having to transport all the necessary materials (apart from the stone), as wel as the workers, by boat to the barren island.

To offset the costs, Wignacourt authorized the harvesting and sale of the dry brushwood which grew on Comino: (38 ‘fare tagliar e stradicare tutte le macchie di lentisco, e d’ altra brusca, che vi sono convetendone il valore à beneficio della fabrica d’una buona e condecente torre’. (39) This page, Author’s graphic reconstructions of the general layout, plan, and elevations of St. Mary Tower, Comino, as it would have stood around 1798. The musketry gallery at the foot of the tower gave the structure a very different appearance and profile from that visible today. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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cannon be increased if the tower could take the weight (‘se la sua piattaforma lo permette’). His advice seems to have been implemented for an inventory listing the tower’s armament in 1761, does mention six guns, two iron 12-pounders, one bronze 10-pounder, one bronze 4-pounder and two bronze 3-pounders. (37)

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Various views and details of St. Mary Tower, Comino. Opposite page, top left, Sally-port on the east side of the plinth, opening into the ditch. The tower was built with a second sally-port on the opposite side of the plinth but this opening was closed off, leaving no sign of the arch on the exterior wall of the plinth.

The sally-ports were served by a portcullis, the recess of which is shown above (top). The rubble-stone glacis surrounding the tower was fitted with a number of countermines – these had small, vaulted explosive chambers (forni) at their inner end, one of which can still be seen. The interior of the tower is poorly lit with only two windows, one on each side. (Images source: Author’s private collection). Left, Small eighteenth-century manuscript plan of St. Mary Tower showing the enveloping glacis and ditch. (Images source: Courtesy of the National Library of Malta).

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Sta. Maria delle Grazie (della Grazia) The last of the Wignacourt towers again witnessed a change of direction in the thinking of the military planners who, conditioned by the huge costs entailed in the construction of these massive sturdy coastal forts, sought to erect a much smaller structure than that which had been constructed up till then. This tower, named in honour of Our lady of Graces (Sta. Maria delle Grazie), was erected along the Xgħajra coastline to augment the protection already provided by the St. Lucian and St. Thomas towers in the southern part of the island: (40) ‘S’approba il disegno di sua signoria Ill.ma circa la fabbrica d’una nova Torre ... all’inimico di poter sbarcare nella parte di quest’Isola, che si stende dal Forte di San Thomaso, sino alla bocca generale del Porto, e sicurezza principalmente degli habitatori del Casal Zabar, e Bormola. Haveva disegnato di far edifice à sue spese un torre nel luogo, ò sià contrata nominato l’ Nuadar, ò sià Blata il Baida’.

Little is known about the shape and form of the Delle Grazie Tower, work on which commenced in April 1620. However, the sum of money disbursed on its construction, a mere 4,948 scudi, implies that it was the smallest of the Wignacourt constructions.

Indeed, it is not clear at all if the structure had any corner turrets as no detailed descriptions of it have turned up. A plan of the Żonqor-to-Ricasoli entrenchments, drawn up in the late eighteenth century, does depict the tower with corner bastions (see image right) but this evidence is not enough to settle the issue. Strangely, despite being the smallest of the structures it was the most heavily armed of them all (see table on page 96) – a fact that is difficult to explain unless some of the weapons were deployed outside the tower. There is, however, no mention of the existence of any such battery. So it would seem these were actually mounted on, and perhaps even inside, the tower itself.

The Delle Grazie Tower, or at least a part of the structure, was still standing by the late nineteenth century before it, or its remains, were finally cleared away by the British Military in 1888 to make space for the construction of a large coastal battery, likewise named Delle Grazie. It is not known if any record was taken of the old structure before it was swept away but at least one contemporary survey plan shows its as having been located just outside, on the seaward glacis of the new fort. The terrain on which the tower had been built originally belonged to a Maltese land owner by the name of Giorgio Mamo.

(41) By 1656, Mamo had still not received any compensation for the expropriation of the quattro tumoli of land which had been expropriated by the Order ‘in servitio del publico per fabricare la Torre di Sciajra (Xgħajra)’.

There is one aspect of the Delle Grazie Tower which is not encountered in the information available on the other Wignacourt Towers – an eyewitness account containing an interesting description of the 58

Above, Detail from a map of the coastal defences, c. 1761, showing the location of St.a Maria Delle Grazie, here referred to as della Grazia. The tower is clearly depicted with four corner bastions, an external flight of steps and-lacks a ditch (Image Source: Courtesy of the National Library of Malta).

foundation-stone laying ceremony. This ceremony, which took place in April 1620, was attended by Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt. The Grand Master had commissioned Notary Salvatore Ciantar to record the event in writing for posterity. Although this fascinating account tells us very little about the design of the tower itself, it is reproduced below for the first time as it provides various interesting facts: ‘ ... Ill.mo R.mo S.re il S. Fra Alosio de Wignacourt fatto edificare in quest’ Isola di Malta nella Cala d San Paolo, Marsascirocco, Marsascala ò sia Ponta di San Thomaso et nell’Isola de Comino

li Quattro forti che ne h’ereggano quelli ben provii d’Artiglierie ed ogni altra necessaria munitione di Guerra per custodia difesa e sicurita’ del Dominio e suoi popoli, e vassalli, disidoroso di avar affatto ogni commodita al nemico poter sbarcare e machinare alcuna invasione principalemente contra li habitatori di Casal Zabbar, considerate il luogo ditto Isci hayra [ix-Xghajra] nella contrada ta Nuadar, e blata il baijdha dove la si era conferito personalmente Sua Sig.ria Ill.ma accompagnata da molti signori della Gran Croce, Com.ri Cav.ri et altri suoi vassalli et ivi risoluto col parere d’Ingegnieri e pratici la fabrica d’un altro forte seguitare (?) poi anco appratene al Vend.o Consiglio, hoggi in essegutione di cossi povido pensiero esso Ill.mo Sign.re invocato immaculata Sua Sant.a Madre .... con far celebrare questa mattina nella sua evotissim

Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Gratie parochial di ditto Casale una mesa cantata dal R.o Fra Garcia de Cevero ... Quattro Cappellani, et diacono del Palazzo Magistrale et Sacerdoti secorali e regola. ri e numeroso popolo de suditi che coseguivano e gionte dove era preparato un altare et in quello una croce, candeli avesi cantata alcuni psalmi, et l’hinno Avemarestello intonato dal S. Vicepriore e recitate alcune oration fu benedetta dal medesimo la prima pietra initiale nella quale era scolpito il mill.no 1620, e seguitando processionalmente fu circondato e benedetto similmente tutto il sito de fondamenta [ chiamata di proprie bocca ora pronobis Cav. Fra Francesco Vintimiglia de Conto di Marsiglia) ... colloco in una piccola fossa alcune monete d’oro, argento, et rame con l’insegne et una medaglia con l’effigie di SS. Ill.ma chiuse in una scatola di piombo, e di sopra dalli mastri vassettata detta pietra angolare che risguarda verso levante, et cio fu tre hore inanti il mezzogiorno (9.00 am) imposendosi il nome al principato forte Sta. Maria delle Grazie ... et fermata SS Illma con grandissimo piacere circa due hore in piedi a vedere la continuatione della fabrica.

E fatto venire a mangiare, et da bere per tutti i lavoratori abondantamente.’

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Above, Detail from a painting of the coastal and harbour fortifications of Malta, showing the location of Sta. Maria delle Grazie Tower. Left, Tracing made by the author from a latenineteenth-century British military survey sheet, showing the location of the Sta. Maria delle Grazie Tower in relation to the British coastal battery erected around 1888. The tower appears to have been sited roughly on what would have then become the glacis of the new British coastal battery, in the area between the modern-day apartments and the battery’s main sea front (see photograph below left). It is not known how much of the tower was still standing at the time. No photographs of the tower are known to the author. Whatever remnants of the structure were still extant, these were swept away around 1888 in order to clear the field of fire for the four BL disappearing guns of the coastal battery, which were housed in concrete emplacements, one of which is shown in the photograph. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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Tower features (i) Escutcheons and Coat of Arms An artistic feature found in all the Wignacourt towers was the marble escutcheon bearing the family coat of arms of Grand Master Wignacourt. The tradition of mounting magistral coat of arms on new works of fortification, whether to honour the reigning prince, or to celebrate his involvement as a direct benefactor, was an old one that dated back to the middle ages. By the seventeenth century, most works of fortification were generally decorated with a pair of marble escutcheons bearing the arms of the Order (a plain Latin cross) and those of the grand master. Often these were accompanied by a commemorative inscription in Latin fitted above the doorway for all to see and read. Occasionally the arms of a knight were also placed beneath those of the grand master in recognition of the individual’s financial support to the Order during construction of the fort.

The escutcheons on the Wignacourt towers were singular oval shields bearing the arms of the grand master quartered with those of the Order. Initially, all the five towers built by Wignacourt proudly displayed such escutcheons high up on their walls. Today, however, only two of the towers still retain their original shields, namely St. Thomas Tower and Comino Tower.

St. Thomas Tower has two shields, one set above the main entrance on the landward side of the tower, the other on the seaward-facing wall. These escutcheons were set in recessed rectangular frames while that at Comino projected out from the walls. St. Lucian Tower, likewise, had an escutcheon set within a recessed panel above its main entrance but this was later replaced by another bearing the coat of arms of Grand Master de Rohan. General Sir Charles Pasley, on inspecting St. Lucian Tower on 7 December 1801, remarked in his diary on the ‘vanity of Rohan who has caused his name with a fine inscription to be put up over the tower whereas he only made the ditch’. The members of the Congregation of War and Fortification who had ordered this inscription to be set up in 1795 were apparently unaware of Grand Master Wignacourt’s specific provisions in his will strictly prohibiting the removal of his coat of arms or their replacement by those of later Grand Masters, ‘...Prohibendo espressam[en]te che non si possino cavare sotto qualsivoglia colore Artiglieria, Armi, ò altro destinato al servizio di essi nemeno l’insegni di n[ostra]ra famiglia, le quail consummate per il tempo, ò per altra cagione rotti, si debbino subbito rinovare senza potere in modo alcuno collocarvi arme di nostri successori ò d’altri.’

The only tower lacking escutcheons is St. Paul Tower.

It is highly unlikely, however, that this tower, the first of the series, was not adorned with the Grand Master’s insignia.

Most probably, its escutcheons were removed at a later date and never replaced. Wignacourt was particularly insistent that such features be properly displayed. In a letter to the governor of Gozo dated 13 February 1607, for example, Wignacourt advised the governor that the Prior of Navarre was being sent to Gozo to supervise the fixing of the coat of arms of Grand Master Garzes together with those of the Order (the word ‘nostre’ in the original text may also be referring to Wignacourt’s own coat of arms) on the Garzes Tower. (42) 60

Defaced marble escutcheon with Wignacourt’s insignia at St. Thomas Tower (Image Source: Author’s private collection).

Escutcheon with Wignacourt’s insignia at St. Mary Tower (Image Source: Author’s private collection).

St. Mary Tower (Image Source: Author’s private collection).

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This image and bottom left, Escutcheon bearing the coat of arms of Grand Master de Rohan at St. Lucian Tower accompanied by a marble inscription commemorating the new defensive works which were erected around the tower and its battery in the course of the last decade of the Order’s rule. This escutcheon replaced an earlier one originally bearing Wignacourt’s insignia. (Image Source: Author’s private collection).

This is the only surviving escutcheon bearing the coat of arms of Grand Master de Rohan imposed upon the Austrian double-headed eagle of the Order of St Anthony which was used as a support for the coat of arms of the Order of St John after the amalgamation of the two Orders in 1775.

Flag-pole holder at St. Thomas Tower (Image Source: Author’s private collection).

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Tower features (ii) Loopholes In all the bastioned towers, provision for flanking defensive fire was provided by loopholes set in the fianchi of the parapets or turrets. These were mostly intended for rampart-guns and muskets. The largest of these, found at St. Thomas Tower, could accommodate a small calibre cannon, a spingarda, or muschettone da posta. The images on this spread show the different typologies of parapets encountered. (Images source: Author’s private collection).

St. Thomas Tower.

St. Thomas Tower.

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St. Thomas Tower.

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St. Paul Tower.

St. Mary Tower, Comino.

St. Mary Tower, Comino, restored and partially reconstructed parapet of corner turret.

St. Mary Tower, Comino.

St. Mary Tower, Comino. The tower was enveloped by a musketry gallery fitted with numerous loopholes. This ran all around the tower on top of the plinth (see reconstruction on page 55).

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Tower features (iii) Parapets and Machicolations

Reconstructed machicoulis at St. Mary Tower, Comino.

The bastioned towers were intended to serve as coastal gun batteries, with cannon mounted on the roof terraces. The guns, mounted on field carriages, were shielded by low parapets which allowed them to fire en barbette. The external faces of the parapets were fitted with box machicolation in places. Most of these archaic devices, however, appear to have been simply decorative retardataire features. Only the large gallery machicoulis at St. Mary Tower, sited above the main entrance, appears to have had any real functional use. The images in this spread show the different typologies of parapets employed. (Images source: Author’s private collection). (43)

Corbels for machicolation at St. Mary Tower, Comino.

Superior slope of the parapet at St. Thomas Tower. Note the low embrasure-like features which were cut onto the upper end of the superior slope in order to enable the gun barrels to fire over the parapet.

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View of inner para Note the rain

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Close-up view of the superior slope of parapet of St. Thomas Tower showing a screening parapet wall four courses high pierced with small musketry loopholes. This defensive screen may be a nineteenth-century British addition.

Reconstructed box machicoulis at St. Paul Tower. This may have served as a gabinetto when it was linked to the wall of a sentry box that was later removed.

apet Ă mezza ruota at St. Thomas Tower. n water culvert at the foot of the parapet.

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Tower features (iv) Drawbridges A common defensive feature found in all of the large bastioned towers was the use of drawbridges to protect the entrances into the structures. Three of the towers (St. Lucian, St. Thomas and St. Mary) are known to have been fitted with the fleccie e catena type of counterweight lifting mechanism such as can still be found in St. Thomas Tower.

Garzes Tower, too, had such a mechanism. A report

by Francesco Marandon (1743) describes it as a ‘ponte à fleccie’. The lifting mechanism at St. Mary Tower, however, was housed in the musketry gallery outside the tower itself and not in line with its main entrance. This type of lifting mechanism was the oldest and most commonly employed drawbridge device up until the early eighteenth century. The counterweight was attached to the inner end of the lifting arms and whenever these were moved they pulled up the wooden platform (tavolatura).The inner end contained a box which held the counterweight, usually consisting of cannon balls or pieces of metal. (Images source: Author’s private collection).

(44)

Drawbridge at St. Thomas Tower.

Blocked-up recesses for the fleccie which once served the drawbridge lifting mechanism of St. Lucian Tower.

Drawbridge configuration at St. Mary Tower., Comino.

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Drawbridge counterweight, St. Thomas Tower.

Drawbridge lifting arms (fleccie) of St. Thomas Tower.

Corbelled drawbridge-rests on the upper end of the flight of steps leading up to the entrance to St. Mary Tower, Comino.

Contemporary sketch of St. Mary Tower, wrongly showing the drawbridge lifting arms extruding from the tower’s face.

