Valletta is an ornate and Baroque city built by the Knights of Malta. One of it’s most famous historical buildings is neo-classical which contrasts with the rest of the city. Welcome to Malta’s (Polish) National Library.

The Knights always intended the building that houses the library to be used for that purpose. Unlike other buildings, this one was not re-purposed. Few Valletta buildings, other than churches, are still used for their original purpose.

Before the Knights arrived, there was no library to speak of. In 1555, French Grand master Claude de la Sengle decided to do something about this. He decreed the Treasury of the Order should take all books belonging to Knights who’d died^{1 2}. It’s interesting to see that Knights could dispose of their other goods any way they wished but not books.

A literary tax, if you will.

By 1760, the collection had grown substantially. A French Knight called Jean-Louis Guérin de Tencin^{3 2} was a literary sort and purchased a collection of 9,700 books from a bishop. He used this huge collection, together with his own and some other donations, to open the first library in Malta². He died before he could raise funds to maintain it. The Knights added his huge collection to the Treasury.

In 1786, Grand Master de Rohan commissioned Polish architect Stefano Ittar² to build a new library. Ittar had just spent some years in Catania rebuilding it after the earthquake of 1693⁴.

Ittar came up with the idea of something which was completely new for Malta at the time. Maybe he thought he wouldn’t be able to compete with the Baroque nature of the other buildings. Maybe he felt like experimenting a little after his work reconstructing Catania. The result is the neo-classical National Library we have today.

He finished building it in 1796². By this time, the French had occupied the islands and the building was not used as a library. We know the British used it as a club for army and navy officers until 1812⁵.

The British took over the Maltese islands at the beginning of the 19th century.

Sir Hildebrand Oakes, Commissioner of Malta, decided to use it as a library again, inaugurating it on June 4^{1 2}.

In 1936, the library became the Royal Library of Malta². The National Library, as we now call it, is still housed in this building to this day. The open square in front of the library is a popular meeting place and the coffee shops surrounding it use the open space as best they can.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t know where the library is. Few know that were it not for the artistic flair of this Polish man, we Maltese would not have this neo-classical treasure to call our own.

Do you know of any other Polish neo-classical buildings? Leave a comment and let us know!

References

1. History of Malta Libraries; Education Ministry, Malta; (Retrieved 2018-01-29) [↩][↩]
2. National Library of Malta; Pamphlet published as a guide; (Retrieved 2018-05-07) [↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
3. Guerin families of Tencin; Le Marois.com; (Retrieved 2017-11-27) Article in French.[↩]
4. A note on Stefano and Sebastiano Ittar; Melitensia; (Retrieved 2019-06-21) [↩]
5. Houses in Kingsway and Old Bakery Street; Denaro, Victor; Melitensia Histórica; 1959[↩]

Remember: links were correct at time of publication.