Architecture and Spaces of Power in the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem (1530-1798)

In the seven Centuries after its foundation, the Order of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John, said at the beginning of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and finally of Malta, reached a major economic power and a strong hierarchical structure based on the articulation of national sections. Maltese fortifications erected between 1530 and 1798 are in some respects unique; they nevertheless are a representative example of contemporary European military architecture at its best. What is very interesting is the diversity of social and professional categories of military engineers, already committed by the Pope or by the big dynastic families of the time, called to work for the Hospitaller Order. Military architecture is also reflected in bastions, curtain walls and ravelins and by 1550 military engineering in Italy, as Count Valperga, seems to have become established as a specialist practice, the first branch of architecture to achieve recognition as an independent profession.