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Tower features (v) Drawbridges and Palisades St. Paul Tower was fitted with a chain-and-tackle type of lifting mechanism described in later documents as being à virevaux levatizzo. This appears to have been the only mechanism of its type employed in Hospitaller fortifications. A more practical lifting mechanism that was favoured for smaller gates and sally-ports was the fuso con tamburo type. This comprised a wooden counterweight wheel pivoting on a stout wooden shaft set above the doorway, around which was wound a heavy rope. By the eighteenth century, various towers had been fitted with this device, including Mellieħa Tower (which is documented in Milcent’s drawing – see image bottom right, courtesy of Dr. Albert Ganado) and Mġarr ix-Xini Tower in Gozo. Two well-preserved examples have survived in the sally-ports of Fort St. Angelo and Fort Ricasoli. Others are documented as having equipped Orsi Tower (near Fort Ricasoli), and some of the gates at Fort St Elmo and the Valletta Counterguards. (45)

The remains of the virevaux mechanism employed at St. Paul Tower.

The drawbridges themselves were protected by wooden palisaded gates called ‘rastelli raddopiati di palizate’. (46) These were set up as a precaution against a coup de main and were designed to give the sentinels on duty enough time in which to pull up the ponderous drawbridges and close off the heavy main gates. Palisaded gates consisted of wooden stakes, nailed to a framework, pointed at the upper end and often tipped with metal points. Some, like that at St. Paul Tower, were fan-shaped (‘rastello à ventaglio di serratizzi’). They were usually placed before the outer end of the tavolatura of the bridge, at the upper end of the masonry flight of steps leading up to the doorway. The palisades were generally painted grey. (47)

British sailors working the tamburo lifting mechanism in the sally-port of Fort St. Angelo.

Tamburo lifting mechanism in the sally-port of Fort Ricasoli..

Mellieħa Tower 68

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Graphic reconstruction, based on original plans, showing the wooden palisaded gate à ventaglio which protected the drawbridge of Wignacourt Tower, St Paul’s Bay. A triangularshaped palisade, depicted in early photographs (above), was most probably a British replacement. At the time of the Knights, these palisades were painted light grey. Above, right, top, Blown-up detail showing the large rectangular wooden palisaded gate at St. Thomas Tower. Note, the tower’s tavolatura and lifting arms were then still in place. By the end of the nineteenth century, many of these wooden drawbridges had been replaced by fixed masonry bridges, as at St. Paul Tower, bottom right. (Images source: Author’s private collection).

The remains of a wooden palisaded, one protecting the main entrance into a major work of fortification.

A stone arch replaced the drawbridge at St Paul Tower. The flight of steps itself was later demolished to make way for the present road.

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The Wignacourt tower design and the turreted / bastioned concept As already mentioned earlier in this publication, the authorship of the design of the Wignacourt tower, and the origins of the turreted concept, are questions that are not easily answered. The traditional attribution to the Maltese resident military engineer Vittorio Cassar, based on Abela’s claim, is nowadays problematic largely because Cassar died in 1609 and so could not have been around to dictate the shape and form of these towers. The only two structures which Cassar may have been directly involved in were Garzes Tower, in Gozo, and St. Paul Bay Tower. Garzes Tower, as already mentioned, was first proposed by Rinaldini but the final design may have actually been altered by Cassar. In a letter to Cassar, dated 12 May 1601, Grand Master Wignacourt confirmed the receipt of Cassar’s designs for the proposed watch-tower at Mugiarro and ended his letter by directing him to send plans for both the tower and the fortress.

In another letter, dated 14 June, 1602, the Grand Master instructed Cassar to diligently produce a copy of the designs and also to make any improvements to tower as he thought fit, which drawings the Grand Master intended to forward to the then newly-appointed Viceroy of Sicily, the Duke of Feria: ‘Desiderando noi fare vedere ... il disegno ... E parimenti volendo S.S. vegga il pensiero che habbiamo di fabricare la Torre, ò sia forte al Mugiarro vi ordiniamo pero’ che e quello, e quest facciate con quella diligenza che di voi ci promettemo e ce li manderete avertendo che se vi parrà di poter migliorare il disegno che ultimamente facesti per ditto forte, lo facciate quanto prima che ci sarà tanto più caro ..’

This implies that although the Rinaldini plans formed Cassar’s point of departure, it seems that as resident engineer on site responsible for implementing the project, he appears to have produced the working drawings, and it was these, and not Rinaldini’s plans, which the Grand Master asked him to revise.(48) The assertion that Cassar was responsible for the final design of Garzes Tower was made, as a matter of fact, by Mons. Salvatore Imbroll around 1636.(49) This claim, however, is considered by some as somewhat problematic for by the time that works on the tower at Mġarr were actually begun in 1605, Cassar seems to have no longer been in charge of the fortification projects in Gozo. His association with the sister island, which began around 1600, when he was given the responsibility of executing Rinaldini’s scheme for the reconstruction of the medieval Grand Castello and its conversion into a gunpowder fortress with bastions and cavaliers according to Rinaldini’s plans, did not last long. The project proved to be an difficult task and perhaps beyond his engineering and organizational skills, made all the more difficult 70

Above, Detail from Prof. Quentin Hughes’ early notes on Maltese fortifications showing his sketch of St.Thomas Tower and legend identifying it as ‘a proper bastioned fort’. (Author’s private collection). Right, opposite page, View of the gorge of St. Martin Cavalier, Gozo Citadel, showing the treatment of the structure and its composition in the form of a tower with corner turrets, not much unlike the language adopted in the design of Wignacourt’s towers. This cavalier appears to have been built early in the reconstruction of the Citadel and was originally free-standing, linked only to a narrow chemin-de-ronde. (Image Source: Author’s private collection).

by the mutual antipathy that developed between the Governor of Gozo and Cassar. (50) SamutTagliaferro believed Vittorio Cassar was dismissed from the task by 1603, after being repeatedly reprimanded for the slow progress of the works. (51) Given that neither Rinaldini’s original designs for the Mġarr tower, nor Vittorio’s amendments or interpretation, have survived, it is difficult to judge the latter’s true contribution to the final structure.

In any case, even if the Garzes Tower was indeed influenced by Vittorio, it was a totally different typology of construction from that which was later adopted for the St. Paul’s Bay tower and this makes it even more problematic, therefore, to attribute the design of the turreted solution to Cassar.

Furthermore, Vittorio disappears from the Order’s military records after his apparent dismissal from the supervision of the Gozo project. He does not figure in any of the papers related to the Order’s works of fortification. Samut-Tagliaferro, citing Vincenzo Pavone, suspects that Vittorio was briefly engaged in Catania in the building of harbour works there in 1604 and, although returning to Malta, does not appear to have been re-engaged on any other works of fortification.(52) Vittorio’s death, around mid-June 1609, would tend to exclude him from any connection with the design of St. Paul Tower, unless of course, he had prepared the drawings, together with the model, that were presented to the council in November of that same year, well before his demise. Strangely, Gio. Francesco Abela only attributes the design of Wignacourt’s fifth tower, St. Mary Tower in Comino (1618), to Vittorio. This is highly unlikely given that Vittorio had by then been buried for nearly a decade. Abela’s attribution is also difficult to comprehend since he totally ignores all the previous four towers built by Wignacourt.

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St. Martin Cavalier, Gozo Citadel - detail of corner turret and cordons.

(Image source: Author’s private collection).

There is, however, one small potential piece of evidence, hitherto ignored, that may just link St. Paul’s Bay Tower’s design to Vittorio Cassar. This can be found in the design of St. Martin Cavalier in the Gozo Citadel, which was part of the new bastioned fortifications designed by Rinaldini and executed under Vittorio’s supervision and direction. Unfortunately, the upper part of this cavalier is no longer standing but there are three contemporary illustrations (one of which dates from the seventeenth century) which very clearly show that the left flank of this cavalier (that is, the side overlooking the adjoining demi-bastion) had two corner turrets with the guns deployed en barbette in between (illustrations below). A closer look at the gorge of this cavalier, the only part of the structure which has remained intact, reveals many striking features similar to the coastal towers that were built in the subsequent years. For instance, the cavalier, like the towers, has a sloping lower half and a vertical upper half, with pronounced projections at the corners, clearly simulating corner turrets, the whole braced together by three horizontal bands, that is, two cordons and a footing at the base (as in St. Paul Bay Tower). A third turret appears to have occupied the north-east corner of the structure (as suggest by the projecting band), and a fourth, on the north west corner would have been necessary to balance the design, although there is no surviving evidence for this, either physically or graphically.

There should be little doubt that St. Martin’s Cavalier was distinctively shaped in the form of a tower.

Architecturally, it served to anchor the western extremity of the medieval chemin-de-ronde and at 72

the same time provided a suitable vertical transition between the higher medieval enceinte and the lower bastioned trace, where the two met together at St. Martin’s Demi-Bastion. The question that remains to be answered, however, is whether or not it was designed and built by Vittorio, for as stated earlier, he was dismissed from overseeing the task early in the project but the enceinte itself took a long time to be brought to completion. The Cavalier of St. John, for example, the second of the two cavaliers at the Gozo Citadel, was only completed in 1614. It too was built in the form of a stout tower but it lacks corner turrets. Again, this suggests that the two cavaliers were designed by different architects. We have no date for the commencement or completion of St. Martin Cavalier, and it may well prove to be that it was begun well after Vittorio’s involvement and maybe even after the appearance of the first Wignacourt towers in Malta.

Perhaps, and more importantly, Vittorio’s influence on the design can be traced indirectly through another building – the fortified country residence which Grand Master Hughes Loubenx de Verdalle built for himself at Boschetto and whose design Gian Francesco Abela attributes to Girolamo Cassar, Vittorio’s father, who, as already mentioned, was the Order’s resident engineer for most of the last quarter of the sixteenth century. Described as a ‘rocca’ by Abela, this country villa was a veritable stronghold, surrounded with its own rock-hewn ditch and served with a drawbridge: ‘La Rocca di Monte Verdala discosta dall’antica Citta’ poco meno di due miglia è posta sopra una Collina di viva pietra, che sourasta di qua’ al Vallone

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del Boschetto, nomato anticamente di Deyr, e Saf, la sua figura è quadrangolare fabricata con inegnosa architectura. Terminano le quattre facciate di essa in angoli acuti, che sporgono nel di fuori in modo, che rimane da tutti li lati fiancheggiata.

Ciascuno de’ quattro angoli riguarda verso il suo vento principale, secondo le buone regole dell’architettura circa il modo di fabricar le case di Villa, à fin che in tutto il corso dell’anno in ciascun giorno possa il sole percuotere tutte le quattro facciate. S’inalzano quattro torrette, che sono il finimento, & abbellimento di tutta la fabrica. S’Entra poi per la porta Sopra un ponte levatoio in un’ andito, nel cui sinistro lato, che riguarda l’Oriente, è l’appartamento del Sig. Gan Maestro, & alla sinistra per Tramontana, vi si trova una bellissima scala di pietra fatta à lumaca, che conduce à basso nelle stanze di servigio. Nel di sopra è l edificio fatto à lamia, di manier che vi si puo’ nel pian del tetto (à cui si ascende per la medesima scala) far giocare alcun pezzetto d’artiglieria ... Nella parte anteriore fuori del fosso, che la cinge, e difende per tutti i lati e un gran cortile con la sua cavallerizza’. (53)

Above, various depictions of St. Martin Cavalier, Gozo Citadel, showing the south face of the structure as it stood originally before it was pulled down – top, Agius de Soldanis. Note the pronounced turrets and the overall likeness of the structure to a turreted coastal tower, with the guns mounted à mezza ruota between the turrets.

The late Prof. Quentin Hughes believed that the Verdala Palace was itself designed in the ‘tradition of the Italian villas of the Renaissance’, highly reminiscent of ‘Vignola’s more magnificent Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola’, begun in 1559, but with its pseudo-bastions carried the full height of the building’. Hughes also believed that Girolamo Cassar probably came across Vignola’s work during his architectural visit to Italy in 1566 ‘à vedere alcuni edificij massime in Roma, Napoli et in alter parti dove vi son perfettissimi, et degni di imitatione per tornarsine qui quanto prima et avvalersene in suo essempli nell’opre ch’egli havera di far per servitio di n[ost]ra Religione.’ (54) The building of Verdale’s fortified Palazzo, began sometime after 1581 and completed by 1586, 73

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Verdala ‘Castle’, a fortified country villa built by Grand Master Verdale at Buskett, in the north of Malta. The building was designed by Girolamo Cassar, Vittorio’s father. The villa was built in the form of a veritable fort, with its own ditch, drawbridge and armoury. It has four corner bastions/turrets. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

would have been familiar to Vittorio and may have even influenced his own ideas. There is no denying the fact, therefore, that the turreted concept was already extant in Malta before 1609, and that Vittorio may have been predisposed to develop the idea through the direct influence of his father.(55) Surely, the Verdala Palazzo was inspired by the notion of a rectangular fort with corner bastion-like turrets but it fails to convincingly convey a ‘power of resistance’.

The corner turrets, for instance, are too narrow and tall in relation to the width of the façades, making them appear rather puny and artificial. The scale involved (the palace has a plan area of around 34 m x 30 m), on the other hand, is large enough to deny the palace any claim to being a ‘tower’. In fact, there is very little echo of the Verdala Palazzo in the St. Paul Bay and St. Lucian Towers, with their heavily scarped lower bases. If there is any remote similarity, it can only be glimpsed in St. Thomas Tower with its projecting bastion-like turrets, but then again this is too late in the time line and there is no way that Vittorio could have designed it in 1614.

So if Vittorio Cassar, or Rinaldini before him, were not responsible for the design of the turreted St. Paul’s Bay Tower, then who was? SamutTagliaferro suggests that the Wignacourt towers were designed by unknown Maltese architects and capimastri. His theory was based on the fact that in nearly all of the occasions when the tower proposals (the designs and models) were presented 74

to the Council for approval by the Grand Master, no mention was made at all of any architect or engineer – as if these, as ordinary local craftsmen, ‘were unworthy of mention.’ (56) Up until the late 1580’s, most of the engineering work, though not exclusively, had been monopolized

by Girolamo Cassar, but after his death in 1592, the post appears to have remained vacant for some eight years or so. Vittorio himself claimed, in a report dated 5 September 1600, that after the death of his father ‘non vi era Ingegniero’.(57) Vittorio, however, only appears to have been appointed to the position of architector Sacrae religionis in 1600.(58) Despite Vittorio’s claims, it is clear that works on many of the Order’s projects continued to be carried out by a number of qualified capomastri. For example, in a statement issued under oath during the course of a legal dispute in August 1600, Giovanni Maria Nadal claimed that ‘dalla morte del quondam Maestro Geronimo Cassar in qua’ Meastro Andrela Dingli, Dominico Ellul (Hellun) and Maestro Salvatore Felice had served as ‘Ingigneri et dissignatori della opera della Religione’.(59) Ellul appears to have by then long served as a Maestro di operatori et stimatori delli operi (chief quantity surveyor) while Felice was primarily a draughtsmen (‘far professione di molti disegno et caetera, chiamato da molti signori per disegnarli li loro casi’).(60) Fra Gaspare Montreal, perhaps rather unfairly, dismissed Dingli as being merely a maestro scarpellino, and Ellul

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Detail of the footing of one of the corner bastions/ turrets of Verdala ‘Castle’ (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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Above, Plan of the ditch-level of Verdala ‘Castle’ at Buskett, in the north of Malta, showing very clearly the flanking possibilities offered by the four corner bastions and the wide and rock-hewn ditch enveloping the edifice. This is a late-nineteenth-century plan. Left, opposite page, View from above of the rock-hewn ditch and the stairway leading to the main entrance of Verdala ‘Castle’. Originally, this was served by a wooden drawbridge.

