The reading room
Two storeys of shelving and rolling ladders.
Marie-Lan Nguyen โ CC BY 2.5 ยท Frank Vincentz โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท Frank Vincentz โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท Frank Vincentz โ CC BY-SA 3.0
Napoleon expelled them on his way to Egypt and seized their treasure; the Order survived landless until settling in Rome, and is today a sovereign entity issuing passports and running humanitarian work โ but it no longer rules Malta.
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The last building the Knights raised in Valletta: the Bibliotheca was built between 1786 and 1796 on Republic Square and opened only a few years before Napoleon expelled the Order โ making it both the witness to their end and its repository. The great reading room is the point: a tall hall with two storeys of wooden shelving, an upper gallery, rolling ladders and light entering from high windows โ one of the loveliest library rooms in the Mediterranean, and researchers genuinely sit in it, because the place works rather than performs. What it holds is worth more than its looks: the complete archive of the Order of St John โ their documents from the twelfth century to 1798, among them the papal bull that founded the Order and Charles V's deed handing them Malta in 1530 โ with selections displayed in cases. Entry is free and quiet is expected.
Two storeys of shelving and rolling ladders.
Charles V granting Malta to the Knights.
Misraฤง ir-Repubblika, Valletta