Fort St. Angelo

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Fort St. Angelo

The Fort St. Angelo is a great fortress in Vittoriosa , Malta , in the center of the Grand Harbor .

history

middle Ages

The time of construction is unknown. Prehistoric or classical buildings are believed to be near the site because of some large blocks of stone and a reddish granite column in the upper area of ​​the fortress. The temple is also mentioned in Roman texts, it is said to have been dedicated to Juno and Astarte . The temple may have been in the area around the current fortress. Its laying of the foundation stone is also often attributed to the Arabs, but there is no concrete evidence for their dating in 870 AD. al-Himyarī mentions one hisn(Fortress) that the Arabs are said to have built. The probable origin as a fortress lies in the period of the High and Late Middle Ages. In fact, the Hohenstaufen emperor Friedrich II appointed his own castellan for Malta for the first time in 1220 AD , who was supposed to secure the interests of the German crown in Malta and needed a place to live.

The remains of a tower that dates back to the 12th century. can be dated has been found among the more recent buildings. The first mention of Castrum Maris ( "Castle by the Sea" ) can be found in documents from the 1240s, when Paulinus of Malta ruled the island and Giliberto Abate later carried out a census on the island. Another reference to the castle comes from the Angevin ruler (1266–83) in whose documents it is again called Castrum Maris , here including a list of a garrison of 150 men, together with various weapons. Also in 1274, when the castle already had 2 chapels, which still exist today, it is mentioned in a document. A detailed inventory of the castle's weapons and supplies exists from the same year.

From 1283, the Maltese Islands were under the rule of the Aragonese rulers (although the castle remained in Angevin hands for some time while the rest of Malta was already in Aragonese hands), among whom the fortification was mainly carried out by the castellans (such as the Nava family) was used to secure the interests of the Aragonese crown . In fact, the castellans had no jurisdiction outside the walls of the fortress.

Time of the Johanniter

The St. Anne's Chapel

When the Maltese arrived in Malta under Piero de Ponte in 1530, they decided to settle in Birgu and Fort St. Angelo became the seat of the Grand Master , which led to the renovation of the castellan's house and St. Anne's Chapel ( “Chapel of the St. Anna ” ) made necessary. The knights made the fortress their main fortification, strengthened and significantly redesigned it. They also dug a dry moat with the intention of turning it into a moat . They also built the D'Homedes Bastion in 1536 . In 1547 a large statue in the shape of a knight was built behind the D'Homedes bastion, as was the De Guirial battery at the top of the fortress at sea level to protect the entrance to the shipyard.

This work turned the fortress into an ammunition storage fortress. Fort St. Angelo resisted the Ottomans during the siege of Malta , in which a sea attack by the Ottomans on Sciberras on one side of the Grand Harbor on August 15, 1565 was repelled. In the following period, the knights built the fortified city of Valletta on Mount Sciberras on the other side of Grand Harbor, where the administrative center of the knights was relocated. It was only until 1690 when the fortress under Adrien de Wignacourt again underwent significant repairs. The present shape of the fortress is attributed to the work of Carlos de Grunenburgh , who is also responsible for the construction of the 4-gun battery on the side of the fortress.

With the arrival of the French in 1798, the fortress was expanded into a mighty fortification with over 80 cannons, 48 ​​of which were aimed at the entrance to the port. During the short two-year period of French occupation, the fortress served as the headquarters of the French army in Malta and Gozo .

The British time

With the arrival of the British in Malta, the fortress retained its importance as a military facility, at first it was used by the army. In 1800 2 battalions of the 35th regiment were stationed in the fortress, but the fortress was taken over by the Royal Navy at the beginning of the 20th century and administratively listed as a ship, originally in 1912 as HMS Egremont , as it was a base for the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean ( Mediterranean Fleet ) was. In 1933 the fortress was listed as HMS St Angelo .

The British made few modifications to the fortress, but in the 19th century they built a casemate battery for three 9-inch RML cannons and in the early 20th century a cinema and a water distillation plant . During the Second World War the fortress was again under siege, armed with 3 Bofor cannons (manned by the Royal Marines and later by the Royal Malta Artillery ). In total, the fortress received 69 direct hits between 1940 and 1943. When the Royal Navy left Malta in 1979, the fortress was ceded to the Maltese government. Since then, parts of the fortress have been severely neglected, especially after the failure of the project to convert the fortress into a hotel in the 1980s.

Present and Future

The use of the fortress was guaranteed to the Order of Malta . Other parts were rented from the Cottonera Waterfront Group, a private consortium. On March 5, 2012, the Maltese government announced that the European Regional Development Fund had approved 13.4 million euros for the restoration of the fortress. The restoration work was completed in 2015 and the fortress has been open to the public again since then.

gallery

  • Fort St Angelo as seen from Valletta

  • West side of the fort as seen from Dockyard Creek

  • Main gate

  • Western side of the sea-side bastion

  • Inscription above the gate

  • chapel

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ RMM Wallace: International Law, 2nd edition, 1992 London . Sweet & Maxwell,, p. 76.
  2. ↑ Mission . The Sovereign Order of Malta. Retrieved September 25, 2011.
  3. ^ Heritage Malta wants to transform Fort St Angelo into a cultural experience . TimesofMalta.com. September 3, 2010. Retrieved July 30, 2011.
  4. ↑ Funds available at last for Fort St Angelo restoration . TimesofMalta.com. March 5, 2012. Retrieved March 5, 2012.
  5. ^ Fort St Angelo restoration completed - TVM News. In: tvm.com.mt. September 20, 2015, accessed May 26, 2017 .

supporting documents

Web links

Commons : Fort St. Angelo  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 35 ° 53 ′ 31 ″  N , 14 ° 31 ′ 6 ″  E