Below, Detail of the footing of one of the corner bastions, partially carved out of the bedrock. (Images source: Author’s private collection).

and Felici as maestri ‘di trinche’ and ‘di legname’ respectively.(61) Prof. Quentin Hughes mentions a certain Gerolamo Bonici, a local capomastro, as the possible architect of St. Thomas Bay Tower however, he provided no evidence to support this claim.(62) Bonici, as a matter of fact, is something of a mystery as he fails to feature in any of the sources. Indeed, Hughes later omits any reference to Bonici altogether in his co-authored book on Baroque architecture.(63) On the other hand, a certain Gio. Mattheo Bonnici was one of those present in the commission accompanying Grand Master Wignacourt at the stone-laying foundation of the Delle Grazie Tower in April 1620 but it is not clear if he was a capomastro or not.(64) Amongst the most important of the Order’s resident architects at the time of the construction of the coastal towers is Capo Maestro Andrea Dingli (65). He was even sent to Gozo together with Commendatore Averoldo in 1603 ‘per riconoscere’ Vittorio’s work and report on it to the Grand Master.

(66) Capo Maestro Andrea Dingli appears to have succeeded Girolamo Cassar as a chief architect of the Order in the beginning of the seventeenth century. (67) In one of the Order’s documents he is referred to as Architectoris sive Ingigneri …

Civitates Valletta (68). Another little-known architect employed by the Knights on fortification works around this time was Mro. Petrum Rubino. (69).

Together with Dingli, he is mentioned in a legal

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Left, previous page, and below, The shape of the Torretta of the Wignacourt aqueduct at San Giuseppe (Sta. Venera) is distinctively tower-like in form. (Image source: Author’s private collection). It is not clear, however, if this was its original configuration, since the watercolour drawing prepared by the Knight Nicolo’ Poncet in 1610 (above) shows no such features.

(Image source: Courtesy of the National Library of Malta).

technical persons in the plural, suggesting that various individuals were involved in the process.

Amongst these, most probably, was the Knight Fra Paolo Grimaldi, the ‘Commissario antiano delle Opere’ (i.e. long-serving commissioner of works), the only official directly involved in the fortification works who is signalled out for mention in Wignacourt’s 1620 public testimonial. Again, going back to 1609, we can see that there must have surely been a technical person forming part of the special commission appointed by Grand Master de Wignacourt and sent to St. Paul’s Bay in 1609 to help identify the best location for the tower, for in their ensuing report, the Realtione del Sito dela Gran Cala di S.to Paulo de Malta cited earlier, these commissioners were able to suggest clear architectural directions and dimensions, and these were very much adhered to in the executed project. (72) The fact that no mention is ever made of an architect/ engineer, however, may also suggest another possible explanation, namely that author/s of the tower/s was/were foreigners who were not present on the island for the occasion. This is not so far-fetched a hypothesis, for there are indeed many other instances in the Order’s history where designs and scale models of fortification projects were commissioned from military engineers abroad and sent to Malta. In 1640, to cite but one of the more known examples, Giovanni de Medici sent over his designs and models for the four counterguards of the Valletta land front. (73) The various tower designs could also have been introduced indirectly through foreign engineers or knights who were in Malta at the time.

In Wignacourt’s reign there were many foreign engineers working in Malta. The construction of the 8km-long aqueduct designed to conduct fresh water down from the north of the island to Valletta, Wignacourt’s major infrastructural project, implemented around the same time as the construction of the coastal towers, involved a number of foreign experts.

Among these was the Palermitan Jesuit engineer Natale Tommassucci and his replacement Bontadino Bontadini.(74) No records so far have surfaced to show that these engineers were involved in any of the military projects other than the construction of the aqueduct. Even so, it is interesting to note that the design of Wignacourt’s aqueduct itself contained many features which were built in the form of towers, particularly the ‘torrette’ at San Giuseppe, Hamrun, and Floriana.

The French knight Fra Nicolo’ de Poncet, who was the sopraintendente delle fontane in 1610 known mostly for his beautiful watercolour designs of the Wignacourt Aqueduct, was himself an engineer. (75) It is the uncanny resemblance of Wignacourt’s towers to the towers designed and built by the Antonelli family of military engineers, however, that tends to provide the best evidence of a direct foreign influence, and perhaps, involvement. A study of the Antonelli towers clearly shows that the design concept for St. Paul Bay Tower and its sister structures did not originate locally and appears 79

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document dated December 1609 involving repairs to the Vittoriosa fortifications and is styled m[ast]rum Petrum Rubino architectonis operum della Sacra Religione.(70) Judging by his surname, however, Rubino appears to have been a foreigner, possibly a Sicilian architect. Nothing more is known about him so far. Interestingly, however, there was a dynasty of master builders in Sicily who went by the name of Rubino. The most notable of these was Clemente Rubino, who in 1613 was commissioned to build the coastal tower at Capo Mulino, near Aci in Sicily. (71) What is indeed relevant to note here, however, is that the documents relating to the Delle Grazie claim that this tower was built ‘col parer d’Ingegneri e pratici’. The reference is to engineers and

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to have been heavily influenced by the Antonelli architects who worked for the kings of Spain and were responsible for building many coastal works of fortification throughout the Spanish domains.

As a matter of fact, the turreted-tower design adopted in the first of the Wignacourt towers at St. Paul’s Bay (and then in the subsequent towers) is already encountered in a fully developed form at the Torre di San Giovanni at the mouth of the Ebro estuary in Alfaquez, Spain. This tower is dated to 1576 and is attributed to Cristoforo Antonelli.

The structure has survived but largely as a ruin, and is missing most of the upper half although the bases of the four corner turrets are still identifiable.

Fortunately, it was documented and mentioned by Leone Andrea Maggiorotti in his work on Italian architects outside Italy, L’Opera del Genio Italiano all’Estero (1933-1936), which also included a plan of the tower based on a survey drawn up in 1739 (76) (See illustration right).

The author’s reconstruction of the tower based on the existing remains and on Maggiorotti’s plan is shown below and clearly reveals the strong resemblance. With a base of around 10 m, the Ebro tower was slightly smaller than the St. Paul’s Bay structure and less elegantly and finely built, constructed as it was in coursed rubble work heavily laid in mortar. Even so, the layout and scope of the corner turrets is clearly well developed, and this, some thirty years before the construction of the first Wignacourt tower in Malta. There can be little doubt, therefore, that the Ebro tower may have

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Below, Author’s graphic reconstruction of the Torre di San Giovanni at the mouth of the Ebro estuary in Alfaquez, Spain, dated to 1576 and attributed to Cristoforo Antonelli, based on a plan of the tower drawn up in 1739 (above), reproduced

by Leone Andrea Maggiorotti in his work, L’Opera del Genio Italiano all’Estero (1933-1936), and on the surviving remains.

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Above, Two views of the present day remains of the Torre de San Giovanni situated at the mouth of the Ebro estuary, Alfaquez, Spain and an aerial sketch plan of the small islet on which the tower is located. This was linked by a causeway to the mainland. (Images source: Google Earth).

Top, right, View and plan of the Castell de San Marcos in the island of Majorca constructed around 1610-1612 (see text).

Note the striking similarity of its layout and proportions to St. Thomas Tower in Marsascala. The tower also had an external flight of steps which was later removed (Image source of Plan: J. Gonzales de Chavez Alemany, Fortificaciones Costeras de Mallorca)

served as the prototype for the turreted towers that were eventually erected around the shores of the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic in the New World.

There were, however, two Cristoforo Antonelli; Cristoforo Gravelli Antonelli (15501608) and Cristoforo Roda Antonelli (1566-1631) but Maggiorotti fails to indicate who of the two was actually responsible for the design. Modern scholarship, on the other hand, has likewise failed, so far, to shed new information on the matter. The two were cousins and nephews of the renowned Antonelli brothers; Giovanni Battista (also known as il Maggiore – 1527-1588) and Battista Antonelli (1547-1616).(77) Both Battista Antonelli and his nephew Cristoforo Roda went on to work in the New World and built many coastal forts and towers for the defence of the Spanish settlements there. The turreted-tower design, in fact, is also encountered in Cuba at the Torreon de Cojimar and the Fortaleza di Chorrera; both have many of the characteristics of the Wignacourt towers. These two towers, however, were erected in 1645 (although proposed in 1633) but were likewise designed by an Antonelli, in this case, by Juan Battista Antonelli, known as ‘il Giovane’ [1585-1649], son of Battista and cousin of Cristoforo Rodo. (78) 81

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Above, Drawing and plan of the large coastal tower at Girgenti, in Sicily, as documented by Francesco Negro and Carlo Maria Ventimiglia in their Atlante di Città e Fortezze del Regno dio Sicilia,1640 (Image source: Courtesy of Nicola Aricò, Messina 1992). The tower was overlooked by high ground on its landward side, hence the need for the screening wall on part of its terrace. Above, left, Plan and view of the small bastioned coastal fort guarding the harbour in Havana, Cuba, known as the Castello de La Fuerza built around 1557-1558. (Image source of plan: Courtesy of the Archivio Graziano Gasparini) 82

Inside the Mediterranean, the bastioned-tower design, particularly as employed at St.Thomas Tower in 1614, can also be found in the Castello (or Torre) della Tonnara on the small island of Formica, off Trapani, Sicily. The similarity is remarkable, but the date of the construction of this bastioned tower has still to be determined to see if it materialized before or after 1609. A report drawn up in 1640 shows the Torre della Tonnara to have then already been in dire need of repair, implying that it must have been standing for quite some time. The Tonnara tower also has a common feature with the Torre San Giovanni, namely the short faces (or curtains) between the corner turrets, unlike the Maltese structures where the turrets are spaced out at a greater distance apart.

Another, perhaps even more striking, resemblance can be found in the Fortalesa de Porto Pi, also known as Castell de San Carlos on the island of Majorca (Mallorca). This coastal fort was constructed in 1610-12 (i.e., around the same time that St. Lucian Tower was being erected in Malta and two years before the commencement of works on St. Thomas Tower) and represents the first isolated small bastioned fort constructed by the Spaniards in the island of Majorca. (79) The need for a tower at Porto Pi was first discussed

by Majorca’s Colegio de Mercaderes in 1600, following which a request for financial assistance

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was made to King Philip III in 1607. Initially it was decided to build a circular fort but, on the strong insistence of King Philip himself, a rectangular bastioned structure was built instead. This was a marked departure from the circular type of fortificaciones costeras which had been employed around Majorca’s shores till then. The new tower, as a result, was built in the form of a small fort with four corner bastions. It carried a battery of six cannon on its terrace and was approached by a detached flight of steps (later demolished when the tower was enclosed within a larger fort in 1662-63).

Its construction cost 12,000 libras. Its architect, however, is not known to the author.

This bastioned-tower solution, unlike the turreted solution, seems to have been more directly influenced by the design of earlier sixteenth-century small bastioned coastal forts, such as that built also by the Antonelli for the Spaniards in Havana, of which the renowned Castillo de la Fuerza (see picture on previous page) is perhaps the leading example of this typology of structures. Although significantly larger than the later bastioned towers under discussion here, these compact bastioned forts had set a pattern for small coastal works of fortification which sought to acquire greater resistance than that which could be provided by simple rectangular enclosures.

The only turreted tower in Malta whose architect is known and documented is Fort St. Agatha (later known as Torre Rossa) in Mellieħa. Although this, as already mentioned earlier, was not one of the original Wignacourt towers, there is little doubt that its design was heavily influenced by the turreted towers erected in the second decade of the seventeenth century. That this typology of structures was still in vogue is also attested by the Antonelli’s Left, Various Spanish coastal turreted towers – from top to bottom, Castello della Tonnara, Isola Formica, Sicily, and the Castillo de Cojimar and, Chorrera Tower in Cuba. Below, Two Spanish bastioned coastal forts in Cuba. (Images source: Author’s private collection).

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Decorative crenellation (retardataire feature)

Wooden floor on timber beams

Turret with circular staircase shaft Machicolation

Chapel

Side windows

themselves who were still building their towers in this fashion well into the 1640s. We now know that Mellieħa Tower was built by Capitano Antonio Garsin who is documented as having received 110 scudi for drawing up two plans and three models of the tower and for having undertaken the supervision of the building works which are known to have lasted from December 1647 to around April 1649. (80) Garsin was a Frenchman from Marseilles and lived in Valletta (‘di

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main entrance served by wooden drawbridge

Author’s graphic reconstruction of Mellieħa Tower, built between 1647 and 1649 with cut-away showing internal layout.

Right, Author’s graphic reconstruction of the tower showing its positioning on the landscape and its partial enclosure by an 18th-century redan-trace type of field entrenchment built of rubble walls, as shown in the detail from a Hospitallerperiod map, far right (Image source of map: Courtesy of the National Library of Malta).

Note that the entrenchment did not enclose the tower, as it does today, but was only intended to face the approaches up from the bay.

Below, Elevation of the tower’s north-west façade. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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nation Francese habitatore in questa Città Valletta’).

However, he is something of a mystery, for it is not clear if he was a resident engineer, a local architect or a capomaestro who had been commissioned specifically for the task. His military rank of ‘captain’ would seem to suggest that he was a military engineer by profession. Garsin was also involved in other small works of a military nature for the Order of St. John, such as the drawing up the new plans for the rebuilding of the Birgu clock tower in 1629.

(81) Another French military engineer by the same surname, a certain Pierre Garsin,(82) is known to have worked briefly on the fortifications of Almeida in Spain in 1645-46 but it is not yet clear if the two were related or not. Further research is required here.

Moreover, Garsin appears to have also been a competent architect, designer, draughtsman and architectural sculptor (scalpellino) in his own right and was involved in various civil and religious buildings, such as the new design for the altar façade of the Chapel of St. Sebastian in the Conventual Church of St. John (1646) and the designs for the statues, coat of arms and festoons on the façade of the Auberge de Provence (1630).(84) He is documented to have effected repairs to the old crumbling walls of the courtyard of the civil prisons in the Grand Corte Castellania in 1646. (85) Another possible influence on Maltese coastal tower design may have come indirectly from Tiburzio Spannocchi. This, the most celebrated of Italian engineers serving Philip II and Philip III of Spain, was also a knight of the Order of St. John.

Right, Early 20th-century photograph of Mellieħa Tower showing a number of British additions to the structure, including a musketry parapet wall with loopholes and a wooden vedette or signalling station on top of the roof of the left corner turret.

(Image source: Author’s private collection).

He was invested into the Italian Langue in June 1576 during a visit to Malta (86). Following Girolamo Cassar’s demise, Grand Master Garzes had written to King Philip III, in 1595, asking for the services of Spannocchi but the Anconitan engineer Giovanni Rinaldini was sent instead. (87) In 1577, the Viceroy of Sicily, Marc Antonio Colonna, entrusted Spannocchi with a review of the coastal defences of Sicily. Spannocchi worked on various defences and designed a system of coastal forts and signalling towers. His report, entitled Description de las marinas de todo el Reino de Sicilia, produced in 1578 is now conserved in the Biblioteca Nacional of Madrid. Spannocchi died in 1606, well before the building of the first of Wignacourt’s towers. It is not known at this stage if his advice was ever sought on coastal defences but it is clear from Garzes’ attempt to acquire his services, that Spannocchi was highly thought of in Malta.

