The Great Siege frieze
1565 scene by scene in the Throne Room.
Karelj — Public domain · Kikku33 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · yeowatzup — CC BY 2.0 · Martin Furtschegger — CC BY 3.0
The Ottoman siege of Malta in the summer of 1565, forty thousand troops against a few thousand knights and Maltese; they held four months and the fleet withdrew — the event that built Valletta and shaped the island's identity.
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Malta's seat of government without a break since 1571: the Knights built it for their Grand Master, Britain's governors then lived in it, and it remains the President's palace and former parliament — fully restored and reopened to visitors in 2022 after years closed. The first floor holds the state rooms: the Throne Room under its timber ceiling with a frieze narrating the Great Siege of 1565 scene by scene, the red Ambassadors' Room, a corridor lined with armour and Grand Masters' portraits, marble floors and French Gobelin tapestries. The other wing holds the Armoury: five thousand pieces of the Knights' armour, swords and cannon, among them Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt's gilded suit — the largest collection of European arms surviving in its original home. The two courtyards with their Neptune fountain and trees are free to walk through.
1565 scene by scene in the Throne Room.
Five thousand pieces in their original home.
Misraħ San Ġorġ, Valletta