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Commemorative plaque affixed above the entrance into Mellieħa Tower (dedicated to St. Agatha, dated 1649, the year of the tower’s completion (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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Decorative Battlement with dove-tailed crenels The faces of the upper rooms on the turrets are not all equidistantly pulled back from the outer faces of the corner turrets (this is very evident even to the naked eye - compare with left turret)

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that it blocked all access to the rest of the turret. This, in turn, necessitated that the right flank of the turret had to be pushed outwards to accommodate a very narrow doorway into the room (see diagram and photograph, middle), resulting in a curved outer flank and the removal of the flanking musketry loophole.

The overall result was a very untidy solution that appears to have been a corrective measure and an afterthought.

Another example of the poor attention to detail in the execution of the works is evidenced by the intersection of the intrados of the large vault with that of the smaller vaults for the upper window openings in the side walls (see image, bottom left).

Another defect can be seen in the manner in which the upper rooms of the corner turrets are not all equidistantly aligned in relation to the main body of the turrets.

large cordon (cordone militare) with golletta

Pair of corbels for box machicolation

Splayed cheeks of window cut out by the British military so as to widen the field of fire of a machine mounted inside the tower in WWII Cutting in wall to support roof of modern structure which was once grafted onto the north face of tower

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View of the northern elevation of Mellieħa Tower. The tower has been restored, and is managed by Din L-Art Ħelwa, Malta’s leading and long-standing voluntary heritage organization. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

The dove-tailed finials crowning the roof of the turrets are original features. Together with the six box machicolations, they form part of the tower’s distinctive retardataire features introduced into the design by Captain Antonio Garsin.

The faces of the tower’s turrets also have a distinctive feature, barely noticeable, in that the shoulder angles are slightly larger than 90 degrees, so that the turrets do not form a perfect square in plan but project slightly outwards towards the salient, as in bastions (see diagram and the photograph of the cordon - opposite page, top). The only other tower to have such a feature, albeit more pronounced, is St. Thomas Tower.

Garsin’s design, and the workmanship of the tower, however contain many flaws. To begin with, the circular stairway shaft (Mellieħa Tower is the only tower to employ a circular staircase) is very clumsily designed and executed, such that it did not fit within the footprint of the rectangular plan of the corner turret, to the extent

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Coastal assets The Torre Rossa at Mellieħa was to be the last of the large turreted towers to be erected in Malta. For, from about a decade earlier, the Knights had already started to adopt a smaller and cheaper pattern of coastal towers. The first of these were the six watchtowers which were built by Grand Master Lascaris in 1638, to be followed by another thirteen slightly sturdier units erected by Grand Master de Redin in 1658-59 (together with a fourteenth in Gozo).

Although this shift was undeniably motivated by the need to reduce the heavy expenses entailed in the construction and maintenance of the larger ‘fortini’, it was not the only reason behind the adoption of a different typology of structures. True, the new coastal watch-towers cost only about one-tenth (on average some 500 scudi each) of the cheapest of Wignacourt’s towers, but on closer examination it becomes clear that the Order’s seventeenth-century military planners were also influenced by the system of coastal defences which Tiburzio Spannochi had prescribed for the defence of Sicily in 1578, and this dictated the need not only for coastal forts capable of intercepting invaders but also for a network of coastal watchposts and signalling stations. In his Description de las marinas de todo el Reino de Sicilia, Spannochi mentions a hierarchical scheme of coastal defences based on three categories of coastal towers: (88) a) Large Towers (Torre di maggiore grandezza) built on the shoreline down by the sea, in close proximity to harbour entrances and anchorages; b) Medium-sized towers (Torre di media grandezza) which were built further inland, close to the shore and on level ground, and c) Small towers (Torre di minore grandezza) which were built on naturally defended high ground (such as cliffs and hilltops).

Categories ‘a’ and ‘b’ served primarily as physical barriers to invasion, being both large enough to mount heavy cannon and also strong enough to offer substantial resistance in order to ward off invading enemy forces until the arrival of friendly reinforcements, while those in category ‘c’ were meant to serve simply as lookout posts and signalling stations. Clearly, Wignacourt’s towers, together with Garzes Tower and, later, Mellieħa Tower, fell within the first two categories while the smaller Lascaris and de Redin towers subscribed to the third category. This last group, therefore, was not simply a cheaper alternative but a complementary one fulfilling a different, but nonetheless critical and necessary role. The three categories, therefore, were meant to complement each other and create a network of defences tailored to the nature of the terrain and the organizational capabilities of the Order’s defensive forces.

Still, given that it took more than half a century for the whole scheme of coastal towers to materialize (in all comprising some thirty towers by 1670), it is difficult to envisage this as having 90

a

b

c

been the product of some grand master plan laid out in the first decade of the 1600s by Grand Master Wignacourt and his military advisors. The strategy of coastal defence which emerged in the course of the first half of the seventeenth century (if one can actually speak of a ‘strategy’ at this stage) evolved incrementally and very slowly, with each of the individual elements conceived, and functioning, in isolation and independently of the rest, leaving large lacunae of unprotected coastline still dependent on the old organic arrangement of unfortified open-air militia sentry posts. Indeed, it was this old maħras system of militia guards, which predated the arrival of the Knights well into the middle ages, that continued to provide the glue that held the coastal defensive network together well into the seventeenth century. In actual fact, it was not until Grand Master de Redin’s time, in the late 1650s, that a conscious effort was made to combine the disparate elements that had been built up until then into a ‘system’ of coastal defences – one that enabled a 360-degree of control, so to speak, of the island’s shores and the intervening channels, enabling communications and signals to be relayed from one position to the next, from one end of the island to the other, and from across one island to the other, all the way up and down to the command centres in Valletta and Mdina. But to achieve this, Grand Master de Redin had to first invest in another thirteen new towers which were strategically sited for maximum effect. Gozo, on the other hand was left out of the equation, and although it did also receive a handful of towers after 1660 (at Mġarr ix-Xini, Xlendi, Dwejra, and San Blas) no attempt was made to provide the sister island with the same type of integrated network and, as a result, Gozo’s coastal towers remained, in effect, largely isolated elements.

In at least two instances, namely at St. Paul’s Bay and Marsaxlokk, the Wignacourt towers were actually by-passed by the new signalling route, since these two older strong-points were located far too deep inside their respective bays to be of any use to the new signalling network. This situation, perhaps more than anything else, serves to underline the primary role that Wignacourt’s tower were initially meant to serve – i.e., as coastal forts designed to defend important anchorages and intercept enemy landings either by physically plugging in the gaps, or else by means of their firepower.

Clearly, these outposts were meant to hold their own against attack. A list of their armament leaves little doubt as to their intended role (see table on page 96). Even so, although conceived as isolated and self-reliant, distant outposts, the towers were not meant to function alone simply as passive

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obstacles waiting to be attacked. Some of them, at least, were designed to serve as rallying points for the mustering of troops and all were conceived as part of a larger system of defensive assets with which the Order sought to protect the island and its resources in the face of a resurgent Ottoman aggression. By 1618, Wignacourt could claim that he and his knights had provided ‘alla difesa di questa Isola tutta volta che i nemice havessimo pensiero di metter gente in terra nel meglior modo che potemo’.

The sites, therefore, were chosen carefully. We know, for instance, that the commission appointed

by Grand Master Wignacourt to visit and study St. Paul’s Bay with the scope of identifying the best site for the location of the tower had actually gone through the trouble of preparing a scale model of the terrain after gathering all the measurements of the bay and its neighbourhood, before identifying ‘la punta vicina all chiesa di San Paolo’ as being ‘la più atta et proporionata per la fabrica della torre’, pointing out that the position enjoyed ‘la veduta e frontiera che ha detta punta con il porto’.(89) Moreover, one of the primary reasons which the commission cited as determining the choice of the site was that it was ‘la più vicina alla strada maestra’. Logistical considerations, i.e., the ability of the tower to be reached and reinforced by land with troops and supplies, quickly and without difficulty, therefore, were an important criterion in deciding the choice of its site.

This factor emerges repeatedly in the manner in which the towers were employed in times of danger in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although the normal complement of the towers, as established in 1631, generally comprised a commander and two bombardiers per unit, the Order’s records show that in times of real danger these strong-points were reinforced with large

Above, St. Mary Tower, Comino. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

contingents of professional troops sent from Valletta.

In May 1645, for instance, we find that 200 foreign troops were deployed to St. Thomas and St. Lucian, another 100 to delle Grazie, 20 to St. Paul’s, 25 to Garzes and 30 to Comino. At a later stage, a garrison of thirty men was considered sufficient for the job if adequately supplied with enough provisions for forty days, ‘Si stima che le torri debbarsi conservare anche dopo lo sbarco, essendo in stato di mantenersi con 30 uomini. Questi sono la Torre di Marsacirocco, quella di S. Tommaso, e la Torre Rossa verso le Freghi. In questa ragione bisogna provedere quanto prima detti Torri per la sussistenza del loro presidio almeno per giorni 40 di tempo e darli le monizionji di gwerra necessarie per la loro difesa’.

Although, as Alison Hoppen rightly pointed out, a force of a few hundred men could sally forth and attempt to oppose a raiding party, the ‘twenty to thirty men’ assigned for the defence of the St. Paul Bay, Garzes, and Comino towers could hardly have been expected ‘to do more than indulge in an odd skirmish or two’ (90). The effectiveness of the role of the towers and their garrison can be gleamed for an incident which occurred in the summer of 1618, when a Turkish Brigantino slipped into Marsaxlokk bay to capture a local vessel at anchor loaded with timber. The situation was only saved by the timely ‘aiuto della guardia dei quella Torre’ [St. Lucian] which sallied to intercept and frustrate the corsairs intentions. (91).

Effectively then, the Wignacourt towers were conceived as military forts and were concerned, primarily, with a strategic defence rather than with providing protection to exposed and outlying 91

B

Copyright - Dr. Stephen C. Spiteri Ph.D - 2013

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View from Selmun of St. Paul’s Bay, with the small Mistra Bay in the foreground. St. Paul Tower can be seen on the far side of the bay (inset A). Its position carefully chosen to control the approaches to Mistra.

Later, in the course of the eighteenth century, a large coastal battery (inset B) was built by Grand Master Pinto to protect the mouth of Mistra Bay. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

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rural settlements. The use of towers to protect isolated settlements and the properties of the farming communities, as advocated by Camilliani, only comes to the fore with the watch-towers built by Lascaris and De Redin. This concern is explicitly stated in the official reasons given for the construction of the Torre Rossa at Mellieħa in 1647: ‘Havendo proposto l’ E.m R.m Sig. Gran Maestro, come in conformità d’un disegno che presento desiderava far fabricare una torre .... nell’ultima parte dell’Isola Sopra le Saline vecchie vicino al luogo ditto il Burgio per difesa della marina, e sicurezza dei Massari, che coltivano li terreni circovicini’.

We only find this requirwement mentioned once in the case of Wignacourt’s towers. In his letter to the Governor of Gozo in 1616, regarding Marsalforn Tower which was located high up on the cliff face of the Għajn Damma plateau, overlooking the vulnerable lading areas in Marsalforn bay, Wignacourt remarked that ‘Si facci buona guardia, accio cosi li huomini come li Vasselli che vi sono d’intorno vi possino stare sicuri’. (92) The Marsalforn Tower, however, appears to have been the least successful of all the Wignacourt coastal strongholds. Its location, high up on the edge of cliffs known as Rdum il-Fiddien, was poorly chosen and this in turn severely effected both its usefulness as a defensive asset, and ultimately, as already shown above, its own structural stability.

By 1662, the Knight Vauvilliers was calling for its abandonment and replacement by a new tower placed down by the sea at Santa Maria in order to be more appropriately situated to defend the A

94

C

entrances to both the Marsalforn and Santa Maria bays simultaneously: (93) ‘Sono di parere che si fabrichi una nuova [torre] nella Cala di Sta. Maria luogo molto à proposito per difendere le due Cale’.

A closer look at the actual positioning of the large towers (including Garzes and Mellieħa) reveals these did not really follow any one formula and each sought to exploit the natural advantages offered by its particular site. Basically, the locations can be grouped into the following categories, where the towers were built either: a) very close to the shore but protected, frontally, by a low cliff, such as St. Paul Bay, and St. Lucian; b) on high ground, along the edge of a cliff, such as Garzes and Marsalforn; c) further inland on a ridge such as St. Mary Tower in Comno, and Mellieħa; and d) on level ground close to the sea, such as St. Thomas and Delle Grazzie.

Of all the towers, the most exposed to direct assault were St. Thomas Tower, which was placed at the tip of a flat promontory, and Delle Grazie, both of which could be easily approached from the sea. Of these, only St. Thomas Tower is known to have been provided with a rock-hewn ditch. The only other tower which had what can be described as a ditch was St. Mary Tower in Comino, although there is some evidence to show that Mellieħa Tower (1647) may also have had been initially intended to have a fosso. The Comino Tower ditch, however, was not a true obstacle cut down into the ground B

E

but an enclosed space created by the raised counterscarp and glacis of loose rubble stone which were thrown up around the tower. This rudimentary glacis was also countermined with explosive chambers reached via short galleries opening in the counterscarp - the only one of the towers to be given such a feature. The ditch which surrounded St. Lucian Tower prior to the construction of the nineteenth-century British coastal fort (1872), was only added in the late eighteenth century and was not part of the original configuration. A call for the construction for this ditch first appears in one of the deliberations of the Order’s Council, dated 28 June 1783 when its was agreed to make a trench around St. Lucian Tower. This eventually materialized a decade later as part of a general makeover undertaken under the supervision of the resident French military engineer, Antoine Etienne de Tousard, with the whole complex of unified tower, battery and ditch being renamed Fort Rohan. (94) The overall influence of the Sicilian coastal defence scheme can also be discerned in other aspects of the bastioned towers, as well as in those of the later towers that materialized in the course of the seventeenth century. In particular, many of the structural elements of the Maltese towers were directly influenced by the structural features which were introduced after 1583, when the Deputazione del Regno commissioned the Florentine Camillo Camiliani to undertake a second survey of the coastal areas of Sicily. For, although Spannochi’s exercise had led to the construction of a string D

of new towers and the repair of many others, there still remained many large vulnerable gaps in the defensive system that were seen to require more coastal fortifications. Camilliani, however, sought to adopt a standardized pattern for the new towers and these came to be easily recognized by their square plan (pianta quadrata) and vertical articulation on three storeys with terrazzo, piano operativo and base. Up until then, many of the older torri saracinesche had been built in a cylindrical fashion and came in a variety of shapes and sizes.

The Torre Camilliane, as these came to be known, however, acquired a distinctive rectangular form with inclined bases and faces ribbed with cordons.(95) Such towers were devoid of apertures and windows on their ground floor level and had their main entrances opening on the first floor along the landward side for added protection. Their interiors were solidly built in masonry with barrel vaults (volta à botte – il Dammuso) and protected by thick walls. The first floor in each tower served as the living quarters.

The stairs leading to roof platform, itself enclosed by a parapet and strong enough to mount cannon, were embedded within the thickness of the walls. All of these features are immediately recognizable in the towers built by Wignacourt, Lascaris and De Redin.

It is not yet known if the land on which the Wignacourt towers were built belonged to either the Order, the Church, or private individuals. In at least one case, however, that of Sta. Maria delle Grazie Tower, the land was expropriated from a private owner. Thirty years later, Gregorio Mamo had still not received any compensation for the four tumoli of land which had been taken over by the Order ‘in servitio del publico per fabricare la torre ta’ Sciayra’ (Xghajra - Delle Grazie). In 1650, he petitioned Grand Master Lascaris to be granted two tumoli of public land in exchange for the four he had lost so that he could erect a church (San Gaetano) ‘fundando in essa una messa ogni Domenica’.(96)

View of Mellieħa Bay around the 1960s, still largely devoid of buildings. Mellieħa Tower (inset A) was sited a considerable distance inland on top of the northern ridge flanking the bay.

From this position it could easily communicate with both Comino Tower (B) and Garzes Tower (C). After 1658, it could also communicate with l-Ahrax Tower (D) and, after 1715, with Comino Battery (E).(Image source: Author’s private collection).

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St. Lucian Tower occupies a promontory inside Marsaxlokk harbour. The chalky cliff-face made the tower difficult to assault from the sea. Left, previous page, View of Gozo ‘scoastline overlooking Comino channel. Garzes Tower was designed to control this vast stretch of water.

(Images source: Author’s private collection).

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Tower Armament An important quality of the large bastioned towers was their ability to serve as coastal gun batteries. Their solid, vaulted construction enabled them not only to withstand tremendous punishment but also to mount very heavy cannon – guns which allowed the towers to play an active role in the defense of the shoreline and seaward approaches.

The Order’s records show that the Wignacourt towers were very well armed. With the exception of St. Paul Tower, which had only two cannon, the rest of the towers were equipped with between five and ten guns (see table on previous page). This compared very well with the state of the armament of the main coastal towers in nearby Sicily, most of which did not have more than seven guns each although some, like the Torre di S. Leonardo on the island of Favegna, and the tower on the Isola di Formiche, for example, only had two and four guns respectively. The Girgenti Tower, one of the largest of the Sicilian coastal towers, had a total of seven guns which comprised a cannone, two demiculverins, three sakers, and two demi-sakers.

A closer look at the armament, however, shows that the Maltese towers were on the whole armed with smaller calibre guns than their Sicilian counterparts. The largest calibre weapons mounted on the Maltese towers were 12-pdrs (7), followed by 10-pdrs (14), 8-pdrs (3) and 6-pdrs (10). The Sicilian towers, such as that at Capo Passero, for example, had an 18-pdr and a 13-pdr and that on the Isola delle Formiche had a 24-pdr. (97) For most of the seventeenth and early half of the eighteenth centuries, these guns were mounted on two-wheeled field carriages and deployed en barbette on the roofs of the towers.

It is important to keep in mind that all the inventories of the armaments of the bastioned towers that have come down to use are from the Tower / guns

1-pdr

Garzes Tower *

3-pdr

4-pdr

2

1

6-pdr

St. Paul Tower*

Above, Detail from Milcent’s drawing of St. Lucian Tower showing its armament of guns on field carriages (à mezza ruota – i.e., en barbette) in 1715. It is not clear at what point the Order began to replace the old field carriages with four-wheeled truck carriages ‘alla marina’. (Image source: Courtesy of Dr. A. Ganado).

8-pdr

10-pdr

12-pdr

Total

3

4

10

2

2

St. Lucian Tower*

2

5

7

St. Thomas Tower*

4

4

8

Marsalforn Tower^

2

St. Mary Tower+

2

Delle Grazie Tower* Mellieħa Tower* * 1785

96

1

1

2

6

1

1

7

2 1 + 1761

2 ^ 1616

1

Fucili guarniti in ferro e bajonetta

Padrone

Garzes Tower

21

24

St. Paul Tower*

12

St. Lucian Tower*

Spuntoni/ Picche / Alabarde

Spingardi

Pistole

Sciabole

12

12

2

2

1

29 (?)

24

28

2

2

St. Thomas Tower*

28

24

22

2

2

1

Marsalforn Tower

12

12

12

St. Mary Tower+

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

Delle Grazie Tower*

12

12

13

2

Mellieħa Tower*

24

24

12

2

1

Da Soldato

eighteenth century, after artillery platforms were added to the exterior of most of the towers in 1715.

In fact, we find that the batteries grafted onto the St. Lucian, St. Thomas and St. Paul towers contained heavier cannon than those shown mounted on the towers; namely, three 18-pdrs at St. Paul Bay Battery, eight 12-pdrs at St. Thomas Battery, and 12-pdrs at St. Lucian Battery. Although the addition of these exterior batteries may have led to the removal of some of the heavier pieces from on top of the old towers and their mounting inside the batteries down below, there is no evidence that such a redeployment, although possible, actually took place.

Each of the towers, with the exception of Marsalforn Tower, Torre Garzes, and Mellieħa Tower (which were located too far inland) was also armed with two spingardi. These were small-caliber breechloading falconets mounted on cavaletti (tripods).

Milcent’s sectional elevation of St. Lucian Tower shows what appears to be a large moschettone da posta mounted on a cavalletto inside the tower and deployed to fire through the sea-facing window. All the towers, on the other hand, were well equipped with enough infantry weapons, such as muskets and various types of polearms (see tables) to arm small garrisons of around 25 men.

In his diary entry for 7 December 1801, following a tour, General Sir Charles Pasley (1780-1861 – founder of the Royal Engineers’ Establishment in Chatham and its first director for thirty years) wrote that St. Lucian Tower was armed with five heavy guns, but these apparently were mounted on the battery and not on the tower itself: ‘We land and go up to the top of the tower where we find five heavy guns mounted on a circular battery below: arc 10 (12 and 16 degrees) 70 feet diameter, square with flanks formed by building, the post at the angles straight. Here an officer and ten men of the Maltese Artillery. Of these are two Companies, one for the East and one for the West of the Island. Several towers and entrenchments in

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List of small arms and other equipment housed inside the main towers in 1785

Above, Replica of a musketry rack (armario) at St. Paul Tower.

(Image source: Author’s private collection). In 1785, this tower was equipped with twelve muskets.

the other parts of the Bay, which we had no time to examine.’ (98) One tower which Pasley did examine, however, was the St. Thomas Tower, which he thought to be ‘still larger and finer than the former, though not so well provided with guns’.

The process of arming the towers, or any other new work of fortification for that matter, generally occurred once the building works were considered as finished. The process is well documented for the Marsalforn and Mellieħa towers in 1616 and 1649 respectively. At Mellieħa, for example, the records show that the building works were being wound up by the end of February 1649 and the specific order 97

Garzes Tower

St. Paul Tower

St. Lucian Tower

St. Thomas Tower *

Delle Grazie Tower

Mellieħa Tower

Campana Tamburo Barrile per la polvere Manoelle Platine di piombo Fogatta Cavaletto Fusi di Ferro

2 1 3 18 10 1 1

1

2

2

1

1

2 21 6 1 1

26 79 16 1 1 2

1

39 22 6 1 1 6

Piediporcu Cocchiare di rame Misura di rame Lecchio di rame Bugliolo Bancazza Rastelliere Cuscini, cugni, e cascavalle Martello Martelletto Martelletti per fucili Piccone Garacolo Cocchiara di fumata Mannaretta Fanali Guardafuochi di legno/ rame Zappa Rosette, caviglie, e chiavette Scarpello Tenaglia Buttafuoco Mecciera Ammorse d’osso Embuto Portavoce Pasapalle di rame Aste con riflaladori e lanate Tagliaferro Libano Cuffe di verghe Chiodi di acciajo Cascie Cavatacci Mazza di ferro Rascadore per cannone Rascadore per fucili Tenazza Paranchi Gugliette Ascia Ampoletta

1 4 3 1

2 2 2 1

49 ?

7 1 1 5 (?)

5 2 2 1

6 4 3 1

1 2 44

1 1 34

1 ?

50

2 4 105

1 6

1 2 40

2

2 1 5 3 3 1 1 3 6

4

4 1

1

2 1

3 4 2 2 5 9

3 5 2 2 8 16

1 1 1 1 2 2

2 5 1 1 3 5

2 36

4

4 38

1 20

2 40

8 1 1 4 8

2 1 4 2 7 1 1 2 14

2 1 8 3 8 1

1 1 16 1 19 2

3 13

3 19

1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 3

1 1 4 2 6 1 1 4 12

3

1

2

1

1

3 11 1 1

16 3 1

1

1 1 1

12 29 9 1 1 2

1 2 1 1 3 4 2

1

98

2 5 5 1

1

1 5 2 1 1 1

St. Paul Tower

St. Lucian Tower

St. Thomas Tower *

Delle Grazie Tower

Inventory of gun carriages and wheels at the towers in 1785

Campana Ceppi lunghi Ruote masticcie Ruote a raja Ruote di rispetto p. ceppi corti Ceppi di marina

1 1 1

1 8

4

1 1

2 1 1 2

2 1 2

1 2 4

2 8 16

2 4 11

1 2 4

9

18 14

Mellieħa Tower

Compiled by Chev.

De Saint Felix for Chev. De Frosieres on 3 September 1785

Garzes Tower

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Inventory of equipment in side the towers 1785

1 9 6 12

for the arming of tower was issued by the Order’s council on 25 April 1649; ‘... che s’armi, e munisca la forte, ò sià Forte fatto nella Memmecha chiamato Sta. Agata’.

Here, the process began some two weeks earlier, around 12 April 1649, with an order for the manufacture of eight hooks for the hoisting of the guns by the blacksmith Giacolino Attard. The guns were shipped by boat to the marina below the tower and then laboriously hauled up all the way to the top of the hill on their carriages. In May ‘quattro huomini’, namely Pasquale Michallef, Gio Zammit, Michele Zammit and Gio Paolo Muscat arrived at the tower ‘a far montare li pezzi d’ artiglieria’, all of whom were remunerated for their efforts with 3 tari a day. The four men worked under the supervision of the Capo Maestro reale, a certain Mro. Agostino, who was sent specifically from Valletta ‘per montare li pezzi’. Earlier, on 30 April, three boatloads of munitions – ‘balle, miccio, mannelli et altre robbe’ – were shipped from the ‘Torre della Vittoria’ (Vittoriosa?) to the marina of Mellieħa and from there transported up into the tower.

Earlier in 1616, we find the Grand Master sending Commissioner Fra Tasoni, together with the ‘Castellano Mro. Gio Paolo Zupardo ... et Capo Mro. Delli bombardieri che sono Luca Metachi et Giulio Frendo’ to Gozo to see to the arming of Marsalforn Tower with two large sakers.(99) Despite the day happening to be a Sunday, the Governor of Gozo, under whose responsibility the tower fell, was nonetheless instructed to have the operation concluded by the end of the day in order to avoid incurring additional costs’; ‘Percio vi ord[ia]mo che Domenica ... gli facciati consignare le monitioni per difenderla, et anco gli facciali dare tutti li aiuti necessarij dalli bombardieri che voi tenete et da altri perche si metta sopra di essa li dui Sagri grossi che il mro.

Sig. Raimirez vi dissi per ordine nro. Che vi si dovevano mettere, et tale che questo sia Dom[eni] ca per ogni modo, perche l’aiuto delli Maltesi che occorrera per condusse li detti sagri et metterli ad alto lo darra’ Fra Pietro Scimenes et paghera il loro travaglio’

A Torre Camilliano of the type built around the shores of Sicily.

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Towers’ Religious Features An interesting feature found in these large coastal towers was the provisions that was made to cater for religious functions. Each of these large structures, in fact, was equipped with its own small chapel, or pavrum oratorium as the one inside Garzes Tower was described by Don Pietro Pontemoli in 1621. (100) These were generally little more than wooden alters setup inside a niche or alcove set within one of the rooms within the tower. These chapels were intended to serve the daily religious needs of the garrison, given that the towers were located in remote locations far away from the nearest town or village churches.

No detailed descriptions of such chapels have come down to us. From the records of Mellieħa Tower it would appear that these chapels would have been probably screened off by some form of wooden partition.

The chapels were dedicated to a variety of saints – a document in the Order’s archives lists the various chapels as follows:(101) Garzes Tower: St. Lucian Tower: St. Thomas Tower: Marsalforn Tower:

Cappela sotto titolo di S. Martino Cappella di S. Luciano Cappella di S. Tomaso Apostolo Cappella nominate di S. Giovanni Battista* Comino Tower: Cappella di S.ta Maria Delle Grazie Tower:Cappella della Madonna delle Grazie Mellieħa Tower: Cappella di S.t Agata

The only tower which, since it is not listed, appears not to have had its own chapel was St. Paul Tower. In a way, this is understandable and can be explained by the very close proximity of the tower to the small nearby Church of St. Paul Shipwrecked, a cult religious shrine which was very popular with the Maltese and much frequented. From the

Above, View of the arched recess inside St. Agatha Tower, Mellieħa, which was used as the tower’s chapel. This was closed off with a wooden screen. (Image source: Author’s private collection). The only tower not to have been fitted with a chapel was St. Paul Tower since this was located very close to the Church of St. Paul Shipwrecked, as can be seen in the painting by Willem Schellinks below. (Image source: Author’s private collection, after W: Schellinkx, Viaggio al Sud, 16641665).

records of a pastoral visit by Don Pontemoli in 1621 it transpires that the chapel in Garzes Tower was initially dedicated to St. Catherine of Siena before it was re-dedicated to St. Martin at some later unknown stage. (102)

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One of the two ‘grotte’ (caves) which were situated immediately beneath Mellieħa Tower and which may have been those referred to in the Order’s documents as being used by the builders of the tower to house their tools and supplies, as well as for providing nightly shelter for the men working on site.

Right, opposite page, The second of the two caves is located further up the road, adjoining the tower’s external flight of steps – this was eventually used by the British military in WWII. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

100

Little is known about the actual construction process of the Wignacourt towers. The Order’s archival records divulge very little information on the whole building procedure. From what can be gathered in the available documents, however, it appears that the towers, on average, each took between one and one-and-a-half years to be built, irrespective of their size and location. The records for St. Lucian Tower, for example, show that the tower was approved on 1 July 1610 and was already being armed by 11 June of the following year, which means it was built in less than eleven months. A greater sense of urgency is encountered in the construction of St. Thomas Tower which was begun immediately following the Turkish razzia of 1614. The Garzes Tower, by comparison, although begun in late in 1605, was still unfinished in 1607. In a letter dated 13 February 1607, Grand Master Wignacourt reminded the governor of Gozo that, much to the concern of the Order, and despite the fact that all the necessary materials had long been gathered on the site, the work had fallen behind for no justifiable excuse.

A time frame of around 18 months, however, does not appear to have been an excessive length of time for the construction of such large structures. If anything, it appears to have been an acceptable practice – the contract for the building of the coastal tower at Capo Mulino, at Aci, in Sicily, in 1613, for example, drawn up between the Bishop of Catania and Clemente Rubino, imposed upon the latter a time limit of a year and a half for the completion of the structure.(103) On each occasion, the plans and models for the tower designs were produced well before the building process was initiated. In the case of St. Paul Tower, for example, we know that the designs were approved in early November of 1609 but the actual works did not commence until early 1610.

The foundation stone laying ceremony was held on 6 February, that is three months after the approval of the project. Allowing for the clearing of the site and other initial preparatory works – which would not have taken more than a few weeks – this means that works on the tower had not commenced before January at the earliest. The two month delay may have been caused by the time taken for the Order’s

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Tower Construction

Above, Two rough pen sketches, with dimensions measured on site, drawn by the late Prof. J. Quentin Hughes, showing a plan (top) and a sectional elevation of Mellieħa Tower. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

commissarij and notaries to draw up the contracts and issue and award the appalti for the works on the tower to the contractors and capomastri bidding for the project. It could also have been dictated by the weather.

Such documents generally give us a good insight into the building procedure adopted, but unfortunately, no such material has yet come to light regarding any of the bastioned towers except for Mellieħa Tower, built during the reign of Grand Master Lascaris in 1647-49. The documents pertaining to Mellieħa Tower, although these cannot be taken as being representative of all the towers owing to the structural and logistical difference presented by each structure and its location, do nonetheless, provide us with a basic idea of how the building works evolved during the formation of such a large structure.

Form the onset, it quickly appears that the two men central to the direction and management of the works were the engineer/architect, Capitano Antonio 101

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Muratori Periatori Lavoranti Bacconieri Bordonari Huomini di caravana Manuali di Taino / Mazzacani Bordnari di Calcina Guardiani di Calcina Per Far Terra Della Mezza Figlioli Total

Quarrying phase (as in May 1648)

Building phase

(as in August 1648)

102

Above, Graph showing the various types of trades and craftsmen, and the respective number of workmen in each category as employed in the building of the tower at Mellieħa between November 1647 and March 1649 . As can be seen from the pie charts (left), the ratio of the number of men making up the different categories varied considerably during the different stages. The initial period is characterized by a large percentage of quarrymen making up the workforce in the first few months after the commencement of the project, followed by a larger percentage of masons and builders, and related trades, once the structure started to be erected in May 1648 (see main text). This shows that the first five months or so were actually taken up in the production of a large stock of stone blocks and terrapieno, which were quarried and gathered on site, while the bulk of the tower was erected in around eight months. (Image source: Author’s private collection).

Garsin, and the Capomastro of the site, Michele Dimech, who was himself a muratore (mason).

Garsin was responsible for drawing up the plans and supervising the construction works.

It is documented that he actually produced two designs, possibly a plan and a sectional elevation (as was the custom) and three scale models. It is not stated if the models were executed in wood or stone. Garsin visited the site 35 times over the period of 17 months that it took to build the tower, each time transported by boat from Valletta. He was also commissioned, at the end of the project, as one of the esperti elected to audit the construction costs. Dimech, from Casal Żebbuġ, on the other hand, appears to have been the contractor who was awarded the appalto for the construction of the project and was responsible for employing the necessary workforce as the construction progressed.

The building works commenced in November 1647 and were basically wrapped up by March/ April 1649. During this long period of 17 months, Dimech’s workforce changed considerably in size and composition, reaching its largest number in

the work force throughout the duration of the project.

A study of the names of the workmen making up the workforce shows it to have been comprised almost exclusively of local Maltese inhabitants (possibly also including Gozitans) and only a few foreigners. The following list gives the names of the workers engaged on the Mellieħa tower building site according to their trade and wages for a week’s labour (6 days) as paid out on 12 July 1648: (104) Muratori Michele Dimech 2.6.0 scudi Gio. Azzopardi 2.6.0 Lorenzo Zarb 2.6.0 Aloisio deceli 2.6.0 Filippo Casha 2.3.0 Clemente Dimech 2.3.0 Luca Dimech 2.3.0 Gio. Paulo Muscat 1.9.0 Giuseppe Cilia 1.9.0 Periatori Giuseppe Muscat 1.10.10 Giuseppe Buhagiar 1.10.10 Giulio Pace 1.10.10 Ignatio Mifsud 1.10.10 Simone Barthilo 1.10.10 Domenico Saliba 1.10.10 Pietro Saguna 1.10.10 Gio. Maria Camilleri 1.10.10 Santoro Camilleri 1.10.10 Lavoranti Salvo Chircop 1.10.10 Antonio Azzopardi 1.10.10 Pietro Azzopardi 1.10.10 Mattheo Azzopardi 1.10.10 Gio. Paulo Hagius (Agius) 1.10.10 Lazzaro Mifsud 1.10.10 Dominico Tanti 1.10.10 Antonio Saliba 1.10.10 Ignatio Saliba 1.10.10 Bacconieri Angelo Haius (Agius) 1.6.0 Antonio Michallef 1.6.0 Pietro Hagius 1.6.0 Mattheo Vella 1.6.0 Dominico Barthelo 1.6.0 Forrando Saliba 1.6.0 Salvo Aquilina 1.6.0 Giuseppe Schembri 1.6.0 Valent Attard 1.6.0 Dominico Xara 1.6.0 Dominico Azzopardi 1.6.0 Consales Salba 1.3.0 Franco Muscat 1.3.0 Dominico Azzopardi 1.3.0 Matheolo Attard 1.3.0 Angelo Psaila 1.3.0 Bordonari 0.2.6 Breito Michallef 0.2.6 Gio. Maria Michallef 0.2.6 Pasquale Michallef 0.2.6 103

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October 1648, when there were some 117 workmen engaged on site.

For the first seven months of the works, that is from November 1647 to May 1647, the workforce stood around 50 men strong with the Bacconieri forming around 25-40 % and the Perriatori (quarrymen) around 10% of the labour force respectively. Interestingly, however, there were only 1, and later 2, masons on site during all these months, one of whom was Dimech himself (who was probably exerting more of his time supervising the works rather than building walls).

This clearly reveals that there were practically no walls materializing on site, except possibly for the foundations, for a very long time after the commencement of the project. This fact is also borne out by the total absence of manuali di Taino and bordnari di Calcina who, later on in the project, become a large component of the workforce.

It becomes clear from an analysis of these figures that the initial emphasis, and concern, was for the production of a large stock of building blocks and material given that no use is recorded to have been made of pre-exisiting stocks as was sometimes the practice. The stone blocks were quarried directly on site at a nearby surface quarry which has still to be identified. A considerable number of men were employed simply ‘per nettare la barriera’ (to clean up the quarry) and others for transporting and piling the stone (bordnari). Initially, there was also an attempt to quarry stone from the fosso, or ditch, of the tower, as some of the vague entries seem to imply. This is difficult to interpret since the tower, as seen at present, does not have a ditch. However, there is some evidence on site that seems to show the early stages of an excavation of a ditch at the foot of the north-west corner of the tower – an attempt that was evidently abandoned.

This may explain why the references to a fosso do not feature again in the later accounts.

From the end of May 1648 onwards, there was a marked and dramatic expansion in the size of the workforce, created largely by an evergrowing monthly engagement of muratori (reaching a maximum of 10 in August 1648), manuali di Taino e mazzacani, huomini per far terra, bordnari di Calcina, lavoranti and figlioli. This effort was sustained up until the end of the year, at times rising to the tune of over 150 scudi a week (excluding other building costs) before once again shifting down to a much slower gear in the last four months of the project.

A constant feature of the workforce was a small group of Homini della Caravana, initial eight, but eventually increased to twelve. It is not clear if these were men who worked on the galleys. Unlike the other categories of workmen, who were changed frequently, these were always the same men employed throughout the duration of the project.

Occasionally, one finds them being transported by boat from the Grand Harbour. The tables and graphs (see previous page) show the main categories of tradesman involved in the construction of the tower and the changes in the composition of

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Lorenzo Sammut 0.2.6 Luca Muscat 0.2.6 Giulio Portelli 0.2.6 Sebastiano Ciappara 0.2.6 Gio. Maria Vella 0.2.6 Homini di Carvana Maiso Casha 1.6.0 Censo Hagius 1.6.0 Antonio Pitorsino 1.6.0 Dominico Azzopardi 1.6.0 Dominico Haxac (Axaq) 1.6.0 Ortensio Dingli 1.6.0 Publio Grixti 1.6.0 Mattheo Seichel 1.6.0 Salvatore Magro 1.6.0 Dominico Laurina 1.6.0 Dominico Calleja 1.6.0 Pietro Debono 1.6.0 Manuali di Collo di Taino et che fa Terra Pitero Hagius 1.3.0 Antonio Debono 1.3.0 Georgio Fava 1.3.0 Cola Piscopo 1.3.0 Martino Xuereb 1.3.0 Giacobo Zarb 1.3.0 Salvo Mamo 1.3.0 Pietro Dingli 1.3.0 Dominico Vella 1.3.0 Bartholomeo Barto 1.3.0 Censo Fenech 0.6.0 Gio. Paolo Psaila 0.10.0 Gio .Paulo Xerri 1.0.0 Luca Pulis 1.0.0 Michele Agius 1.0.0 Dominico Agius 1.0.0 Dominico Bartholo 1.0.0 Dominico Xerri 0.9.0 Franco Mifsud 0.9.0 Antonio Piscopo 0.9.0 Gio. Galia (Galea) 0.9.0 Gio .Paulo Zimegh (Dimech) 0.9.0 Thomaso Saliba 0.9.0 Angelo Dimegh (Dimech) 0.7.10 Angelo Piscopo 0.7.10 Matheo Mamo 0.7.10 Consalis Seichel 0.7.10 Antonio Schembri 0.6.0 Giuseppe Muscat 0.6.0 Luca Zarb 0.6.0 Bordnari della Calcina Franco Agius 0.2.0 Salvo Michallef 0.2.0 Pietro Bartholo 0.1.8 The bulk of the tower’s structure materialized in the course of the summer and autumn of 1648; in other words, within a period of around 10 months, with the last few months devoted to finishing off the structure.

Not all the stone appears to have been quarried on site, however. The records document various 104

Above, A replica wooden template with plumb line such as was often used by masons to ensure that the sloping walls were built consistently with the same gradient. (This example is on display at the Fortifications Interpretation Centre in Valletta).

The Order’s records show that a similar device - ‘una tavola ... da fare un modello per le scarpe’– was actually employed at Mellieħa Tower in 1648. (Image Source: Author’s Private Collection).

shipments of stone (cantoni) from Gozo and towards the end of the project, a section of the workforce was even sent to a quarry in Sta. Venera to extract a quantity of balati to be used in the roofing of the turrets, as well as a quantity of ciangature for covering the floors. These blocks of stone were then shipped off to Mellieħa from Msida. Various lime kilns at Rabat and Mtarfa (belonging to Gio. Maria Cassar) were also contracted to produce lime and to transport it to the site. Amongst these there was also a supplier from Gozo.

The records show that apart from lime, the builders were supplied with large quantities of deffun (crushed and powdered pottery), di ferri e di ceneri. This is actually the first specific reference that is encountered in the Order’s records for practice of mixing iron filings (or slag) and ash in the production of the mortar (la malta). Another entry refers specifically to the need to ‘fornire di ferro un tumulo di calcina’, which iron dust was supplied by a blacksmith by the name of Attard. The practice of mixing iron filings, or slag, with mortar was also employed in the production of the mortar used in the construction of the Victoria lines in the course of the late nineteenth century.(105) The mortar was slaked on site in wooden barrels, a large number of which are documented as having been purchased over the course of the duration of the project.

The remote location of the tower created various logistical problems. Supplies of lime, wooden planking for form-work for the arches and

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This page, Evidence of quarrying activity in the immediate vicinity of Mellie침a Tower. The cuttings and quarrying marks tend to confirm the entries in the contemporary documents which mention the commencement of the excavation of a fosso (ditch) and its abandonment during the initial stages of the building works. The excavation of the ditch appears to have started at the foot of the north-west corner of the tower (left, middle and bottom) where the excavation is the deepest and most evident and was abandoned after a short while. The cutting made in the initial excavation was re-utilized during WWII to house some military facilities.

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barrel-vaults, and scaffolding, as well as tools and provisions for the workmen had to be transported over long distances and then, once having arrived at their destination, stored securely to prevent theft and pilferage. One of the first steps that was taken, as a matter of fact, was the occupation of two small caves situated in close proximity to the tower and

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The ground to the immediate north-west of the tower bears some evidence of surface quarrying. The stone used in the construction of the tower may have been quarried in this area among other places in the vicinity still to be identified. Below, Close-up view of one of two barrel-vaulted ceilings at Mellieħa Tower. Note the slightly pointed arch. A wooden raft provided the garrison with their sleeping quarters. (Image Source: Author’s Private Collection).

The documents show that most of the workmen, many of whom came from far way villages in the south of Malta (Dimech himself was from Źebbuġ), slept on site rather than having to undertake the long and tiring daily journey on foot to and from their homes.

The wooden partitions which were erected to close off the cave entrances were fitted with two doors equipped with ‘serraturi e chiavi nuovi’. It is interesting to see that the wood used for the construction of these partitions was scavenged from all over the place, some of it coming from the boschetto (Verdala Palace?), others from the magazines in Mdina, and a few pieces from as far away as the naval arsenals in Birgu, such as the ‘doi pezzi di remi di galere’ (galley oars) some 14 and 13 palmi long and ‘doi pezzi di arburi’ 17 palmi long. A quantity of the planks are described as ‘di ponente’.

By early 1648, the mastri on site had also asked for the purchase of ‘una tavola un più largha di quelli di ponente da fare un modello per le scarpe’- in other words, a template for setting the gradient of the slope of the walls. Such implements were employed by the masons to ensure that the ramparts rose to a consistent slope (Maltese: talut).

(106) Keeping the builders’ tools in working order was one of Dimech’s ongoing concerns. Quarrying and shaping the hard Upper Coralline limestone into building blocks exerted a heavy toll on the iron pickaxes, hatchets, and spades. The blacksmith Giacolino Attard was engaged to see to the repair and sharpening of the tools belonging to the ‘travagliatori che travagliano nella torre’. In the period spanning from 1 June to 15 July 1648, for example, Attard repaired 114 picconi (pick-axes),

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their transformation into storage rooms closed off by means of wooden palisades. These were guarded and kept strictly under lock and key; ‘...legname e altre robbe prese et impiegate p[er] servitio delle doi grotte che sono sotto la torre ... quale hanno le loro facciate da mezzo giorno e altre opere p[er] serrare li fornimenti della gente che travaglia in d[et]ta torre e anco per dormire la notte.‘

4 pali di ferro, 9 fizoni, 2 fiteni, 1 accetta (hachet) and produced a serratura nova p[er] conservare la calcina, all for the sum of 12 scudi, 1 tari and 12 grani. Back in November 1647, the monitionere Angelo Mangion was instructed to issue Dimech with the 12 picconi, 3 zappulli, 4 zappi, 6 pali p[er] taino (all fitted ‘co’ loro murluggi’ - handles) and 12 cuffe di verga from the magazines in Mdina. These were followed by the issue, on 10 March 1648, of another 20 wooden handles, six picconi di ferro, 4 fusi di ferro, and 12 coffe di verge, and in 1649, of four ‘piede di purco’, a ‘palo di ferro’ and ‘doi pali di murari’.

Towards the end of the works, Attard was also commissioned to manufacture and supply a Below, The stone blocks from Garzes Tower in Gozo were dismantled and used to erect the causeway which was built to span the valley in the mid-nineteenth century. (Image Source: Author’s Private Collection).

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number of ‘ganci’ (iron hooks), eight of which were to be used ‘per tirare l’artiglieria sopra d[etta] torre’ for the cost of 5 scudi 4 tari. Another ferraro, Mro Francesco Vella, was paid 28.6 scudi on 18 May 1649 for the ‘complimento di tutti ferramenti che esso Franco fece in servitio della torre di Mellecha quali furono stimati p[er] Mro. Giacomo Attard and Mro Martino Debrincat’. Attard and Debono were also commissioned to act as ‘esperti a stimere li fornimenti fatti nella torre Mellecha’.

The blacksmiths were also commissioned to manufacture the metal locks, hinges, and feragli of the tower’s doors, the ferramenti of the fenestre, the serratura and chiappetti, the grampuni del ristello di fuori (the wooden palisade), as well as the grampuni, quattro ciappetti grandi, and catena (chain) of the wooden drawbridge. They also produced the hinges for the small grada (grating) that closed off the cappella of the tower. This was located in an arched recess on the ground floor level. The tower was fitted with a large flag pole on 22 February 1649.(107)

By June 1648, most of the equipment had been cleared from the tower site and shifted down to the bay awaiting shipment back to Valletta. Amongst these we find a singular ‘grabia’ (a form of simple crane), many libani (cables), an organo, a ‘scala di vinti scalini’ (ladder with 20 steps) and various ‘carrattoni, barili, bancazzi, et altri stigli’.

Ensuring that the work site was supplied with an adequate supply of water was another of the builders’ concerns. To this end, a small well was dug out in the vicinity of the tower ‘in servitio della fabrica’. This was a common practice on most fortress building sites, particularly where located in remote and outlying areas that were difficult to re-supply. Curiously, the tower’s own water supply appears to have been neglected and was only added to the structure after the tower had been

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practically finished. Work on the ‘gebbia interna’ began late in February 1649 and in 23 June, Mro. Santoro Vella, a mastro battumere, together with his nephew were paid 2 scudi 9 tari 7 grani di moneta in compensation for twenty days work in waterproofing the cistern (‘fare li battumi nella cisterna della torre della Mellecha’).

Alterations and Repairs Once built, the coastal towers required considerable effort to be maintained in a reasonable and efficient state of repair. In spite of their solidity and over-design, their walls were not immune from the ravages of the elements and time – their masonry fabric eroded, the mortar pointing fell off exposing the joints, and stones were dislodged by vegetation. The Order’s administrative records contain many routine reports drawn up by military engineers advising repairs and maintenance works following routine site inspections. (108) Some information on the nature of the damages sustained and the methods and frequency of repairs employed can be found in the reports of Mederico Blondel and Francesco Marandon. From these documents, it transpires that a large percentage of all maintenance works on fortifications generally involved the repointing (riboccatura) of the masonry joints and the replacement of weathered stone, the repair and waterproofing of the terrazzi (roof platforms), the bittumatura (waterproofing) of cisterns, and the removal of vegetation on and around the immediate vicinity of the towers.

By the eighteenth century most of the large bastioned towers had also experienced various external and internal adaptations to their original structures. Aside from the addition of external coastal batteries erected in 1715 at St. Paul, St. 109

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Above and bottom left, Two examples of buttressing applied to the external walls and footings of Wignacourt’s towers at St. Paul’s Tower and St. Thomas Tower respectively. These were referred to as either contraforti (counterforts) or massicie d’appoggio all’infuori. In 1761, the Knights went so far as to propose the demolition of Wignacourt Tower because it began to show signs of structural instability. As things turned out, however, the drastic solution was abandoned and instead the tower was stiffened with a massicio d’appogio on two of its external faces. (Images source: Author’s private collection).

Marandon’s instructions for the upkeep of Garzes Tower in 1749, for example, stressed the need of uprooting of all trees and capers from around the edifice. The deterioration of a towers’ masonry fabric was in large part believed to be caused by their exposure to the humid sirocco wind, and its proximity to the sea and exposure to seaspray. In particular, the soft tal-franka stone was also highly vulnerable to the corrosive action of sea water. In 1736, Marandon drew the attention of the Congregation of War to the fact that ‘l’aria salata del mare aveva talmente corroso le batterie e ridotte sulla costa del Gozo riguardando tramontana’ such that the poor state of repair of these defences could no longer be ignored.

Frequently in need of attention, were the towers’ wooden drawbridges, their lifting mechanisms and external rastelli.

Occasionally, the damage to a tower was found to extend deeper than the surface layers. In the more serious cases this was triggered off either by seismic or geological activity (as at Marsalforn Tower), or caused by a tower’s inherent structural weaknesses, such as at St. Paul Tower and St. Thomas Tower. In both these two towers the Order’s engineers were forced to buttress the external walls or the footings of the projecting bastions with counterforts or ‘massicie d’appoggio all’infuori’.

In 1761 the Knights went so far as to propose the demolition of St. Paul Tower because it began to show signs of structural instability. As things turned out, however, the drastic solution was abandoned and instead the tower was stiffened with a massicio d’appogio on two of its faces. (109) Coastal fortifications placed very close to the shoreline or at the edge of cliffs also tended to suffer from structural instability induced by geological factors, particularly by the subsidence or fissuring of the ground. At least one of the Wignacourt towers (Marsalforn Tower), erected at the edge of the cliff at Għajn Damma, is known to have had to be abandoned because it became unstable due to fissuring of the underlying bedrock. It is not known if the tower was purposefully dismantled or it if fell on its own accord following its abandonment. Two other watch-towers, namely Della Capra (Lascaris) and Għajn Ħadid (De Redin) suffered very similar fates – the latter is said to have collapsed during an earthquake in 1855.

Lightning, too, was at times responsible for inflicting considerable damage. In 1756, for example, the new Marsalforn Tower (1720) suffered some ‘danno causato dal fulmine’. (110)

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Lucian and St. Thomas already mentioned earlier in this study, most of the towers were also fitted with guardiole or guerite (sentry rooms) to one or other of their turrets (none of these have survived).

Internally some of the towers were re-partitioned by secondary non-load-bearing walls to create additional rooms, possibly in an attempt to introduce a greater degree of privacy for the knights deployed or stationed at the towers.

This is most evident at St. Mary Tower in Comino, whose singular barrel vaulted casemate was subsequently quartered to provide separate rooms. At Garzes Tower, for instance, a ‘camera o magazino’ was ‘diviso in due camere con un muro’ although ‘un solo troglio’ covered the two.

(111) Milcent’s plan of St. Lucian Tower shows two internal partitions, one in each of the vaults.

Mid-eighteenth-century reports reveal that by this late period in the Order’s history many of the coastal towers were in a rather poor shape of

Garzes Tower (Gozo) 1605-1607

Comparative scheme (approximately to scale) of the early seventeenth-century Maltese coastal towers 110

St. Paul Tower 1609-1610

repair, and nearly all were suffering from various degrees of neglect. Wooden fittings such as doors, windows, and trap doors often lacked iron fittings or protective paintwork. In many instances, some of these features had broken down and were never replaced. Amongst the most to suffer, it seems, were the doors leading up to the gun platforms – these, being the most continually exposed to the elements.

In 1743, for example, the Santa Barbara (or powder store) at Mellieħa Tower was without its infoderatura of cattle-hide covering. (112)

Conclusion The turreted/bastioned tower design employed in Wignacourt’s and Lascaris’ towers, as has been shown in the course of this paper, was not exclusive to the Maltese islands. It was borne out of the Italian architects’ desire to deal with the redundancy of

St. Lucian Tower 1610-1611

St. Thomas Tower 1614

Marsalforn Tower (Gozo) 1616

even the smallest of cannon for the tower’s own defence; on the other hand, if made large enough to mount flanking cannon, the structure no longer remained a tower in the true sense of the word but became, instead, a veritable little fort - hence the alternative name of fortini (Italian for small forts or fortlets) which was often applied to such works. As forts, however, these structures were still too small to house sizeable garrisons and adequate supplies to allow them to fulfil the functions of outposts and thus enable them to resist sizeable enemy forces.

In other words, the bastioned towers were too large, and hence too expensive, to serve simply as watchtowers, and yet at the same time they were too small to serve as garrisoned outposts.

Undeniably, the bastioned towers’ greatest asset was their solidity, which allowed them to mount heavy cannon necessary to keep enemy vessels away from the shore, thereby enabling them to serve as powerful coastal batteries.

The design appears to have had its adherents from the last quarter of the sixteenth century

St. Mary Tower (Comino) 1618

Mellieħa Tower 1647-49 (G.M. Lascaris)

Sta. Maria delle Grazie Tower (design unknown) 1620

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the traditional tower form and its inherent inability to provide close-in defence, largely by applying to it the solutions offered by the bastioned trace. This was, after all, the age of the bastioned fort, and the bastion was the basic solution to all defence problems. The resultant design was a new typology of defensive elements, a hybrid structure which sought to combine the verticality of the traditional tower forms with the flanking devices of bastioned fortifications. Alternatively, the bastioned towers can be seen as attempt to reduce the square fort, with four corner bastions, to its smallest possible scale in order that it could fulfil the role of a coastal tower.

In retrospect, however, one can safely say that the bastioned-tower design was not a very successful experiment from a defensive point of view for, in practice, there was a limit to how much the dimensions of a bastioned fort could be reduced to fit within parameters of a tower. Too small, and the corner bastions became practically useless embryonic turrets that only allowed for a limited degree of flanking fire, incapable of housing

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Front elevation of Selmun Palace with its pseudo bastioned-turrets and fake embrasures. From a distance, however, the palace manages to impart a credible sense of solidity and would have easily been mistaken for a military outpost, especially when viewed from the sea.

(Image Source: Author’s Private Collection).

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Above, The silhouette of Selmun Palace at dusk, with its distinctive military-like profile, is clearly visible from far out at sea. (Image Source: Author’s Private Collection).

onwards until around the 1650s, by which time a small number were built in the Mediterranean and across the ocean in the New world The concept appears to have been first developed and used in Spain. The Tower of St. John at the mouth of the estuary of Ebro, in Alfaquez, Spain, attributed to one of the two Cristoforo Antonellis and built in 1576, was probably, if not the main prototype, surely one of the first to adopt this distinctive typology. Moreover, the continued use of the turreted concept in the fortifications of the New World by Juan Battista Antonelli, as late as the 1630s, implies that this type of tower design was particularly favoured by the Antonelli dynasty of military engineers.

What this, in turn, may tend to suggest is that the Antonellis may have had an indirect involvement in the design and development of Wignacourt’s towers, at the least in the first tower erected at St. Paul’s Bay. This is not an unlikely proposition given that the Order was then heavily dependent on the military resources of Spain, both directly and through the Viceroy in Sicily – indeed, many a military engineer in the employ of the Spanish crown was loaned to the Order throughout the course of the sixteenth century.

To date, however, no records have come to light to prove that such a link between the Antonellis and Malta ever existed. But even if this does not turn out to be the case, there is no denying the fact that the architectural evidence shows that the architect/ engineer responsible for the design of Wignacourt’s towers was heavily influenced and inspired by Cristoforo Antonelli’s design. The similarity of between two cannot be simply a coincidence.

On the contrary, it can mean one of two things: either a direct first-hand knowledge of the Ebro 114

tower, or similar towers, by a foreign engineer brought specifically to Malta to execute the project, or the use of imported plans and templates by local military planners or architects who were familiar with the design. In either case, both would have had to have been based on a good understanding of the concept.

The existence of the Ebro tower and its dating to 1576, dismisses the possibility that the Maltese towers could have been actually the first prototypes of this typology and, hence, a local invention.

Even so, one cannot dismiss the role or contribution of local Maltese architects / engineers, in adapting and developing the design to suit the local conditions and materials. This may explain the rich variety of design features employed, for all the towers differed significantly from one another in both dimensions, details, and at times, specific features.

What is clear, is that the Maltese bastioned-towers are more architecturally refined and developed than their Spanish counterparts and this observation tends to reinforce the notion that they were indeed a development and refinement on the original idea.

The traditional attribution of the Maltese towers’ design to Vittorio Cassar, as has been shown, is therefore, highly problematic and can be safely down played or, perhaps, even dismissed. The more likely local candidates may have been either Andrea Dingli or Pietro Rubino, both of whom are clearly documented as working on the Order’s fortifications in 1609 and in subsequent years. It is still very difficult, nonetheless, with the sparse information currently at hand, to reach any conclusion on the matter. Further research is unquestionably required here. Hopefully, the missing details will one day surface to settle the issue.

On the other hand, more is known about the last of the bastioned towers, Mellieħa Tower, which was designed by the French military engineer, Captain Antonio Garsin in 1647. Garsin, however, first appears in the Order’s records in the late 1620s and seems to have had no connection with any of the designers of Wignacourt’s towers. In 1647, this French engineer and scalpellino was simply employing the formula adopted some thirty years earlier by Wignacourt’s architects. In fact, Mellieħa Tower introduces nothing new and, for all intents and purposes, it can be considered as forming part of the same typology of structures introduced in 1609.

Moreover, by 1647, the bastioned tower design had become somewhat anachronistic. Indeed, Mellieħa Tower proved to be the last instance where this typology of coastal tower design was employed by the Knights. Thereafter, it disappears altogether from the arsenal of coastal structures, for it had become clear, by the mid-seventeenth century, that such large towers were both unnecessarily very expensive to build and, in practice, proved to be very limited in their effectiveness either as a garrisoned outposts or as coastal gun platforms.

This was one of the main reasons, though not the sole reason, why both Grand Master Lasacris, and his successor, Grand Master Martin de Redin,

Despite the apparent martial language of its architecture, the Selmun ‘tower’ had no truly defensive value, its pseudo-bastion/turrets and fake embrasures were little more than beautifully proportioned elements that harped back to the romantic image of the powerful bastioned tower.

It is in this manner, perhaps, that Wignacourt’s towers were at their most effective for there is no denying the fact that the bastioned/turreted structures were impressive structures to behold. Up close, they communicated a sense of impregnable solidity. From afar, their distinctive silhouettes conveyed a reassuring sense of security. As evervigilant sentinels, they unequivocally signalled their presence to approaching vessels from their prominent and strategic positions around the islands’ shores. They were, unquestionably, visual deterrents. Today, Wignacourt’s towers have become familiar landmarks and are intimately bound with the narrative of the island’s Hospitaller legacy.

Most have been restored and turned into cultural and historical attractions. (114) And deservedly so, for in military architecture terms, they constitute some of the best and most refined surviving examples of the bastioned-tower typology still to be found around the world.

Acknowledgements The author is greatly indebted to the staff of the National Library of Malta and the Notarial Archives in Valletta, and the Mdina Cathedral Archives for their permission to reproduce the plans and documents shown in this publication. Special thanks also go to Dr. Albert Ganado LLD for providing the author with copies of the plans and elevations of Wignacourt’s towers at St. Paul’s Bay, St. Lucian, Mellieħa and Marsalforn drawn by Milcent in 1715.

The author is likewise greatly indebted to the late Prof. Quentin Hughes, Mrs. J. Abela, Prof. Denis de Lucca, Dun Gwann Azzopardi, Dr. Theresa Vella, Arch. Hermann Bonnici, and Mr. J. Debono for their help and interest in the subject.

References and Notes 1. S.C. Spiteri, Fortresses of the Cross: Hospitaller military architecture – 1136-1798 (Malta, 1994), 63-75, 152: M. Heslop. The Search for the Defence System of the Knights in Southern Rhodes.

2. F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Vol. II, 851-854.

3. Archives of the Order in Malta (AOM) 6554, Discorso del Gozzo et sua fortificazione, di Giovanni Rinaldini Anconitano, f. 257.

4. National Library of Malta (NLM), MS. 142, f.181.

5. A. Capodicasa, Torre Fano (Pachino (SR), 2009), 43.

6. G.F. Abela, Della Descrittione di Malta (1647); ‘ ... è resa munita con un Forte assai ben inteso, disegno di Fra Vittorio Cassar, fogliolo di Girolamo Valente Ingeniero, fatto fabricare sotto il Magisterio di Wignacourt l’anno 1618, che guarda e difende (come habbiamo detto) quel Freo’.

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eventually opted for considerably smaller forms of towers to fulfil the coast defence role.

Furthermore, by the end of the seventeenth century, it was the very role of the coastal tower itself which was being questioned and re-evaluated.

And this role would soon be conferred onto a new typology of coastal defences – the multi-gun batteries and redoubts. These new elements were both cheaper, quicker, and easier to build (some thirty where erected in the course of the two years after 1715) and, more importantly, were more effective in resisting invading enemy forces intent on disembarking their troops on shore as they could bring to bear a considerable amount of fire power where it mattered most – down by the shore inside the very bays and landing places.

It is clear, therefore, that by 1715, the role of the large bastioned tower-fort had been rendered practically obsolete and, as a result, Wignacourt’s towers were effectively relegated to serve out their days as logistical depots and command posts. It is true that some attempts were made to extend the towers’ relevance by fitting them out with external coastal gun-platforms on their seaward sides (with the exception of Comino, Marsalforn, and Sta. Maria delle Grazie towers), but here again one has to keep in mind that the Knights’ real concern was to exploit the strategic locations on which the towers were located rather than to make use of the towers themselves. None of the coastal batteries were fitted with towers– it was the towers which were fitted with coastal batteries!

In the end, even the towers’ height became a source of concern and a liability, as it exposed the structures to naval bombardment, giving them a distinctive profile that made them easy targets for warships firing from far out at sea.

Maybe, the greatest success of Wignacourt’s bastioned towers was the powerful visual presence that they exerted on the landscape.

Even in architectural terms, the bastioned towers managed to transmit this iconographic legacy to other buildings in later centuries. The best echo of the bastioned tower can be found in the design of Selmun Palace, an eighteenth-century private country villa built in the limits of Mellieħa, on the heights overlooking St. Paul’s Bay and Mistra (see previous page). Built in the form of a square tower with four corner bastions, the Selmun Palace was unmistakably influenced by both Wignacourt’s towers and Verdala ‘Castle’.

The architect responsible for its construction has still to be identified although some sources tend cite the local architect Dominico Cachia as the author of the design, without, however, providing any documentary evidence to back the claim.

Its exact date of construction, too, is unknown.

A manuscript map discovered in a document written by the Parroco Giorgius Fiteni in 1783 (Memoria Apolgetica) refers to the Selmun Palace as ‘Torre Nuova’, suggesting that it must have been constructed around the first decade of the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Its chapel is documented in use in 1792. (113)

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7. S.C. Spiteri, ‘St. Thomas Tower and Battery, Marsascala, Malta’ in ARX - Online Journal of Military Architecture and Fortification, Issue 8, (2011), 48-59.

8. AOM 103, f.104.

9. AOM 1388, f.351v.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid. One Maltese cane is equivalent to 2.09 metres or 2.29 yards.

12. AOM 1388, f.350v, 30 November 1609.

13. AOM 1395, f.306; The day chosen for the formal laying of the foundation stone, 10 February, was the feast of St. Paul. It is often stated that the tower was built on the site of the old chapel of St. Paul (a sea-side sanctuary ‘rinovata dalle antiche nobilissime famigle di Mazzara e di Nava’ and rebuilt in 1441 by the Desguanez and Bordino nobles of Mdina) which was pulled down to make way for the tower, and then rebuilt by Wignacourt some distance away in its present location. The notion that the tower replaced the old chapel emanates from the fact that the latter was dismantled on the same day as that of the stone-laying foundation of the tower, ‘... il giorno decimo di Febraro di questo anno [1610] vi diede felice principio [i.e. the building of the tower] ...Trasferitosi pertanto colà a cavallo col seguito de suoi e di tutta la Cavalleria dell’Isola, essendosi parim[ent]te intervenuto tutto il Clero della Città Notabile, dopo solennem[en]te Celebrata la Santa Messa nell’antica Chiesola, si dette mano a sfabbricarla; indi in quel sito piantato il disegno della premeditata Torre, dopo le solenni benedizioni, esso Emo. G. M. colle sue proprie mani vi pose la prima pietra [of the tower?] sotto l’invocazione del S. Apost[ol]o Paolo’.

At the same time, however, the document states that the ‘nuovo corpo di chiesa’ was erected ‘nella distanza di un tiro di pietra alla Mano destra sulla riva del mare’. The distance from the new chapel to the tower, however, is more than 400m (nearly half a kilometer) – hardly a stone throw away! Moreover, Bishop Baldassare Cagliares, visiting the new chapel on 3 May 1617, recorded the fact that this new chapel was ‘rifabricata benche in luogo piu elevato e superiore dall’antica’ (Archives of the Cathedral, Mdina, ACM vol.181, as cited in J. Galea, ‘Grand Master Aloph de Wignacourt Annexes to St Paul’s Grotto, The Church of the shipwreck at St Paul Bay’, in Can. J. Azzopardi (ed.) St Paul’s Grotto, Church and Museum at Rabat, Malta [Malta, 1990], 69.) Wignacourt’s tower, however, occupies a higher position than the present church. Therefore, the old chapel could not have been located on the same site as the tower, as otherwise it would have been located on a higher, and not a lower, level than Wignacourt’s new edifice as stated by Cagliares. This difference in elevation between the two sites is also clearly illustrated in Schellinks’ drawing (see page 99). Consequently, it is difficult to reconcile the two conflicting pieces of evidence cited above. Fr. Eugene Theuma has suggested that the old chapel may have been located not on the site of the tower itself, but slightly farther down the hill, somewhere between the present Sirens and the Menqa, (E. Theuma, San Pawl il-Baħar; A Guide (Malta, 2003). If this was the case, then the chapel was dismantled not because it had to make way for the tower but because it would have stood too close to the latter, compromising its defence and obstructing its field of fire – a valid enough reason justified in many other similar situations where priority was given to military considerations.

14. AOM 103, f.147v.

15. AOM 1395, f.307.

16. S.C. Spiteri, The Art of Fortress Building in Hospitaller Malta (Malta, 2008), 269.

17. Ibid., 275.

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18. Short report entitled ‘Riparazioni alla Torre Garzes e Colla Baida ....’, drawn up by Francesco Marandon, dated 1743, following an inspection of Garzes Tower and other coastal works. The report is accompanied by a small annotated plan of Garzes Tower. This has been used as the basis of the author’s graphic reconstruction of the tower shown on pages 9 and 10. At the time that the report was drawn up, the tower was under the command of a castellan by the name of Gafa.

19. AOM 105, f.67v.

20. AOM 6543.

21. D. Cutajar & C. Cassar, ‘Malta’s Role in Mediterranean Affairs: 1530–1699’ in Mid-Med Bank Report (Malta,1984), 115.

22. NLM, Treasury Series A, Vol. 154, f.444; the parish of Pasqualino, or Zejtun, combined the hamlets of Ħal Bisbut, Ħal Ġwann, and Bisqallin.

23. Ibid.

24. Also known as it-Torri ta’ Caccia, or it-Torri taxXagħra; NLM MS 142, f.182.

25. AOM 645, f.9.

26. AOM 1395 (6 July 1616) 27. Samut-Tagliaferro, op.cit., 114.

28. AOM 1016, f.199.

29. AOM 265, f.37v.

30. NLM MS 142 (VI), ff.216-217.

31. AOM 1011, ff.48-50.

32.AOM 1011, ff.49v.

33. S.C. Spiteri, ‘Insular Sentinel: St. Mary Tower, Comino’ in ARX Issue 5, 18.

34. Ibid.

35. AOM 6395, f.312.

36. AOM 106, f.121v.

37. For further information on Comino’s tower see http:// www.militaryarchitecture.com/index.php/Fortifications/stamaria-tower-on-comino.html.

38. AOM 106, f.121v.

39. Ibid.

40. AOM 106, f.207.

41. NLM Treasury Series ‘A’, Vol. 154, f.163.

42. AOM 1386, cited in Samut-Tagliaferro, 83.

43. S.C. Spiteri, The Art of Fortress Building, 238-283.

44-47. Ibid.

48. Samut-Tagliaferro, op.cit., 72.

49. Ibid. 77; Imbroll, NLM Lib. MS. 241, Istoria della Sacra Religione Gierosolomitana, Vol. I, XIX. 50. Samut-Tagliaferro, 60-61, taken from AOM 1380, 1381, and 1382.

51. Ibid., 54.

52. Ibid., 55.

53 G.F. Abela, 61-62.

54. NLM AOM 432, f.250.

55. Q. Hughes, The Building of Malta (London, 1967), 206.

56. Samut-Tagliaferro, 75.

57. V. Mallia Milanese, ‘In Search of Vittorio Cassar: A Documentary Approach’, in Melita Historica, ix, 3 (1986), 247-270.

58-61. Ibid.

62. Q.Hughes, Guide to the Fortifications of Malta (Malta, 1993), 215.

63. Q. Hughes & K. Thake, Malta, The Baroque Island (Malta, 2003), 82.

64. Notarial Archives, Valletta R/184, Notary Salvatore Ciantar.

65. AOM 1382.

66. Samut-Tagliaferro, 61: AOM 1382, 18 February 1603.

67. Mallia Milanese, op.cit., 254.(42254.

68. M. Ellul, Maltese-English Dictionary of Architecture and Building in Malta (Malta, 2009), 49.

69. Mallia Milanes, op.cit., 254, cited from Officium

104. The payments are in scudi, tari and grani; 20 grani made 1 taro, and 12 tari made 1 scudo.

105. A study of the building methods and techniques employed in the construction of the Victoria Lines is currently under preparation by the author. For more information on this 19th-century system of defences see R. Cachia Zammit (ed.), The Victoria Lines (Malta 1996, 1997, 2003), passim.

106. A wooden template for establishing the gradient for the slope of a rampart is illustrated in George Fournier, Traite des fortifications au architecture militaire, tire des places les plus estimées de ce temps, peur leur fortifications (Paris, 1667), reproduced in Spiteri, The Art of Fortress Building .., 454.

107. Another ‘arbero ... per inalzare il standardo’ was bought (‘comprato’) from Senglea and mounted on the tower in 1658 for the cost of 3 scudi and 9 tari. It is not clear if this replaced the original mast or if it was an additional second flag pole.

108. See, S. C. Spiteri, The Art of Fortress Building ..., 460; ‘One of the primary roles of the Order’s resident engineers, therefore, was to ensure that all the defensive works of were kept in a state of readiness. By the end of the seventeenth century, the task of ensuring that the vast network of harbour and coastal fortifications were in a good state of repair was no mean task. The continual repair and maintenance of the extensive and ever-growing system of fortifications was already consuming huge resources. In 1658 Fort St Angelo alone, for example, absorbed some 10,000 scudi in repairs.The situation more become more difficult through the course of the 1700s as more and more works were added to the existing defences. By the early eighteenth century, the employment of a sole resident engineer was no longer enough to deal with the volume of work generated by the huge mass of defensive structures’.

109. S.C. Spiteri, The Art of Fortress Building, 465.

110. Ibid., 111. F. Marandon, Riparazioni alla Torre Garzes e Colla Baida .... (1743).

112. J. Muscat, ‘Visitatio Turrium’, in Melita Historica MH8 (1981, Malta), 107.

113. P. P. Borg, Selmun u l-inħawi (Malta,1989), 29.

114. Din l-Art Helwa was the first NGO in Malta to concern itself with these towers and currently looks after the towers at St. Paul Bay, Comino, and Mellieħa.

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Commissariorum Domorum, Vol III. f.122.

70. Notarial Archives, Valletta, Notary. A. Albano (160911), f.86v; a study of Pietro Rubino and his military works in the Maltese islands is currently being prepared by the author and will be published in a forthcoming monograph.

71. D. Ventura, ‘Clemente Rubino da Randazzo: La breve parabola di un capomastro sfortunato’, Agora 19-20, http://www.editorialeagora.it/rw/articoli/10.pdf 72. AOM 1388, f.351v.

73. A. Hoppen, The Fortifiication of Malta by the Knights of St. John (2nd edit. Malta, 1999) 84; see AOM 6554, f.31.

74. F. Menchetti, ‘Un acquedotto bolognese a Malta’, in Bologna e l’ invenzione delle acque, (Emilia-Romagna, 2001) 75.Ibid.

76. L. A. Maggiorotti, Gli architetti militari nella Spagna, nel Portogallo e nelle loro colonie (Roma, 1939), 150.

77. For more information on the Antonelli dynasty of military engineers see Gli Antonelli: architetti da Gatteo http://www.provincia.fc.it/cultura/antonelli/index.html.

78. Ibid.

79. J. Gonzales de Chavez Alemany, Fortificaciones Costeras de Mallorca (Balears, 1986), 351-356.

80. Antonio Garsin was first discovered by Mr. Stephen Degiorgio and this engineer’s involvement in the design of Mellieħa Tower was first published in Degiorgio’s article ‘The Red Tower’, in The Malta Independent, 28 February 1993, G20.

81. J. Debono, Art and Artisans in St. John’s and Other Churches in the Maltese Islands ca. 1650-1800 (Malta, 2005), 26, 57-8, 104-5, 113, 116-22, 124, 126, 136-137, 140-41, 172-74, 328, 342, 351.

82. The fortress of Almeida was one of the important bastioned fortresses on the Spanish-Portuguese frontier; for further information on this fortress see F. Cobos and J. Campos, Almeida / Ciudad Rodrigo La Fortificacion de la Raya Central (Spain, 2013).

83. Debono, op.cit., 84-85. Ibid.

86. A. Ganado, Valletta, Città Nuova: A Map History (1566-1600) (Malta, 2003), 258; AOM 2125, f.59.

87. Ganado, op.cit., 324-325.

88. A. Mazzamuto, Architettura e Stato Nella Sicilia del ‘500: I Progetti di Tiburzio Spannocchi e di Camillo Camilliani del Sistema delle Torri di Difesa dell’ Isola (Palermo, 1986), 66-76; Salvo di Matteo, Torri di Guardia dei litorali della Sicilia (Palermo, 1986).

89. AOM 1388, f.351v.

90. Hoppen, 177 91. AOM 1395, f.211-211v, 2 July 1618.

92. AOM 1395.

93. AOM 6551, f.103v.

94. S.C. Spiteri, Fort Tigné: Tousard’s Lunette d’Arçon, ARX Occasional Papers I, 2011.

95. S. Ilardo, S. Moncada, S. Schittino, ‘Lascari e le sue Torri, una storia ritrovata’.

96. NLM Treasury Series ‘A’, Vol. 154, f.163.

97. A detailed inventory of the armaments of coastal forts in Sicily in 1640 can be found in Nicola Aricò, Fancesco Negro, Carlo Maria Ventimiglia (ed.), Atlante di città e fortezze del regno di Sicilia, 1640 (Messina,1992).

98. Extract from Pasley’s Diary, British Museum: Manuscript 41972, courtesy of the late Prof. Q. Hughes.

99. AOM 1395.

100. NLM, Lib. MS 1012, 193-95, cited in Mallia Milanes, op.cit., 259.

101. G. Scarabelli, Catalogue of the Records of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in the NLM. Vol. XIII, Archives 1952-1953, The Ceremonial and the Kalendarium, Culto e Devozione dei Cavalieri a Malta (Rome, 2004), 794-95.

102. NLM Lib. MS 1012, 1935-5 103. Ventura, op.cit.

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Coming soon in the series of ARX OCCASIONAL PAPERS is a detailed study of FORT ST ELMO as it stood during the GREAT SIEGE OF MALTA in 1565, based on the latest research and archaeological discoveries, and illustrated with new 3D computer graphic reconstructions. This issue will be the first part in a series of monographs focusing on the fortifications of the Knights of St. John at the time of the Great Siege and will include separate publications on Birgu, Senglea, Mdina and the Gozo Citadel. These new monographs are based on Dr. Stephen C. Spiteri’s new second edition of his book on the Great Siege of 1565 (2005) which is currently under preparation.

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